The Server Room Blog

When to Buy?

S_Poulin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:10:36 GMT

I was on a plane flying somewhere the other day and I happened to be seated next to someone who ran consumer sales for a large Multi-National Corporation. We had a great conversation about technology and discussed his specific focus on client computing. During the course of the conversation we talked about what computers we carried around, what we had at home and some of the exciting things happening in the mobile space. To keep a long story short we debated the best time to buy something. One of the dangers of being an Intel employee is you always know there is something great coming right around the corner. It can create paralysis when deciding to buy that next computer for my wife or that next mobile device for one of my two daughters. Buy today and Nehalem is coming tomorrow. Buy tomorrow and 32 nm products are coming soon after. When I apply this thinking to my position in the Server group I realize that system admins and IT professionals are making the same sorts of decisions everyday. The difference is their penalties for waiting are much more severe. They could lose profit, lose share or but their existence in jeopardy if they make the decision to wait and fall behind their competitors. Likewise, if they are on the leading edge with their technology purchases and can not extract value for that then they are exposing themselves in that they have wasted opportunity cost. Now if I decide to not buy my wife and my kids a new computer the consequences are severe but not quite visible on the bottom line of a balance sheet. I have also not seen the downside of buying them a new computer ahead of their normal replacement cycle. I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere but I don't have time to dig for it.

When we looked at this phenomenon in the Enterprise we wanted to minimize the risk of being a leading technology adopter. That meant trying to find a way that our customers could adopt server technology today and extend and blend the use of that technology in the future with their next generation hardware. One example of this would be what we have done for years with the Intel Architecture. The very nature of the instruction sets that we develop allow old and new software alike to run on next generation hardware. As enterprises evolve and virtualization grows in it’s adoption we developed another feature called FlexMigration that allows someone to start virtualization pools with today’s hardware and grow the size of the pool with the next generation hardware that we will be delivering soon. It is amazing the positive feedback we have received from a feature that in essence isn’t about a performance enhancement (Intel’s Moore's Law) but is rather about giving them better investment protection. Look for more of these types of advancements from Intel in the future because while we realize the need for absolute performance leadership in all segments, we also know that there are features just as important to an IT professional when it comes to the bottom line.

A 45nm 6-core QnA

C_Peters — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:29:14 GMT

Following my earlier blog, I promised to share answers to some of the more common questions I get from customers on 45nm and mostly about the newest product we have on 6-core 45nm: the Xeon processor 7400 series.

1. What does 45nm really mean? A nanometer represents a distance that is one billionth of a meter in length. 45nm represents the width of a single transistor and is used to describe the manufacturing technology Intel uses to create our latest generation of processors. Because of the small 45nm transistor size, Intel is able fit 2 million transistors on the period at the end of this sentence.

2. Are all 45nm transistors the same? No. Materials used in silicon manufacturing process can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Intel switched over to a high-k dielectric material (Halfnium) that helps dramatically reduce leakage current – improving the performance/watt characteristic of our processors.

3. What OEM products feature 6-core 45nm products? Servers based on the processor are expected to be announced from over 50 system manufacturers around the world, including four-socket rack servers from Dell, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, HP, IBM, NEC, Sun, Supermicro and Unisys. There are four-socket blade servers from Egenera, HP, Sun and NEC and there are server designs that scale up to 16-sockets from IBM, NEC and Unisys.

4. How does 6-core affect my software licensing? Just like with other multi-core processors, licensing will depend on the software vendor. With quad-core most ISVs elected to license by socket or processor meaning that the performance enhancements came “for free” as the number of cores are increased. Recently VMware updated their definition of a “processor” to include up to 6-cores per processor (learn more) meaning that with VMware ESX 3.5 update 2 and Intel Xeon processor 7400 series, IT can deploy a higher density of virtual machines per server without an incremental increase in licensing costs. Everyone does it differently – so do your homework.

Other common questions circle around IT usage trends and how this technology can really be applied. Here is an interesting (and somewhat long) video where Intel VP and CIO Diane Bryant discusses with executives from Yahoo, Oracle, MySpace and Verisign about the challenges they face and how technology is helping them. If you choose to listen you will find answers to questions (paraphrased) like?

What are some of the top challenges IT faces today? How can technology help?
Is 6 core performance too much? Does IT have the ability inside their environment to take advantage of this additional compute capacity?
Is the software ecosystem is ready for multi-core? Can today's applications take advantage of it?
How are customers using Virtualization today and how do they see it changing over time?
When virtualizing ... how does IT view MP servers (4 socket) vs DP (2 socket)?
When deploying next generation technology, how important is the power capacity of the IT environment when selecting technology?
Are Intel Xeon servers powerful and reliable enough to consider moving away from RISC or other proprietary architectures?

If I missed your burning question, just ask … I’d be happy to share. Chris

Sun on Bimonthly Beat of New Intel® Xeon® Servers

scott1.e.smith — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:43:44 GMT

As an Intel PR manager who works regularly with Sun Microsystems, its introduction of two Sun Netra servers based on Intel® Xeon® Processors got me doing some math. For those keeping count, the new servers brings its total to 10 new Intel Xeon-based servers, or roughly one every other month, since the companies formed their alliance in January of last year. These most recent servers, which are aimed at the telecommunications industry, include the first carrier-grade server, the Sun Netra X4450, powered by four quad-core Intel Xeon processors 7000 Series. The energy-efficient performance of the Xeon processors helps Sun solve three growing problems in the telco datacenter - limited space, energy consumption and cooling costs. The 4U rackmount Sun X4450 takes advantage of the robust 45nm technology available from of the four Intel Xeon Processors E7338 processors to create an excellent platform for consolidation and virtualization. Features such as 32 memory DIMM slots, more than 1 TB of storage and 10 PCI slots enable telco data-center managers to consolidate Solaris OS, Linux and Windows applications on a single NEBS-certified server. Each processor dissipates a maximum of 80W of power. The new Sun Netra X4250 2U rackmount server is powered by two LV Intel Xeon Processors 5000 Series that offer power savings as well as performance. The Sun Netra X4250 server is designed to be energy-efficient, supporting up to 16 memory slots and four internal disk drives in a 2U, 20-inch-deep carrier-grade package. The low-power Intel Xeon Processor L5408 dissipates a maximum of 40W of power.

How to improve your data center energy efficiency using servers with Intel(R) Xeon(R) 7400 processors

dave_hill — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:56:27 GMT

The Intel® Xeon® 7400 Processor was officially announced just a few weeks ago and there has been phenomonal interest in this product because of it's world record breaking performance leadership as well as it's great energy efficiency.

Let's first discuss one of the primary advantages of the Intel® Xeon® 7400 Processor: Up to 50% better performance/watt and up to 10% less system power vs. 7300. As stated, this is pretty straightforward: Intel has real world results that show significant performance increases while consuming less power as compared to servers based on the previous generation Intel® Xeon(R) 7300 Processors. The performance increase can largely be attributed to designing the Xeon® 7400 processor with 6 cores based on the Intel® Core™ Microarchitecture. In addition, the primary reason for the power decrease is because Xeon® 7400 uses the latest 45nm High-K process technology instead of 65nm in the previous generation. In general, processors based on the 45nm process consume less power than the processor's rated TDP (thermal design power) value. It must be noted that power consumption can vary by processor and some processors may consume even less power and others may consume up to the processor's rated TDP value. For more details on both the performance and power, I recommend taking a look at this 3rd party review by Anandtech*: http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3414&p=1

Next, let's discuss the positive impact these servers can have on your data center. Whether you have an existing data center or plan to build a new one, there is always a fixed amount of power that is provided to that data center. Energy efficient performance, in it's simplest definition, is the ratio of performance in relation to the amount of power consumed. The higher the ratio, the more energy efficient your data center is. To accomplish this, two vectors need to be considered. The first is performance output and the second is power consumption (both when servers are operating at peak performance and when they are running at lower utilization levels or at idle). Servers based on the Intel® Xeon® 7400 processor can provide both higher performance as well as lower power, which offer some very compelling energy efficiency benefits. For example, when using virtualization multiple applications that currently run on independent servers can be consolidated on fewer, higher performing servers, while still providing performance headroom for future growth. By doing this, both acquisition and ongoing electricity/operational costs can be dramatically reduced. To see how much money you can potentially save by upgrading to servers based on the Intel® Xeon® 7400 processor, take a look at the ROI using the Intel® Xeon® Server Estimator at www.intel.com/go/xeonestimator

In summary, the best energy efficient performance can achieved using servers with Intel® Xeon® 7400 Processors. These servers provide both exceptional performance across a wide range of applications, with headroom to grow, while at the same time consuming less power as compared to previous generation Intel 7300 based servers.

Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

"Live From" Oracle OpenWorld08--Intel Innovation Zone

whlea — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:24:49 GMT

"Live From" Oracle Open World and the Intel Innovation Zone...first impression...this is a big event. The Moscone Center here in San Francisco is rocking and Intel has some really interesting and cool demos inside the Innovation Zone. Check out this one where Intel is announcing a new Solid State Drive and demos it at the show:

Check back for more demos and show updates...

“VMWorld08: Intel Keynote-Collaboration for Leading Virtualization Deployments”

whlea — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:28:49 GMT

More news from VMWorld 2008, Las Vegas. Doug Fisher, Intel V.P. gave a keynote during the VMWorld conference. One of the more interesting elements brought Steve Herrod, Sr. V.P. and CTO of VMware on stage to talk about how Intel and VMware are collaborating to deliver leading Virtualization Deployments. Click on the video to see what they have to say.....

Six More Benefits of 45nm

C_Peters — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:38:31 GMT

About 3 months ago I delivered a 2-part viedo series on the benefits of 45nm process technology (part 1, part 2). As time has progressed, the intel roadmap has continued to evolve and deliver increased benefits. On Sept 8th 2008, we introduced four new 2-socket processors in our Xeon 5400 product line and this past Monday (Sept 15th), we introduced a whole new series of products for our 4-socket product line, the Xeon 7400 series (codename: Dunnington). All of these new products feature 45nm process technology and the enhanced Intel Core Microarchitecture.

Here are some highlights of the benefits available for IT solutions

 Better Performance: Xeon 7400 features up to 6-cores and 16MB cache per processor. It is staggering to think about what an individual server is now capable of doing.

o Over 1 million transactions per minute (8 socket TPC-C* result)
o Over 600,000 transactions per minute (4 socket TPC-C* result)
o Over 500,000 business operation per second (4 socket Java SPECjbb*2005 result)
o Learn more about performance results of the Xeon 7400 products here

 Energy Efficient: The performance of 45nm processors (including the 6core) is being delivered in the same power/thermal envelopes as previous quad-core processors making the performance per watt ratio particularly appealing and beneficial to managing data center space and minimizing cooling challenges while growing performance capability. Many customers are refreshing older servers and seeing dramatic reductions in total cost of operations and space requirements. Evaluate your potential benefits with the Xeon estimator

 Investment Protection – All 45nm intel xeon processors (xeon 7400 and xeon 5400) are platform compatible with their 65nm quad-core predecessors (xeon 7300 and xeon 5300 respectively) so adoption, certification and integration into existing IT environments requires less effort.

 Flexible Virtualization: All 45nm Intel Xeon processors contain a technology called Intel VT FlexMigration that allows newer 45nm processors to be live migration compatible with previous 65nm intel xeon processors. So with current virtualization software support, IT customers can migrate virtual machines across multiple generations of intel processors, all in one big pool of computing.

 Better Business and Science: Many of the world’s top companies are using Intel’s 45nm products coupled with their software solutions to enhance their IT infrastructure. Last week Cern opened the Large Hadron Collider focused on recreating the big bang . Read more about how 45nm intel technology is playing an integral role in gaining insights into the formation of the universe or check out how your peers are benefiting from new technology at www.intel.com/references

 Eco-Friendly: If your company or boss has a green thumb, you may be interested in knowing that the new Xeon 5400 products are now built with materials which are both lead and halogen free (halogen is a material known to contribute to global warming)

Finally, I came across this video where Nathan Brookwood (analyst from Insight 64) discusses the new Xeon 7400 product (Dunnington) and his outlook on technology roadmaps moving forward.

In the next few weeks, I will be compiling and answering the top 6 questions around 45nm … so ask away.

Chris

"Live From" Eco-Tech Great Debates, IDF SF08

whlea — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:03:56 GMT

Update: 3:55pm.

More from the event.....currently debating "Container" DataCenter v. Traditional "Brick & Mortar...here's our esteemed panel

Panel members include Jud Cooley (SUN Micro), Conor Malone (Rackable), Sigurd Anderson (IDC Architects), Bruce Myatt (Critical Facilities Solutions), & Phil Reese (Research Computing Strategist, Stanford Univ.)

Prior to that the debate was around High v. Low Density in the datacenter, here's the panel:

Panel members are David Driggers (Verari Systems), David Moss (Dell), David Segar (IDC Arch.), Christian Belady (Microsoft), James Shuder (Oracle)& Mukesh Khattar (Oracle)

Hi all,

Jason and I are "Live' from the Great Debates. The ICT Metrics Panel just concluded. Here's a photo from the event:

Panel members including Kathrarine Kaplan(EPA), Andy Rawson (AMD), Kathleen Fieher (Intel), Magnus Herrlin (Ancis), Ray Pfeifer(SynapSense), and Bill Tschudi (LBNL). Good discussion around specific performance metrics that should be taken into account for measuring data center performance. Also, some interesting discussion on what the EPA is doing around the Energy Star program for IT.

Check out the live webcast here: Eco-Tech Great Debates LIVE

Making sense of hypes "du Jour" - Virtualization, Grid and Cloud Computing

whlea — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:04:30 GMT

Admin Note: This is a repost on behalf of Ravi Subramaniam.

This is the first video in a 3 part series - In this video series, I touch upon the topics that are in the news - Virtualization, Grid computing and cloud computing - each have had their day as or are the current hot/hyped topic. In this first video, I focus on virtualization.

I am looking forward to an interesting dialogue on these videos and the topics and to learn from your insights as I hope you will from mine. I would really like to get your feedback/thoughts and other topics/considerations that would be relevant and important here.

The intent here is to try and demonstrate these topics are in some way inter-related though the implementations/embodiments are distinct and relevant to solving the problems in their respective topic/domain. By understanding the connections, my hope is that, one can visualize new solutions/products (to solve new or higher order problems) that may be created through some appropriate compositions or by novel (re)organizations of the implementations and technologies in these respective topics. Well... I am getting ahead of myself here ...

To stimulate discussion for this blog I would like to add/highlight a few points/questions ...

Virtualization (at least for me) is a broad concept and as, highlighted in the video, has many modes, facets or aspects - many of the topics of current interest are sort of related by the application of some aspect of virtualization. For the sake of time/brevity, I choose to briefly mention the broader aspects and relate quickly to the notion of virtualization that most accept i.e. what I would call 'machine virtualization'. Do you agree with the broad view of virtualization? An elaboration on your response (for or against) will be much appreciated.

Virtualization implies a relationship to the entity (physical or virtual) that the virtualization virtualizes - the ability to bind, manipulate and manage these relationships is what helps realize virtualization benefits like agility, consolidation, right sizing etc. The foil in the video "How to create virtualization?" describes some of the relationships (i.e. creating a virtualization establish the relationship describing the mode of creation). Do the ideas in "How to create virtualization?" section of the video make sense - do you agree - thoughts? Are there additional relationships (modes of construction) one may need to consider in the context of virtualization? Are there any product/product area that Intel could enhance by adding one of these virtualization modes/relationships i.e. that would solve (or improve solution of) a problem that you have (say emulation for example)?

Machine virtualization - is currently SW based with HW assists for performance and security. What do you see as the next inflection for machine virtualizations? Is there an increased role for HW (as different from the current role of enhancing SW solutions)? Are there any models for virtualization that you see that are better suited for implementation in silicon rather than SW?

Finally also looking forward to any other feedback/discussion on the video and video content ...

Thanks for your interest!

Got That Virtual Feeling?

C_Peters — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:54:00 GMT

Working in High Tech means that most of us don't ever slow down - if we do, we risk falling behind. As a result, I usually find myself more more stressed than relaxed (just ask my peers or my wife).

So when I find good humor, I like to share. I found this video snippet about virtualization at www.talesofitutopia.com and it put a smile on my face. It is a little scarry that i can relate to more than one of the characters (the boss, the IT guy and even to some extent the JINX). Which character do you relate to?

Virtilization anyone?

Energy Efficiency In The Data Center Podcast

DJenkins — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:00:10 GMT

Energy consumption and energy efficiency issues are becoming more prevalent in the datacenter. This short podcast hosted by the Register provides some insight on topics that IT manager should consider to improve energy efficient performance in the datacenter.

http://www.podtech.net/home/5116/energy-consumption-in-the-data-center

Datacenter Fabric Convergence; FCoE Can Help

BenHacker — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:30:12 GMT

Ethernet has been around a long time. It is a highly reliable and trusted means for interconnecting computing nodes, and above that, it has generally been the most commoditize (read: lowest cost) form of interconnect for quite some time. Broad deployment, administrator trust, and low cost have kept Ethernet as the mainstream fabric for LAN traffic for a long time.

However, despite Ethernet's strong connectivity credentials, it still comes up short in certain applications. Ethernet is what is referred to as a ‘best effort' network. This simply means that in the real world, you will generally get pretty good performance (throughput, latency, lack of dropped packets, etc), but from time to time when there is congestion, packet drops and performance degradation can be quite a nuisance. For many applications, this doesn't matter. If you are using email, browsing the web, or transferring files to a shared drive, the only thing you will notice is a decrease in performance, but everything will still ‘work', and transfer properly. For some applications like storage though, this non-deterministic performance is unacceptable. If packets are dropped, or arrive out of order, storage applications have a nasty tendency to hang or crash.

Because of this limitation of the standard, there have been separate fabrics used for Storage Area Networks (SANs) for quite a while. One of the main fabrics developed and used for high performance SANs is known as Fiber Channel. In order to create a Fiber Channel network, a server and storage target need to support a Fiber Channel Host Bus Adapter (FC HBA) to communicate via the Fiber Channel protocol. In addition, the switches that connect the Fiber Channel infrastructure must also be dedicated Fiber Channel switches; a standard Ethernet router cannot be used.

Once in place, this SAN architecture provides a very high performance, high reliability network that is ideal (and required) for high end storage traffic, but it comes at a cost:

1) Fiber Channel HBAs are generally more expensive than their Ethernet counterparts.

2) You have to have a separate fabric in your network which also adds to your infrastructure (switch costs, and cabling costs) as well as complicates IT management.

3) Servers connected to the SAN now need to have an Ethernet adapter AND a Fiber Channel adapter.

The upside to the additional cost and complexity is of course better performance, but the question has always been "Is there a better way?"

I believe there is a better way, and that Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) (and importantly, the standards in IEEE that are making it possible) seems to be the logical path to solve the issue of performance on lossless performance on Ethernet, while maintaining Ethernets historical core cost advantages.

‘Best Effort' is not good enough:
The bottom line for today's Ethernet is that it simply can't provide the ‘lossless' behavior that storage traffic demands; but this fact is changing. Below I will summarize at a high level some of the standards being developed in IEEE to improve the performance of Ethernet for storage applications, and how they help to mend some of the issues with Ethernet and how that helps to enable FCoE.

Bandwidth Sharing, Priority Flow Control and Pause:
This capability offers a method to assign priorities to different Ethernet traffic classes. From there, when congestion becomes an issue, traffic can be ‘paused' on a per-priority basis; allowing the lower priority traffic to be halted temporarily while keeping the top priority traffic like storage running smoothly. This per-priority pause capability is really the first basic step in allowing Ethernet to provide some ‘QoS like' Layer 2 guarantees.

Congestion Notification (or Backward Congestion Notification):
In addition to simply pausing individual low priority streams of traffic, congestion notification allows for a communication method to go upstream from the node and notify the offending traffic generator to throttle back its traffic and re-route as necessary. This capability is a key to the longer term development of FCoE because with only the pause capability the congestion is really just pushed up a single node in the network. In order to support FCoE storage across multiple nodes in a network, congestion notification is needed.

Shortest Path Bridging:
This capability is really an optimization for inter-node routing that defines the path within the network between switches. Using traditional spanning tree path algorithms will sometimes result in paths in the network that are non-optimal and incompatible with high performance storage traffic. A new algorithm to determine the shortest path between nodes will help to enable both less congestion in the network as well as fast delivery of critical packets for storage.

DCB Capability Exchange Protocol (DCBX):
This capability goes by several different names depending on who you talk to, but essentially what it will provide is the ability for switches on the network to exchange their capability sets with other nodes of the network. This allows for each switch to understand what others switches near it can use the Congestion Notification, Flow Control, or other features need to support this ‘Lossless Ethernet' capability.

While the list above is not meant to be all inclusive of all the new IEEE development under way for this new ‘Lossless Ethernet' initiative, it should provide a good overview of the general push taking place and how the goal of getting to near lossless performance is going to be accomplished.

Weren't we talking about Fiber Channel?
Astute users will realize that I haven't really addressed the Fiber Channel piece of this. The above features I described only allow for Ethernet to carry certain kinds of traffic (like Fiber Channel) that require very high reliability and performance; but how do you get the Fiber Channel data onto an Ethernet frame?

In today's environment, a Fiber channel initiator on a Server system will place Fiber Channel data onto an FC HBA to send over the SAN to a storage target. All of this data is transmitted over a fiber channel network. Under the FCoE model, what you will need is a Server system that has an FCoE initiator, and on the target side, the switch connected to the target must be able to convert the data from storage target and encapsulate it into Ethernet. Beyond that, the data is transmitted over the Ethernet fabric as normal, but the features that I described above allow for the performance of Ethernet to allow a Fiber Channel application stack to function properly.

This is certainly a capability that Intel has been supportive of. Ethernet is a critical piece of the computing platform, and FCoE provides a potential improvement for datacenter and storage network design. By consolidating the Fiber Channel data onto a single Ethernet wire, end user IT houses can also see several benefits:

1) Reduced the need for two physical network cards in each server. Now, a single NIC will connect to the SAN and to the normal TCP/IP data network.

2) Along with the consolidation in network cards, you also save in terms of cabling. One 10 Gigabit link can replace the old Fiber Channel fiber link and Ethernet links.

3) Reduces power consumption and cooling

4) The commoditized and low cost nature of Ethernet provides additional benefit by converging system I/O onto what will likely be the lowest cost interface over the coming years; 10 Gigabit.

In summary, FCoE may be in its infancy, but the standards in final, or in process. Products are available today, and the value proposition in here. Further performance improvements and cost reductions and the proliferation of 10 Gigabit networks, as well as more choices in the future, will only further the support and interest in Fiber Channel over Ethernet in datacenter SAN applications.

~ Ben Hacker

Links for further information:
http://ieee802.org/
http://www.open-fcoe.org/

Why 45nm ... What's Next (part 2)

C_Peters — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:40:20 GMT

Last week, the first part this video series focused on the energy efficiency benefits of 45nm. The 2nd part of this video (below) is focused on the benefits of 45nm for virtualization and the intel processor roadmap including what's next in 45nm processor technology - the Dunnington and Nehalem-EP products

Is this information useful to you? why or why not?

Chris

Quad-Core ROI Calculator

C_Peters — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:18:06 GMT

Using some data from our own IT group, we developed a simple ROI calculator. This tool provides an estimate of performance and IT cost savings of refreshing older servers with new ones. Below is a screen shot of the calculator that is now available on our new server tools section of the Server Room. Give it a try and let us know if these assessment tools are helpful?

Why 45nm ... What's Next

C_Peters — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:58:52 GMT

Following a recent interview I conducted with the Register on a related subject, I was asked to talk more about Intel's current 45nm technology and our roadmap for new technology later this year. Join me in a two part video series where I discuss 45nm and beyond.

Part 1 (below) discusses the technology and benefits that 45nm xeon processors deliver for IT today.

Tune in next week to hear Part 2 - what we have planned for future enhancements to today's xeon products - the Nehalem Processor and Intel QuickPath architecture.

Chris