For readers of my February Blog, I talked about being so excited that i felt like a kid on Christmas morning when it came to our upcoming Nehalem launch and shared a story about some customers I talked with.  Well I can now give you your presents and a little background on the experience I had back in February.

• The two customers i interviewed were Thomson-Reuters (James Powell - CTO) and Intel IT (Elwood Coslett, Director Engineering Computing).  You can view our discussion at http://www.intel.com/business/xeon/seminar.htm
• You can learn more about the Xeon 5500 capabilities at www.intel.com/business/xeon
• You can gain insights and connect with industry insiders on the next generation of server technology at the new Server Solutions Insider community

Time to play with our new technology toys.

Chris

Our new product, the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series, has ushered in what we at Intel call a new generation of intelligent server processors. Before I wrote this blog I had to look up the definition of intelligence (American Heritage Dictionary):

In•tel•li•gence n 1.a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. b. The faculty of thought and reason.

In this context, I’d like to discuss two topics. (1) An Intelligent Product (2) An Intelligent Choice

An Intelligent Product: (the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge)

Key technology enhancements to the Xeon 5500 include a suite of new features and capabilities that enable servers utilizing these new processor to serve a wide range of server usages (from basic business to high performance computing) (from single threaded applications to well threaded applications) (from non virtualized to highly virtualized environments) and makes these servers adaptable to the environment you want to deploy it into.

ð       Intel Hyper-Threading Technology is back boosting performance for well threaded applications

ð       Intel Intelligent Power Technology adjusts server power consumption real time to workload

o       Automated Low Power States reduces CPU, Memory and I/O power without impacting performance

o        Integrated Power Gates dynamically turn cpu cores that are not in use to reduce idle power near 10W

ð       Intel Turbo-Boost Technology speeds up your processor when application demands peak

ð       Intel QuickPath Technology provides industry leading server bandwidth (up to 3.5x prior Xeon)

The benefits for IT and Business?

ð       A server platform that can adapt to your application environment allowing you to deploy it in one environment today with the knowledge you can repurpose it tomorrow, if needed

ð       A server platform that can adapt you changing workload demands over the course of a day, saving power when demands are low and better performance when you need it most

Read the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series platform brief to learn about these technologies

Visit this video about the new product and the technologies listed above

An Intelligent Choice: (the faculty of thought and reason)

Economic times are tough and we’re all struggling with spending choices (or not spending) at both a personal and corporate level. However, business spends about 2/3 of their IT budget maintaining existing servers (source IDC). IDC further estimates that 40% of the servers installed today are 4yr+ single core servers with another 40% being 3 year old dual-core. These servers are consuming a lot of valuable resources. With a heavy % of IT budget spent on operating costs, the challenge is that if you cut spending, you are cutting innovation. This limits business competitiveness.

What is the option? …. Server Refresh. Compared to installed single core Xeon servers, these new Xeon processors enable up to 9x performance per server, a 9:1 server consolidation opportunity (with flat performance), lowering operating costs by an estimated 90% and delivering an estimated up to 8 month payback on investment. That means that an investment in a new server today can pay for itself in less than a year, helping you to self fund more innovation or helping to boost the bottom line of your organization. If your environment is dual-core based, the opportunity is about a 3:1 consolidation opportunity.

               Download this pdf to understand the 8 month estimate

View a video demonstration highlighting the 9:1 consolidation and 3:1 consolidation

In summary the Xeon 5500 series is an intelligent product in it’s capability to adapt to both it’s application and user environment and an intelligent choice for IT investment delivering an estimated up to 8 month payback – much better than you can do in the stock market, bank or many other projects.

I think that this is the right product at the right time.  What do you think? ... I'd like to hear your reactions.

Chris

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made a prediction, popularly known as Moore's Law, stating that the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years. Intel has kept that pace for nearly 40 years. For IT, this translates into a roadmap that enables IT to buy new servers that cost roughly the same as the previous server but performs so much better. Compare Intel’s 4 Socket MP server performance introduced in 2006 (Intel Xeon processor 7000 series) to today’s server introduced in 2008 (Intel Xeon 7400): 3x more performance throughput as measured by SPECint*_rate_base 2000*, 2.4x more ERP users as measured by SAP-SD* and 2x more database transactions as measured by TPC-C*.

Now, introduce a global economic downturn into the mix and suddenly IT is forced to cut costs and projects (i.e. delay or cancel upgrades and non-revenue generating projects). New articles start popping up from magazines like the Economist that take Moore’s Law and propose flipping it on it’s ear: instead of products providing more performance at roughly the same price, provide products that offer the same performance as IT is already experiencing, but now at a lower price. Call it “inverting Moore’s law” where IT takes the dividend it provides in dollars vs. extra performance.

So here’s something to think about: You can also “invert” Moore’s Law by making new targeted IT investments today that offer attractive payback scenarios tomorrow - giving you similar performance but at a much lower cost. With mortgage rates dropping, you may have already benefited from a rapid payback in your personal life (i.e. I recently refinanced a house down from 7% to 5.25% 30-year fixed rate that I had continuously made additional principle payments for. The ~$5k up front investment (i.e. closing costs) will be “paid back” to me after 5 months due to monthly mortgage payment savings.

Here is a server refresh example that explains how you can also get an attractive payback for your IT department.

Oracle Database Refresh: Let’s next look at a hypothetical example of an IT department running current Oracle Database Enterprise Edition on 12 servers purchased in early 2006 (dual-core Intel Xeon 7041 based servers introduced in 2005) and assess the total cost of ownership difference in moving to new servers.  We’ll assume the IT manager is paying per processor licensing fees for Oracle Database. We’ll compare the old server equipment to new 4-core Xeon 7440 based servers that offer up to ~3x more database performance (Xeon processor 7400 Series come in flavors of 6-core and 4-core versions).  This should enable consolidation ratios of 3:1, enabling the IT manager to reduce from 12 servers to 4 new servers. 

First the new investment: 4 New Xeon 7400 based servers at roughly $20k each = $80k.  Add another $5k for Network, Server Maintenance and Install Costs.  Remove ~$2k in tax implications associated with the expense in year 0.  Total investment ~$83k. 

Next, let’s look at the savings: The IT Manager is paying $41.8k yearly on Oracle maintenance/support costs x 12 dual-core MP servers today, that is $501k.  The 4 new quad-core servers will have larger Oracle database maintenance/support costs because of the core count ($83k x 4 servers = $334k) but this will still result in $167k SW savings each year (difference between $501k and $334k) which my calculations show about $669k savings over 4 years.  Moving from 12 to 4 servers also reduces about $72k in network, server maintenance, and utility (power/cooling) costs over 4 years as well. In addition to all of these costs savings over 4 years, my calculations show that the original investment of ~$83k has a payback of 9 months.

Targeted IT investments today can offer attractive payback scenarios and cost savings tomorrow - giving you similar performance but at a much lower cost.   Let me know what you think? 

Every morning we hear about the staggering job losses mounting up in businesses around the world. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost so far. Unfortunately, no one seems immune from the impacts of this recession. In fact, the recession is now impacting the data center and a new segment of the work force is at risk – your servers!

Would you keep an employee who worked less than 4 hours per day, over-spent valuable resources and was someone you had to manage constantly – obviously, the answer is NO! That is the situation today with install base single-core servers.  Aging servers are a perfect target for downsizing in this tough economy. Industry analyst IDC estimates that there are approximately 30 million servers installed in businesses around the world and about 40% of those use single-core processors (4 years old or older).

Let’s look at the 2008 performance review of these single core servers.

ð       Excessive Spending Habits: For the performance they deliver, these servers take up too much space and over-consume power and cooling resources.

ð       Lazy Work Habits: A typical non virtualized server runs at only 10-15% utilization – meaning they sit idle a majority of your work day.

ð       Needs Excessive Management: Aging servers require more maintenance. Extended warranties are expensive (estimated $600-1200 per server depending on the type of server) and if you don’t extend the warranty, the risk of downtime is on IT and the business. While the costs to maintain a server vary widely , during a recent discussion with Forrester research, they indicated that an aging server can cost up 3x the costs of an in-warranty server (under standard 3 yr manufacturer support).

Continuing to use these old servers is not a wise business strategy. But if you fire your existing infrastructure, who can you hire to do the work? Simple, you hire fewer new multi-core servers running virtualization to replace a large number of install base servers.

But, is replacing them worth the effort … I mean, why fix what ain’t broke? About 2/3 of IT’s budget is consumed maintaining existing infrastructure (source Gartner), leaving a measly 1/3 for innovation and value add business capability. So in this recession, unless you are focused on reducing OpEx, the IT budget that you are cutting is likely restricting your business competitiveness and new service delivery - the value of innovation.

Replacing old servers with new offers both cost and productivity advantages for IT in addition to improved services and competitiveness for business. Read some of the success stories from businesses in 2008 where proactive IT investment commonly resulted in 30-40% reductions in total costs, enhanced business services, improved competitiveness and rapid financial ROI. In fact, the business ROI on replacing an old server with new is staggering and in many cases can pay for itself in less than 12 months, by reducing power / cooling costs, avoiding new construction, simplifying and reducing maintenance costs, reducing applicaiton and OS licensing costs and more.

What characteristics should you look for in a new server hire? (to maximize this savings and accelerate ROI)

ð       Versatile Performance. Consider a wide range of benchmarks and application usages when evaluating capability of the server you intend to hire.  Servers hired today for a specific task may likely get re-purposed over their lifetime.

               Also ... if your workload is specialized and data demanding (like database / enterprise resource planning / business intelligence) consider a specialized

               server with unique skills, like larger compute, I/O and memory scalability to handle these larger workloads with increased reliability and headroom for peak loads.

ð       Energy Efficiency. Newer multi-core servers feature nearly 10x the performance / watt of single core servers. Use the SPECPower benchmark to assess which servers are the most energy efficient.

ð       Virtualization. When virtualizing servers, hire servers that can support robust consolidation ratios and built for flexibility and versatility. Many new hardware-assist technologies help boost the ability to migrate virtual machines (application/OS combination) from one server to another.

ð       Standardization. Unlike hiring employees where diversity is valued and encouraged, using a smaller number of reference designs in your IT environment, can lower operating and support costs.

A final consideration for hiring new servers is total cost of ownership. Just like hiring people, you must consider the incidental or hidden costs behind the salary and sign-on bonus (do these still exist today?). The average life for a server is 4 years. Buying an inexpensive server for your needs today may optimize today’s budget but may end up costing you over the long run in software licensing, power/cooling. Intel IT recently did an ROI analysis on buying higher end processors and found that using higher end processors reduced TCO significantly – by doing more with less.

Last year, Intel IT fired about 20,000 servers and more are expected to receive pink slips in 2009 - read more about this in the 2008 Intel ITannual perfomance report

If your goals are to lower costs, improve services and boost revenue while increasing business competitiveness, then replacing aging server infrastructure is an Intelligent Investment. Learn more at www.intel.com/go/xeon

Are your single core servers at risk of losing their jobs?  If not, they should be!

So the Question is ... Will You Cut IT Costs and Boost Business Competitiveness by downsizing your Server Infrastructure in 2009?

Chris

Virtualization is transforming the way IT looks at server technology and usages in the data center.  In Lesson 1 , I interviewed Sudip Chahal (Intel IT) about the wide variety of use models for virtualization that are being deployed and evaluated across data centers worldwide. 

It was clear to me that the sheer volume of interest and activity around virtualization was transforming the way that IT was looking at technology, affecting their requirements for future server purchases. In Lesson 2 Sudip Chahal (Intel IT) and I discuss the changing technology requirements IT has on server platforms and technology across the data center to support both consolidation and emerging flexible usage models that depend on live VM migration.

Yesterday I had the chance to sit and discuss virtualization with Matt Eastwood, a leading analyst from IDC.  Matt refered to these new live VM migration models under the concept of improved mobility for the data center.  During our dicussion I mentioned this blog and the similarities to the themes I was writing about.

I invite you to view this short video (~ 5min) and comment about how your server product requirements are changing as you evaluate or deploy virtualization in your business.

Namasté

Chris 

Here's a cool new site I came across where you can contribute to defining what Server Virtualization is all about: Virtualization Conversation

You can also listen in to some Webcasts coming this month with Iddo Kadim, Director of Virtualization Technologies at Intel and Bob Zuber of IBM:

Register Here

Check it out, there's also a cool new widget that let's you draw your ideas on a whiteboard: Share Your Definition

These new widgets are really getting cool

Technology moves at such a rapid pace - it can often be mind-boggling. Even working directly with the product teams at Intel, I sometimes have difficulty keeping pace. The good news is that there is a tremendous opportunity today to be captured thanks to this rapid innovation, as well as a steady stream of advanced technology that IT can use to better support business and gain a competitive advantage. Recently I was interviewed by Tim Phillips from the Register about the current 45nm Quad-Core Intel Xeon products and the next generation Intel platforms based on the Nehalem processor.

A few years back, Intel fundamentally changed the way we design and develop our underlying micro-processor technology. We streamlined our innovation and accelerated it's pace. Internally, we call this new model Tick-Tock. I like to call it shrink and innovate.

A "Tick" is a manufacturing process shrink that delivers smaller silicon with higher speeds, more transistors and lower power consumption (example: moving from 65nm to 45nm process technology). The 45nm quad-core xeon processors (available since Nov '07) utilize unique materials (a high-k, dielectric) that are delivering industry leading performance / watt as measured by the industry's first and only standard benchmark, SPECPower

A "Tock" represents a more extensive architectural innovation (ex. Intel Core Microarchitecture) introducing new micro-architecture features and functionality fully utilizing the higher transistor count set up by the shrink. For Intel Xeon-based servers, the next "tock" is Nehalem. In addition to the new micro-architecture based on 45nm, a system re-design will incorporate next generation memory, I/O and virtualization technology for high performance, high bandwidth solutions compatible with today's leading software solutions

Listen to my podcast interview to learn more about the benefits of using today's products and the timing of next generation Intel technology featuring Nehalem. Is this information useful to you? If so ... how? Have any questions?

I'd be happy to hear from you. Chris

Hi! Since this is my first post to the server room, I thought I would introduce myself and give you a bit of background on who I am.

My name is Matt Chorman, and I am a validation engineer at Intel where I get to work with EPSD (Enterprise Products and Services Division) servers. My job is to test a wide range of products, from single processor servers up to Itanium2 "Big Iron" boxes. I'm an open source guy, and have been working with Linux in the enterprise for nine years. During recent years, I have also been running performance testing and tuning on all the servers that come through our lab.

I work in platform validation (which is an engineering role), but I have a unique perspective on servers; I worked in IT for a number of years, culminating in a System Administration role for a mid-sized finance company. There were many challenges that I faced that are becoming the calling card of IT everywhere:

• Heat in the server room.

• Too many servers for the space we were allocated.

• Client management difficulties.

• Power usage of the clients.

These problems are directly tied to the lack of efficiency in the software they were using. However, there is a tradeoff when it comes to looking at options to improve the speed of your network.

• How much would it have cost to hire a team of programmers to re-write this custom software to be more efficient?

• How much would it cost to simply purchase a newer (and much better performing) server to compensate for this?

• Were there things that I could have done to make the servers we had run more efficiently?

• Where do you draw the line between employee complaints about the speed of a certain server and the cost of upgrading (i.e. employee efficiency)?

These are the type of questions IT folks everywhere are faced with, and unfortunately there are no black-and-white answers. However, these are the questions I'll be exploring in my blog. I may not be able to offer you answers, but perhaps I can give you some ideas you can use in your own organization. Maybe you'll give me some answers that I can use within my own role!

Also, like all of us here, I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have for me. If I don't have the answers, I can probably find someone who can answer them for you.

Cheers, and happy computing!