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

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.

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

If there is one thing that has stayed consistent in the computing industry over time, it's that performance doesn't stand still. As our computing platform processing, I/O, and memory speeds continue to accelerate, it is important to remember a little thing called latency.

Often in the Ethernet world throughput is the 1^st^ and last performance metric of choice. 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit are the numbers that inspire thoughts of increased performance, and improved computing power. However, it's important to note that, in many applications, the transaction latency over the wire is really the key to unlocking high performance at the system level. One of the primary reasons that some organizations have turned to Infiniband and other I/O technologies for HPC and clustering in the past has to do with their desire to achieve very low latencies, not necessarily increased throughput. If you look at a historical standard Gigabit Ethernet connection, you may see latencies that are around 125μs. This may have been ok in the past, but as improvements at the application level as well in the system hardware and CPU take hold, legacy Ethernet won't be good enough for HPC and clustering environments.

The interesting, and often overlooked fact with Ethernet is that the latency characteristics are improving as the industry moves from 1 Gigabit to 10 Gigabit. The faster throughput on the wire comes along with lower latency to some extent, but in addition, there have been several improvements in interrupt handling that drastically improve overall latencies when comparing legacy 1Gigabit to 10Gigabit. With a basic 1^st^ generation Intel® 10Gigabit CX4 card you can now see latencies approach 25μs without any special tuning.

What's even better is that Intel's 10 Gigabit networking silicon also has further enhancements for improving latency by introducing some new specialized Low Latency Interrupt (LLI) filters in the silicon. These filters provide the hardware with a quicker reaction time to network packets that meet certain customizable criteria. The filters can be tuned to have a rapid response to certain packet and traffic types. With these kinds of LLI filters in place, latencies can be reduced further by another ~50% to ~14μs.

Going forward with 10 Gigabit there are new technologies and designs that can help push latency even lower to the sub-10μs threshold to keep Ethernet very competitive as a fabric not only from a cost and throughput perspective, but also from the perspective of latency.

And while lower latency is certainly important, the last piece that was really missing from the Ethernet performance puzzle was not just low latency, but deterministically low latency. The key is that the worst case packet latencies for many applications are relevant and very important. By application thread affinitization, the individual data thread can be piped directly between a network queue and a CPU core. By more evenly distributing the networking workload between CPU cores in a predictable fashion, you get a deterministic kind of latency that does not stray far from the average assuming CPU cores do not get oversubscribed. Average latency of ~14μs is good, but the fact that you can get this with reasonable determinism is a key for many applications and usages.

Now, lower, deterministic latency is not just a theoretical benefit for certain niche applications. Decreasing latency and improving overall latency characteristics while increasing throughput directly benefits the transaction rates that can be achieved with real world applications. As an example of the improved performance is the latest Reuter Market Data Systems (RMDS) benchmarks done by STACResearch on the 4-way Intel® Xeon E7450 (Dunnington) using the Intel® 82598EB 10 Gigabit AT Dual Port networking adapter. The testing showed the Highest Point-to-Point Server throughput to date on a single server in testing done by STAC. And total updates per second reached over 15 million. Financial Service industry administrators: I can see you drooling...

Latency and throughput numbers are great to talk about, but at the end of the day, real world application performance on real systems is the key. While there will always be a small subset of the high end server market that needs the absolute lowest latencies provided by Infiniband; 10 Gigabit Ethernet is gaining ground while maintaining its place as the default fabric of choice for multiple applications and traffic types. I believe the best is yet to come as newer, faster, and more responsive technologies continue to roll out.

Ben Hacker

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

This is the 2nd in a 3 part series of video blogs that looks at Virtualization, Grids and Cloud computing. Follow this link for the first part: Part 1

The videos explore these concepts first individually and then try to show that taken together the combination is greater than the sum of individual deployments of the techologies. In reality, all three are required to begin to realize the vision of the dynamic, efficient datacenter but I would caution that these are necessary but not sufficient to realize this full vision ... well ... is a topic (set of topics?) for another day.

As you view the video please bear in mind that there are a couple of underlying assumptions in the statements I make in the video - unfortunately these got eliminated in the editing in trying to meet video duaration constraints. A quick recap of the assumptions:

a) the target environment is the enterprise (both enterprise IT and enterprise data centers) - some of the thoughts apply to SMBs but may not always.
b) the discussion on clouds is really focussing, primarily, on "Internet" clouds and not "Private" clouds (there is a reference to and a motivation for "Private clouds" when the technologies are brought together but in this discussion on clouds the focus is on Internet clouds unless mentioned otherwise).
c) The perspective on Grids in the video is broad - Most folks are used to associating Grids with HPC - it would be very helpful in this video to suspend this association (at least while watching the video and if I can get you to, maybe, into the future as well). This association with HPC is very limiting and represents a use of Grids and does not illuminate what Grids really are or, more importantly, their potential.

This and the previous video introduces the concepts as I see them. Some tangible examples in how they may come together is presented in the next video ... promise ...

So here is the video:

Now that you have heard and seen the video .... a few more observations not discussed in the video ...

• Grids represent an infrastructure management paradigm - actually once you step beyond the base machine virtualization (where the opportunities for real differentiation are fast dimnishing) you will find that solutions that most vendors have or are developing to manage these VMs borrow heavily and, in some cases, almost entirely from Grid technologies - but they won't tell you that. (Once you take the "broader view" it becomes apparent that many Intel platform technolgies become very relevant to Grids and so Intel platforms can be deployed as more than just the "simple and commodity" hardware that they are currently viewed and deployed as)

• Another point to note is that Clouds and Grids are closer than one may think. In many cases a cloud is realized by a simplification of a Grid that is made possible by application to a defined context determined by the cloud service offered. Furthermore some of the complexities of Grid computing (under the covers) have been masked by the introduction of a portal or some other simplifying assumptions and implementations. Many of the well known clouds are implemented using Grids. Nonetheless it is very important to keep Clouds and Grids distinct so that one can understand these paradigms and extract maximum value. The moniker cloud represents a use paradigm (against an highly elastic service) whereas Grids represent an infrastructure paradigm.

• On a larger note: One way to bring these topics together conceptually is to see virtualization as the paradigm to substantiate the entities (resources or otherwise) that can be/are visualized in a context, Grids as the paradigm to manage these virtualizations and Clouds as the paradigm for use of these managed virtualizations.

I will build on these assertions in my next video ... In the meanwhile am looking for discussion on these topics -

• What do Grids and Clouds mean to you?
• Do the views represented here make sense or are there other ways in which one may approach these topics?
• What are some interesting ways you have used these technologies in your line of work? What are some problems that were solved or new usages created?
• Are Grids as a topics of discussion dead/passe or are they as relevant today as they were a few years ago - why?

IDF SF08-HP and Intel announced collaboration on the world's best 4-socket TPC-C benchmark result of >634K transactions/min. Check out the video with Aaron Spurlock (HP) and Noe Garcia (Intel)discussing the HP ProLiant DL580 G5 server with Intel XEON 7400-series (Dunnington) processors. Let us know what you think.

Hank Lea and myself (Jason Davidson) will be covering the Eco-Technology debates at the Marriot Hotel in San Francisco on Monday, August 18th. We will also be hosting a blog talk radio show around this event at 5:15 PM.

In my tenure at Intel, I have had the pleasure of walking into major companies, educational institutes, non-profits, and government agencies to talk technology with many great people. “How green is this solution” is a topic on many minds lately – no matter which topic of discussion. Being an engineer by trade and scientist by education, I will typically dive into the details of around each component’s power consumption and the discussion ends with some simple math multiplying a number of units by their thermal numbers. However, there is so much more to the overall impact, and as I walk in and out of these locations, I am always amazed at the number of larger issues with much larger impacts that are unresolved or overlooked. For more information on these items, here is a blog.

The Eco-Technology Great Debates provide a unique and entertaining forum to expand your understanding of today’s most pressing data center and IT issues. Come hear industry leaders take up both sides of some of the hot topics facing
the industry.

Attendees will learn about the pros and cons of high-density computing versus low-density computing and ready-to-use container data centers versus traditional brick and mortar data centers. There will also be a panel discussion on energy efficiency metrics, which will take a look at everything from chips to cooling systems and how they play a role in energy efficiency.

The energy consumption of servers and data centers has doubled in the past five years and is expected to almost double again in the next five, costing about USD 7.4 billion annually.¹ There is no single right answer on what to do about this critical situation. Take an active step in solving this challenge by attending The Eco-Technology Great Debates and IDF at a special money-saving price. Register for IDF now and enter promo code CLOECOT (admission to the Eco-Technology Great Debate and a 2-day pass to IDF) or enter promo code *CLTECOT*(admission to the Eco-Technology Great Debate and a full conference pass to IDF). The debate takes place at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel (located across the street from IDF).

¹ [EPA Reports Significant Energy Efficiency Opportunities for U.S.
Servers and Data Centers (August 2007).|http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0de87f2b4bcbe56e852572a000651fde/4be8c9799fbceb028525732c0053e1d5!OpenDocument]