Did you know that using an electricity rate of 11.4 cents per kWh provides a simple method of calculating annual electricity cost of any device?

1 watt of power consumption, with an electricity rate of 11.4 cents per kWh, cost $1 per year, assuming power usage remains constant.  Also, as a general rule of thumb, every 1W of device power consumption in a data center requires an additional 1 watt for overhead power (Source: Intel IT). So a device that consumes 1W actually consumes 2W of power at a data center level.

Here's the math:  1 Watt power * 8760 hours per year / 1000 * $0.114 electricity rate per kWh = $1 per year.  This math holds the same for any currency, Euro, Yuan, etc.  11.4 cents per kWh is the crossover point…and as electricity rates increase over 11.4 cents, 1 watt will cost more than a $1 per year. 

The datacenter overhead power, often referred to as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is a number which has emerged as the leading metric for data center energy efficiency.

You might say that 1W = $2 annually doesn't sound like much, but start doing the math for 1000 servers that consume 200W in a data center with a PUE of 2.0 which works out to annual electricity cost of ~$400,000 per year.  Now, for every 1 watt the server power consumption is reduced, this would translate into $2000 annual savings.  Note, this is a very rudimentary example, but it is useful to illustrate why customers are really starting to focus on power as one of their key purchase decisions.

If you need energy efficient servers, there are multiple server vendors currently have some exceptional energy efficient products based on Intel(R) Xeon(R) 5500 processors.  And looking forward, we are also actively working on how to reduce power of the processor and at the system level for the upcoming generations of products.

Here’s some good reference on electricity rates:

For United States, state by state electricity rate comparison. 

For Europe, 1st half of 2008 rate comparison by country.

Remember, power is one purchase decision, but it is not the only one.  A rack of servers that consumes less power that does less work isn't an efficient way of deploying servers either.  Ensure that the performance vector is considered.  Intel® Xeon® 5500 processor based servers provid exceptional performance and perf/watt leadership over the competition.

Quick question for you:  How does electricity rate of 11.4 cents per kWh and a data center PUE of 2.0 compare to your data center? 

I was out at HP Tech Forum last week and had a chance to catch up on all the latest technology advancements with HP and Intel. What I saw was staggering, over 17 new HP-Intel designs, the HP Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD), and lot's more that I will be sharing with you in coming days as I add more video from the event and help to tell the story if you couldn't be there. First off, I caught up with John McAtee from Intel's HP account team. He was showing a cool demonstration on why now is the right time to invest in XEON 5500 processor series technology. Check out this video and find out how you can start saving in your datacenter today !

If you want more information on how the XEON 5500 processor series can starting saving in the datacenter, check out this ROI Calculator tool. Also, if you are looking for detailed information or are just looking to gain more knowledge, you can always "Ask The Professor" in our Server Learning Center.

Running multiple Unix environments across a range of locations adds increased complexity and cost to the IT environment. I came across an interesting case study and wanted to highlight some of the key findings

YPF SAis the largest company in Argentina operating in the Oil and Gas industry. The company has 29 gas plants around Argentina running different Unix environments such as HP-UX, AIX and Solaris.

YPF SA consolidated their SAP ERP and Oracle DB environment from multiple Unix environments to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with integrated virtualization running on Intel Xeon based platforms from IBM System X

Some of the key findings to highlight

• Key requirement from Unix Administration Team that "migrating from old RISC/Unix and proprietary servers to open and flexible platforms would pose no risk to the reliability, availability and performance of the systems"
• Positive impact on cost and performance; Lowered costs, simplified management and increased compatibility
• Reduction in costs especially when compared to license costs of RISC based platforms
• Increased performance and availability drove decision to scale with RHEL and Xeon
• Ability to leverage Redhat integrated virtualization. Free up internal hardware and technical resources for other projects

I guess the combination of Redhat and Intel deliver the business results that customers are seeking. What do you think?

Every day in our personal lives, we’re bombarded with “opportunities” to get a better deal.  At the grocery store, we might be able to buy a single item for $2.50 or 3 for $5.00…which then forces us to go thru the mental gymnastics of figuring out how good of a deal it is, and whether or not we really need three 96 oz. bottles of salad dressing.

But there are some opportunities out there for adding a bunch of compute performance are a bit more straight-forward.

Case in point: Dell recently had Principled Technologies compare the performance for the Intel® Xeon® Processor E5520 and E5506 CPUs each running on a PowerEdge R710 server.  Both are 4 core processors, but the E5520 has many advantages over the E5506: 

• higher frequency (2.26 GHz vs. 2.13 GHz)
• faster QuickPath speeds (5.86 GT/s vs. 4.8 GT/s)
• faster memory support (1066 MHz vs. 800 MHz)
• Turbo Boost
• Hyper-Threading support.

Long story short:  Buying a slightly better processor with a server purchase can drastically increase your performance.  So if you are looking to buy a Dell PowerEdge server configured with Microsoft SQL Server 2008* and an Intel® Xeon® Processor E5506, for an additional $300 you can get up to 75% more performance by upgrading to an E5520 CPU.  More performance headroom in a similar power envelope, faster QuickPath and memory speeds, Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost functionality – all for $300.  NOW THAT’S A GREAT VALUE!

Check out the summary document for the Dell R710 Principled Technologies performance testing, which also has comparative performance testing for the Xeon® E5540 and X5550 CPUs (also a great value for the money!), along with results for Microsoft Exchange.

NOTE:  System pricing from www.dell.com as of May 13, 2009.  Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability. See the actual Principled Technology report in the following link for complete system configuration

The debate on how to best increase system capacity to accommodate growing applications has raged on for years; “scale up” with more CPU, memory, and I/O, or “scale out” with loosely connected systems.    Scaling out by adding networked systems to increase capacity has been a good economical solution for many IT managers because it allows them to grow by using less expensive, industry standard building blocks.  However, there are some notable exceptions to this line of thought.  One is that the class of applications that require shared memory and large database support are much better suited to run on a single, expandable system that scales up.  These are typically transaction processing, business intelligence and ERP solutions.   Until now, IT managers running applications that require scale-up systems larger than 4 or 8 CPUs have had limited platform choices and most were proprietary and expensive RISC-based servers.

The other problem with the scale out approach is the people, facilities, software and overhead costs and complexity of managing very large numbers of servers, which can grow to a point where the costs outweigh the performance and system cost benefits.  The industry solution to achieving better ROI has been to consolidate multiple scale-out servers onto single industry standard scale-up servers with virtualization solutions.  This is a good solution, but is limited by the number of application loads the IT manager feels comfortable placing on a single server, given the need to maintain peak performance and availability for each application.

Well, it looks like the scale-up, scale-out debate is about to take another turn.  In the server product update Intel gave on May 26th, they talked about new levels of system scalability and choice supported by the upcoming Nehalem-EX processor.  This processor will support systems that scale up to 8 sockets natively (shared memory, without any additional silicon), and up to 16 sockets and higher with node controllers from system manufactures that allow single systems to share memory beyond 8 sockets.   So far there are over 15 different designs from 8 OEMs that offer 8 socket or higher scalability.  But of course, for the class of application where scaling is important, socket count doesn’t tell the whole story of what’s needed for scalable performance.  Thread support, key for transaction processing and virtualization, scales at the rate of 16 threads per socket with 8 cores and Hyper Threading (2 threads per core).  That would be 128 threads for an 8-socket system, and 256 threads for 16 sockets.   And in order to keep those threads fed with data close to the CPU, each processor supports up to 24 MB of shared cache (1.5X current generation Xeon), and an impressive 16 memory slots per socket or 128 DIMMs on an 8-socket system.  In addition, the Scalable Memory Interconnect gives these systems 9 times the memory bandwidth of today’s top Xeon processor.  Finally, four QuickPath interconnect links per socket allow for high-bandwidth sharing of data across the system.

So the net of it is that the industry is going to see a broad selection of highly scalable, next-generation servers that significantly extend the economic advantage of industry standard scale-up solutions for business-critical, large database, and high-end virtualization/consolidation deployments.     I would expect these systems to give IT managers a very cost-effective alternative to the much more expensive and proprietary RISC-based servers they use today.

What are your thoughts?  Mike

Related Topics:

• NHM-EX Press Fact Sheet
• NHM-EX May 26th Press Briefing Video – condensed version
• IBM 8Socket Demo Video
• NHM-EX--A New Standard

Looks like the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series is making lots of noise in HPC.  The QPI and integrated memory controller are really providing the boost necessary to make it an all around performance leader for HPC applications.  With all this performance why did Intel add a third memory channel?

The third memory channel enables the platform to support a boat load of memory.  Matter-of-fact, up to 192GB can be supported in a two socket configuration.  It wasn’t too long ago when only 32GB was supported in a dual socket configuration.  By having the ability to support so much memory you can now meet the needs of almost every HPC application.  The 5500 series is intended for all server markets, but let’s face it, with the design changes Intel made with the new architecture the server segment gaining the most benefit appears to be HPC. 

It seemed like yesterday when the only way to have access to large memory configurations was through expensive, proprietary SMP systems.  The HPC market for large SMP systems is still out there but it is shrinking…fast.  Today, we are clustering low cost solutions to create some of the most powerful systems in the world.  Standard components are leading to lower and lower system costs, delivering a price/performance advantage alternative solutions cannot meet.

Now that a single dual socket node can support up to 192GB’s it is important to understand how to get there.  First, to enable 192GB you need 16GB DIMMs x 12 memory slots.  There will be a premium for a 16GB DIMM.  Knowing the options and determining the best, most cost effective solution is going to be dependent upon your environment.  When a large memory node is required, do you purchase the 16GB DIMM’s or go up to a Multi-socket solution?  If I decide to scale back on the memory (use 4GB or 8GB DIMMs instead of 16GB DIMMs) what is the performance impact to my application?  If I am cost sensitive, will the lower cost outweigh the lack of performance?  Can I use SSD’s (Solid State Disk drives) to compensate for any performance loss due to lower memory capacity?  There are many questions to think about when deciding the right configuration for your application and environment and I certainly can’t answer them here.

Let’s not forget the third memory channel enables a different set of optimal memory configurations.  Think x3 when deciding on how much memory to install into your node; 12GB, 24GB, 48GB, etc.  What happens when you don’t use an optimal configuration?  Well it depends, in most cases the impact is minimal, but let me add a bit of context around minimal:

·         Low bandwidth sensitivity (more dependent upon the processor for performance)

–        E.g. Monte Carlo, Black-Scholes (financial modeling), BLAST (bioinformatics), AMBER (molecular dynamics)

–        Expect less than a 2% difference between memory configurations*

Ÿ  Medium bandwidth sensitivity (somewhat balanced between memory and CPU usage)

–        E.g. CFD, Explicit FEA, Implicit FEA (with robust I/O system)

–        Expect approx. 5% degradation for non-optimal symmetrical configurations*

Ÿ  High bandwidth sensitivity (high access to the system memory)

–        E.g. WRF (weather), POP (climate), MILC (physics), Reservoir Simulation

–        Expect approx. 10% degradation for non-optimal symmetrical configurations*

The results are interesting.  In all three cases above, the degraded performance is always better than the performance you would have with only two memory channels.

When you hear about performance impact of non-optimal memory you can see by the examples above, it is application dependent and will not have a severe impact on your overall system performance.   

The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series offers support for huge memory nodes with the addition of the third memory channel.  Memory configurations in multiples of three are ideal, but if you decide to stay with a power of two configuration the performance should still exceed that of a solution based upon only two memory channels.

*Based upon Intel internal measurements

Your most valuable employee is the one that creates tomorrow’s successes.  Providing them tools that help them do that faster will help your organization create new products or optimize old ones more rapidly.  The benefit to the organization is increased opportunities to win the customers attention via new products or your responsiveness to their request; the employee gets to brag on what he or she just helped bring to market.

Before we get to far let’s look at Intel’s mission with respect to workstations.  We are laser focused on supplying technology that provides users with an uncompromised experience in transforming their ideas into reality.  With that in mind we look at how users create; we try understanding their obstacles and work with the ecosystem of hardware and software providers to deliver solutions to real problems that may be inhibiting their opportunity to innovate.  

One technology that is helping users innovate faster is virtualization. 

The Observation

We saw workstation user’s innovation slow as they multitasked between tasks – some of them not even theirs.  The involuntary task included IT security patches, updates, and system backups to name a few.  We also saw that users were no longer just doing CAD, but they were doing CAD, using productivity tools, meshing, web surfing for supporting facts, collaborating via video, digital white boarding and trying to do analysis driven design.  They were very busy people.

In some cases we noticed that some users actually had not one, but two workstations running in completely different environments, many times different OS’s.

The Problem

What the above really lead to is a conclusion that too many task were going after too few resources and that the experience we had hoped the user would encounter was not happening.  In fact the reverse was happening – interactive creative task were slowing, system sluggishness was at an all time high.  The “uncompromised experience in transforming their ideas into reality” we wanted for a workstation user was not there and any innovation that was possible was slowed down to a crawl.

A Potential Solution

Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O, once just thought of for servers actually has a place in the workstation market. 

This technology provides an important step toward enabling a significant set of emerging usage models in the workstation. VT-d support on Intel platforms provides the capability to ensure improved isolation of I/O resources for greater reliability, security, and availability.  That is a mouth full let’s see it in action.

There are two key requirements that are common across workstation usage models.

1.       The first requirement is protected access to I/O resources from a given virtual machine (VM), such that it cannot interfere with the operation of another VM on the same platform. This isolation between VMs is essential for achieving availability, reliability, and trust.

2.       The second major requirement is the ability to share I/O resources among multiple VMs. In many cases, it is not practical or cost-effective to replicate I/O resources (such as storage or network controllers) for each VM on a given platform.

In the case of the workstation, virtualization can be used to create a self-contained operating environment, or "virtual appliance," that is dedicated to capabilities such as manageability or security. These capabilities generally need protected and secure access to a network device to communicate with down-the-wire management agents and to monitor network traffic for security threats. For example, a security agent within a VM requires protected access to the actual network controller hardware. This agent can then intelligently examine network traffic for malicious payloads or suspected intrusion attempts before the network packets are passed to the guest OS, where user applications might be affected. Workstations can also use this technique for management, security, content protection, and a wide variety of other dedicated services. The type of service deployed may dictate that various types of I/O resources, graphics, network, and storage devices, be isolated from the OS where the user's applications are running.

The Result

Working with Parallels Workstation Extreme VM application we looked at two problems.  First was the general overhead related to too many request and too few resources and then we explored the more complex problem of a single workstation with a need to display at near native performance in two different OS’s.

The former was straight forward, create VM’s, partition resources and your innovator now has a very resilient workstation that is capable of delivering the intended experience.  IT can have their VM’s and the user has his or her workstation back and the concept of digital prototyping to create and explore a complete product before it is built is a reality.  Your innovator can now iterate through more ideas in less time and your company’s opportunity to catch the customer’s attention just went through the roof.

The former provided a much harder challenge.  We tested the idea in the oil and gas market where users actually had two workstations; one running Windows, one running LINUX. Both had a requirement for visual display and both acted on that same reservoir data with applications that while similar in many ways, they were still different.  When preparing to drill a multimillion dollar well – the idea of more data saying the same thing is a very good thing.

The Proof Point For Virtualization In A Workstation Engineers from Schlumberger, a leading oil field service provider, run performance-demanding applications such as GeoFrame* and Petrel*.  These applications serve to analyze complex geologic and geophysical data and determine the viability of potential reservoirs, or to optimize production at existing sites. With GeoFrame running on Linux* and Petrel on Microsoft Windows*, Schlumberger engineers have been running these applications on two separate workstations, driving down productivity and increasing both power consumption and IT maintenance costs.

A New Paradigm

With the advent of Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based workstations running Parallels Workstation Extreme, virtualization software has opened new horizons with breakthrough graphics performance.

Schlumberger compared the concurrent performance of applications running on a virtualized Intel Xeon processor 5400 series-based workstation with the same setup on the Intel Xeon processor 5500-based machine. The results were astounding. The first machine ran Petrel at full native speed, but performance for GeoFrame slowed enormously. While Petrel refreshed its graphics at a rate of 30 frames per second, GeoFrame crawled along at a graphics refresh rate of JUST one frame every 19 seconds, an agonizingly slow performance.

When the group tested both applications on the Xeon 5500 series workstation, the results were striking: Both applications ran at full native speed, and both were able to refresh graphics at 30 frames per second—a 570 times improvement over the first workstation.

Russ Sagert, Schlumberger’s Geoscience Technical Advisor for North America said “our engineers were blown away by the performance. We hammered these machines with extreme workloads that stressed every aspect of the system. Amazingly, the new workstation based on the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series provided performance enabling this multiple OS, multiple application environment for the first time.”

The key element in Schlumberger’s new environment is Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based workstations with Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d).  Together, these technologies enable direct assignment of graphics and network cards to virtual machines, enabling the machine to circumvent the interrupt and exit loop and clearing the previous performance problems.

Running in conjunction with Parallels Workstation Extreme, which effectively leverages Intel Virtualization Technology, including VT-d, the solution revolutionizes virtualization for high-end users. “High-performance virtualization on Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based workstations is a game-changing capability,” says Sagert. “We can allocate multiple cores, up to 64 GB of memory and a dedicated graphics card to each machine. The results are spectacular.”

In the final analysis, moving to the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series of next-generation workstations does far more than cut costs. It impacts the way that work gets done. If you have clients running the kind of resource-intensive, graphics-rich applications that traditionally slow to a crawl in a virtualized environment, consider the benefits of finally moving beyond the I/O barrier.

A fully configured Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series-based workstation running Parallels Workstation Extreme delivers the performance level that makes virtualization a contender for these users. A streamlined work interface, reduced office noise and clutter, and significant performance gains works on the user side. But the IT organization also gains benefits by lowering capital, management, support, space, and energy costs.

Moreover, the IT team can now standardize on a single OS image while addressing alternative requirements.

Learn More

Intel Workstation Processors http://www.intel.com/products/workstation/processors/index.htm

Parallels Workstation Extreme

http://www.parallels.com/products/extreme