Softbank Tests Next-Gen IT Platform Based on Intel® Rack Scale
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WHITE PAPER SoftBank Tests Next-Generation IT Platform Based on Intel® Rack Scale Architecture in Pursuit of Information Revolution Intel® Rack Scale Architecture for Data Center Efficiency Executive Summary SoftBank Corp. is pursuing an “information revolution” that will spur the latest innovations in technol- ogy, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and smart robots. The company needs the IT platforms which support its rapidly growing businesses to have agility to optimize real-time performance and high efficiency to utilize all available resources. The consolidation of its Japanese telecommunications companies is what led SoftBank to consider the Intel® Rack Scale Ar- chitecture, which pools resources at the rack level and allocates them via software. During workload- based testing, a development test demonstrated a potential reduction in the number of servers, a great reduction in staff workload, and a significant electrical conservation. The test result also showed “Intel® Rack Scale Architecture is that both server and network delivery times and fault response times could be significantly reduced. Having concluded that Intel® Rack Scale Architecture is suitable as a next-generation platform for an integral piece of architecture real-time computing, SoftBank is now planning to test expansion functions and functional improve- for real-time computing at ments in preparation for the launch of Intel® Rack Scale Architecture. SoftBank as we accelerate our Consolidation of Japanese to give them the competitive advantage and global strategy including the IoT, Telecommunications Companies differentiate themselves, they must adopt Poses Challenge for IT Infrastructure a common IT platform to achieve synergies artificial intelligence, Consolidation between the four merged companies and improve efficiency. and smart robots.” • Testing Background Another factor behind SoftBank’s desire to In April 2015, SoftBank Mobile, SoftBank BB, – Mr. Amane Kito consolidate its IT platforms is to create an “in- SoftBank Telecom, and Y!Mobile were con- Senior Vice President, CISO and formation revolution”, a policy they pursue in solidated into a single new company, SoftBank Head of Information Systems Unit recognition of the important role that the IoT, Corp., that handles both mobile and fixed SoftBank Corp. AI, and smart robots will play in future growth. line telecommunications. This created a new In the near future, network connections will be organizational structure under which the bulk commonplace not only for mobile devices but of SoftBank Group’s Japanese telecommuni- also other devices such as industrial equip- cation businesses are consolidated. ment, robots, and different type of sensors, Mr. Amane Kito One issue that comes with the structural with a forecast of 50 billion online devices in Senior Vice President, CISO and reorganization is how to consolidate the IT 2020. This could lead to the emergence of a Head of Information Systems Unit platforms. While the business activities of steady stream of new IoT-based businesses, and in turn, the potential to change the fun- Mr. Masahiro Sekiya the four old companies have merged, they Senior Director retain the same IT infrastructure as before. damental role of these Internet “things.” If AI- System Infrastructure Division Furthermore, the gradual acquisition of a integrated smart robots enter widespread use, Information Systems Division variety of other companies has created a silo the need to enable robots to interpret human structure. Among the server, storage, and emotions by using large amounts of data will Mr. Toshiyuki Sugiyama rise. Accordingly, there will be a demand for System Infrastructure Development Section network hardware from different vendors and faster and more scalable computing resources System Infrastructure Division operating under different standards were a Information Systems Division range of general-purpose systems. In order to support the real-time processing and vi- SoftBank Tests Next-Generation IT Platform Based on 2 Intel® Rack Scale Architecture in Pursuit of Information Revolution sualization of the high volume of transactions Intel® Rack Scale Architecture is one of the 5. Top-of-rack (ToR) Ethernet switch arising from this proliferation of devices. architectures used to implement the concept 6. Computing resources drawer of software-defined infrastructure (SDI) being These are some of the considerations that • Each drawer was fitted with an Intel® Xeon promoted by Intel, which abstracts the vari- piqued SoftBank’s interest in Intel® Rack Scale or Intel® Atom™ processor module Architecture, a vertically integrated architec- ous hardware used at a data center, including • Fabric switch with Intel® Ethernet Switch ture for consolidating server, storage, and processors, memory, storage, and network- FM5224 silicon base network hardware at the rack level and inter- ing, and uses software to modify its setup. connecting them via high bandwidth Ethernet Use of Intel® Rack Scale Architecture enables • Each drawer and ToR switch connected Fabric. Senior Vice President, CISO and Head hardware configurations to be modified as via 40GbE optical cable of Information Systems Unit of SoftBank, Mr. necessary. Whereas resources in the past were 7. Intel® Xeon® E5 v3 processor modules and Amane Kito, put it as follows. only available after servers, storage, or other Intel® Atom™ C2000 SoC modules (each devices were added individually, with Intel® “Intel® Rack Scale Architecture has the po- module has 12 Intel® Atom™ C2000 SoCs) Rack Scale Architecture, they can be made tential to dramatically improve the utilization 8. JBOD storage(object storage) available by software setting in much the same of computing resources that in the past have way as selecting a “component” from a pool not been efficiently utilized. SoftBank Group • Testing dates of available resources organized on the rack is currently working on a unified platform From May to September 2015 (effective test- level. Mr. Sekiya commented, “Because an for real-time computing called “Chronos.” ing time of 10 weeks) architecture like Intel® Rack Scale Architecture We have been conducting tests on an Intel® is such a groundbreaking development, this Rack Scale Architecture development system • Tests testing will have considerable impact on our because we expect it to play an important role SoftBank tested its basic performance and future IT infrastructure strategy.” in implementing this new platform. functions by using the web UI for resource “One of SoftBank Group’s strengths is that Prototype Evaluation System Tested monitoring; composing servers from the com- we are quick to adopt advanced Information over an Effective 10-Week Period pute pool; assigning storage and networking, and Communication Technology(ICT), and installing and booting the OS on the server; ever since our formation we have consistently • Testing environment installing and executing the application; and testing the Intel® Rack Scale Architecture been among the first to test promising new The system configuration used for testing API. The following tests were conducted with technologies. This attitude has allowed us to is listed below. The evaluation system was an emphasis on verifying whether the basic take the first steps toward implementation a prototype used by Intel for development, concept of Intel® Rack Scale Architecture had of advanced ICT by using the only evaluation with hardware put together from off-the- been achieved. system in Japan, therefore learning about shelf components. Intel® Rack Scale Architecture before anyone 1. Intel® Rack Scale Architecture rack [Test 1] Intel® Rack Scale Architecture pod else. One of our future goals is global deploy- management function using Pod Manager ment of this system as a common global • 26U rack platform for SoftBank Group.” 2. Rack was fitted with a common power sup- Testing confirmed that Pod Manager, the con- ply trol center for Intel® Rack Scale Architecture could detect key components, such as com- Confirming Functions Provided by Intel® 3. Rack was fitted with a common cooling puting node and storage on the rack and man- Rack Scale Architecture and Operation system under Actual Workloads age them centrally. It also confirmed when 4. Pod Manager (also incorporating rack man- computing resources were added or removed, • Testing Objectives agement functions) the change was automatically detected by the The aim of testing was to affirm that the • A small desktop PC kit (Intel® NUC) system and the resource was recognized as Intel® Rack Scale Architecture’s functions mounted at the bottom of the rack available or unavailable. can optimize resources in real time. The first Pod objective was to confirm that the proces- Pod Manager by domain Pod Manager sors, memory, storage, and network could be configured on the hardware platform. The Rack second was to verify the ability to execute the TOR RMC by rack RMC actual workload on top of the platform OS and Drawer PCIe middleware used by SoftBank. This work also FM6324 PCIe CPP included testing network coordination and the switch by drawer PSME optimization of compute, storage, and other PCIe SMBus resources to assess the effectiveness of the Xeon automation essential for the next-generation module PCH BMC by module Xeon SOC Xeon SoC DMI BMC MMC BMC MMC platform. Mr. Masahiro Sekiya, Senior Director, MMC Xeon uServer System Infrastructure Division, Information DDR DDR DDR E5 DDR DDR DDR DDR module Systems