Blade Servers of Basic Producers

Journal of the UniversityG. Elenkov, of Chemical I. Gerdjikov, Technology V. Metodiev, and Metallurgy, I. Ivanov 45, 1, 2010, 67-74

BLADE SERVERS OF BASIC PRODUCERS

G. Elenkov, I. Gerdjikov, V. Metodiev, I. Ivanov

University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy Received 05 December 2009 8 Kl. Ohridski, 1756 Sofia, Bulgaria Accepted 20 February 2010 E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the diversity of blade and modular servers, produced by main world manufacturers, like HP, IBM, Sun, Dell, Intel. Another objective is to present general criteria for the comparison of server platforms, called Total Cost of Ownership TCO. Keywords: blade, server, modular server, Total Cost of Ownership.

INTRODUCTION BLADE SERVERS OF FUNDAMENTAL MANUFACTURERS The company Houston-based RLX Technologies, which consisted of mostly former Compaq Computer The name blade server appeared [1] when a card Corp. employees, shipped the first modern blade server included the processor, memory, I/O and non-volatile in 2001 and in 2005 Hewlett Packard (HP) developed program storage (flash memory or small hard disk(s)). their model RLX [2]. In February 2006 Blade.org was This allowed manufacturers to package a complete established to increase the number of blade platform server, with its operating system and applications, on a solutions available for customers and to accelerate the single card blade. These blades could then operate process of bringing them to market. It is a collaborative independently within a common chassis, doing the work organization and developer community focused on ac- of multiple separate server boxes more efficiently. In celerating the development and adoption of open blade addition to the most obvious benefit of this packaging server platforms. (less space-consumption), additional efficiency benefits Nowadays the research company IDC identi- have become clear in power, cooling, management, and fied the major players in the blade market [1] as HP networking due to the pooling or sharing of common and IBM. Other companies selling blade servers in- infrastructure to support the entire chassis, rather than clude AVADirect, Sun, Egenera, Supermicro, Hitachi, providing each of these on a per server box basis. Fujitsu-Siemens, Rackable (Hybrid Blade), Verari Sys- As an illustration of a blade server, the Modular tems, Dell and Intel. The existence of great number of Server of Intel may be discussed. It is based on the so- server products submits the question of their compari- called Intel Multi-Flex Technology. The description of son, necessary to make correct choice. So, the objec- its components is given below. tive of this paper is to make an attempt to investigate Intel® Modular Server [3, 4] the diversity of server platforms, produced by main The server is shown in Fig. 1. The components world manufacturers and to present general criteria on it have characteristics as follows: for their evaluation. a) Chassis type MFSYS25 or MFSYS35:

67 Journal of the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, 45, 1, 2010

Fig. 1. Intel Modular Server.

Its capacity is up to 6 Server Compute Modules. d) Carrier for HDD: The chassis may be configured either as 6U rack or 14 are used in MFSYS25 and 6 are used in pedestal based, so the flexibility is ensured for the choice MFSYS35. of appropriate size. It is designed to support a lot of e) Hot Swappable I/O Fan Module (included). generations of server compute modules, thus allowing f) Hot Swappable Main Fan Module (included). fast upgrade to newer computer technology. g) Hot-Swappable Power Supply Modules: (2 b) Server Compute Module: The compute mod- included, 2 optional) N + 1 degree of redundancy. ule MFS5000SI is based on the Intel® 5000P series h) Storage Control Module (1 included, 1 op- chipset and supports Multi-Core Intel® Xeon® pro- tional): RAID 0, 1, 1e, 5, 6, 10. cessors. i) Management Module (included). MFS5000SI Features: Supports up to two Multi- j) Ethernet Switch Module (1 included, 1 op- Core Intel® Xeon® processors. Nine of the applicable tional): types of them are given in [3]. Each module features 10/100/1000GbE full- Server has 8 FB DIMM slots for up to 32 GB of duplex ports. memory. It has also integrated LSI 1064E SAS Con- ** Power Supply Requirements: troller. Server has Integrated Remote KVM, Remote A minimum of one 1000-Watt power supply Media Redirection, and Remote Serial Console. Front is required to turn on a compute module. One power panel includes video and 2 USB I/O ports. The Server supply will support 1 compute module plus all other Compute Modules support an optional dual channel modules in the system. Two power supplies will sup- gigabit Ethernet Mezzanine Expansion Card. port 2 to 3 compute modules (in any slot) plus all other c) Hard Disk Drives: modules in the system. Three power supplies will sup- Up to 14 2.5 SAS devices for MFSYS25 or up port 4 to 6 compute modules (in any slot) plus all other to 6 3.5 SAS or SATA devices for MFSYS35. modules in the system. Any additional power supplies

68 G. Elenkov, I. Gerdjikov, V. Metodiev, I. Ivanov

Fig. 2. Structure of the modular server of HP. above minimum required (based on configuration) pro- Chassis HP BladeSystem c7000: vides redundancy. Slots for blade modules: Up to 16 half-height Blade Systems of HP blades or up to 8 full height blades. Interconnect bays: HP BladeSystem c-Class [6] The main reason 8 Interconnect bays with support for any I/O fabric. to consider this system of ÍÐ is that in [5] it is used as Power: Integrated in Enclosure, 3-Phase or Single Phase. a basis for comparative evaluation. Cooling: Centralized redundant fans. Up to 10 Active A. Chassis HP Blade System c3000 intended Cool fans. Height: 10 U. Management: Redundant for Midmarket and remote site. Onboard Administrator - LAN and serial access. B. Chassis HP Blade System c7000 intended C. HP ProLiant Server Blades applicable for HP For Enterprise data centers. Functional description of c3000 and c7000 are: c7000 is given in Fig. 2. HP ProLiant BL200c Server Blades: HP ProLiant Chassis HP BladeSystem c3000: BL260c G5 (Intel Xeon 5400, 5200, ìP, Core 2 and Slots for blade modules: Up to 8 half-height Celeron; 2 sockets, Quad, Dual and Single cores; up to blades or up to 4 full height blades. Mixed configura- 16 modules (c7000), 8 (c3000); 48 GB, 6 DIMM slots); tions are supported. Interconnect bays: 4 any I/O fabric. HP ProLiant BL280c G6 (Intel Xeon 5500; 2 sockets, Power: Up to 6 x 1200W (high-line) or 800 - 900W Quad and Dual cores; up to 16 modules (c7000), 8 (low-line). Cooling: Centralized redundant fans. Up to (c3000); 96 GB, 12 DIMM slots); HP ProLiant BL220c 6 Active Cool fans. Height: Rack (6U) or Tower model. G5 (Intel Xeon 5400, 5200; 2 sockets, Quad and Dual Management: Single Onboard Administrator - LAN and cores; up to 32 server nodes in 10U; 32 GB, 4 DIMM serial access. slots).

69 Journal of the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, 45, 1, 2010

Fig. 3. Sample Experion Architecture.

HP ProLiant BL400c Server Blades: HP ProLiant DellTM PowerEdgeTM M1000e BL460c G5 (Intel Xeon 5400; 2 sockets, Quad cores; The main reason to discuss this system of Dell is up to 10 modules (c7000); 32 GB, 8 DIMM slots); HP that in [5] it is used as a basis for comparative evalua- ProLiant BL460c G6 (Intel Xeon 5500; 2 sockets, Dual tion. and Quad cores; up to 16 modules (c7000), 8 (c3000); A. Chassis of DellTM PowerEdgeTM M1000e 192 GB, 12 DIMM slots); HP ProLiant BL465c G5 Modular Blade features: (AMD Opteron 2300; 2 sockets, Quad cores; up to 16 Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade: Form Fac- modules (c7000), 8 (c3000); 64 GB, 8 DIMM slots); tor: Size 10U, up to 16 half height or 8 full height blades. HP ProLiant BL465c G6 (AMD Opteron 2400; 2 sock- Power: 3 (non-redundant) or 6 (redundant) hot plug ets, Six cores; up to 16 modules (c7000), 8 (c3000); 64 power modules. Cooling: 9 hot-plug, redundant stan- GB, 8 DIMM slots); HP ProLiant BL490c G6 (Intel dard modules. Input/Output Modules: Up to 6 I/O. Xeon 5500; 2 sockets, Quad cores; up to 16 modules Modules with reserved lines; available switches include (c7000), 8 (c3000); 192 GB, 18 DIMM slots). Dell & Cisco 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet with modular slots, HP ProLiant BL600c Server Blades: HP ProLiant Dell 10Gb Ethernet with modular slots, Dell Ethernet BL680c G5 (Intel Xeon 7400, 7300, 7200; 2 or 4 sock- passthrough, Brocade 4Gb Fibre Channel, Brocade 8Gb ets, Six or Quad or Dual cores; up to 8 modules (c7000), Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel pass-through, Mellanox 4 (c3000); 128 GB, 16 DIMM slots); HP ProLiant DDR & QDR InfiniBand. Management Modules: 1 (stan- BL685c G5 (AMD Opteron 8300; 4 sockets, Quad cores; dard) or 2 (reserved) Chassis Management Controllers up to 8 modules (c7000), 4 (c3000); 128 GB, 8 DIMM (CMCs); by choices a switch for control of the typeKVM slots); HP ProLiant BL685c G6 (AMD Opteron 8400, may be integratedswitch with type crash cart. Man- 8300; 4 sockets, Six or Quad cores; up to 8 modules agement Features: Dynamic control of the power to the (c7000), 4 (c3000); 256 GB, 32 DIMM slots). individual blades; real time reporting for the consum-

70 G. Elenkov, I. Gerdjikov, V. Metodiev, I. Ivanov

Table 1. BladeCenter H (8852) up to 16 blade modules. Part No Form Factor Power Modules Hot Swap Power, Slots, Fans

8852-4XY Rack (9U) 19in x 29in 2900w (200V-240V) P, B, B

mation of the chassis and compute modules; real time Vmware and also on up to 960 cores of SPARC, Intel monitoring for the thermal conditions; protected SSL and AMD processors; up to 45% more energy savings. and interfaces; front panel has interactive LCD for tun- Form Factor: rack with height 10U, containing up to 10 ing, information and problems detection. server modules per chassis; up to 4 Sun Blade 6000 B. Dell PowerEdge Blade Servers [7]: chassis are supported of the enclosure 42U. Input-Out- Model Ì600: Form Factor: Blade with full height. put Interfaces: Sun Blade 6000 chassis midplane sup- Processors: 2 Quad-Core or Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5000 ports next protocols: PCIe 2.0, SAS 2.0, SATA 3.0 and series. RAM (MIN/MAX): up to 64GB, 8 DIMMS, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE); each server module has direct 667MHz DDR2. RAID controllers: SAS 6/iR with connection to 2 PCIe EMs for discrete inputs/outputs RAID 0/1. MAX internal storage: 2 x 300GB = 600GB and 2 QDR IB NEMs for aggregated inputs-outputs. SAS per blade. Input-Output Modules - Form factors supported for Model Ì605: Form Factor: Blade with full height. input-outputs are: PCIe EM; NEM; up to 2 industrial Processors: 2 Six-Core AMD Opteron 2000 series. standards PCI-SIG, hot-plug PCIe EMs per server mod- RAM (MIN/MAX): up to 64GB, 8 DIMMS, 667MHz ule; up to 2 hot-plug NEMs per Sun Blade 6000 modu- DDR2. RAID controllers: SAS 6/iR with RAID 0/1. lar system. CMM management: Assists to create remote MAX internal storage: 2 x 300GB = 600GB SAS per connection to the service processor of every blade server. blade. Reduces the length of the cable using only one manage- Model Ì805: Form Factor: Blade with full height. ment connection to the chassis. Ensures optional aggre- Processors: 2 Six-Core AMD Opteron 2000 series. gated point for supervision of the fans and power mod- RAM (MIN/MAX): up to 128GB, 16 DIMMs, 667MHz ules of the chassis using CMM module Integrated Lights DDR2. RAID controllers: SAS 6/iR (RAID 0/1), CERC Out Manager - ILOM). 6/I (RAID 0/1), PERC 6i (RAID 0/1). MAX internal Sun Blade 6048 chassis Key Benefits: flexibil- storage: 2 x 300GB = 600GB SAS per blade. ity allowing to run it on Solaris, Linux, Windows and Model Ì905: Form Factor: Blade with full height. Vmware and also on SPARC, Intel and AMD proces- Processors: 4 Quad-Core or Dual-Core AMD Opteron sors. The compute foundation of the Sun Constellation 8000. RAM (MIN/MAX): 2GB - 192GB 667MHz System are with up to 11 TFLOPS of peak performance DDR2. RAID controllers: SAS 6/iR (without RAID, per rack. Form Factor: combined design of a rack and RAID 0/1) CERC 6/I (RAID 0/1). MAX internal stor- chassis, which can accommodate up to 48 server mod- age: 2 x 300GB = 600GB SAS. ules (up to 1152 processing cores), up to 12 server Sun Blade 6000 Family Portfolio [8] modules per shell; optional expansion module for the The main reason to discuss this Sun system is chassis 2U ensures additional room to install standard that in [5] it is used as a basis for comparative evalua- 19 components, as switches. Input-Output interfaces: tion. Sun Blade 6048 chassis supports protocols as follows: A. Sun Blade Chassis Options PCIe 2.0, SAS 2.0, SATA 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), Sun Blade 6000 Chassis Key Benefits: flexibil- 10 GbE, Fibre Channel (FC) and IB. Each server mod- ity allowing to run on Solaris, Linux, Windows and ule has direct connection to 2 PCIe EMs for discrete

71 Journal of the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, 45, 1, 2010

Table 2. TCO savings per rack, chassis and blade.

Savings per rack Dell over HP Dell over IBM Acquisition costs $91,681 21.5% $35,885 9.7% TCO for 1 year $95,649 20.0% $38,959 9.2% TCO for 3 years $103,585 17.8% $45,107 8.6% TCO for 5 years $110,002 15% $48,935 7.3%

Savings per chassis Dell over HP Dell over IBM Acquisition costs $22.920 21.5% $8,971 9.7% TCO for 1 year $23.912 20.0% $9,740 9.2% TCO for 3 years $25,896 17.8% $11,277 8.6% TCO for 5 years $27,501 15.0% $12,234 7.3%

Savings per blade Dell over HP Dell over IBM Acquisition costs $1,433 21.5% $561 9.7% TCO for 1 year $1,495 20.0% $609 9.2% TCO for 3 years $1,619 17.8% $705 8.6% TCO for 5 years $1,719 15.0% $765 7.3%

inputs/outputs and 2 QDR IB NEMs for aggregated in- Sun Blade X6275 Server Module: Dual-node, two puts-outputs. Input-Output Modules - Form factors sup- socket server module with quad-core Intel Xeon 5500 ported for input-outputs are: PCIe EM; NEM; up to 2 series processors; 3x more memory; on-board QDR industrial standards PCI-SIG, hot-plug PCIe EMs per InfiniBand Host Channel Adapters; up to 9 TFLOPS. server module; Up to 8 hot-plug NEMs per Sun Blade IBM [9] 6048 modular system. CMM Management: 1 for a shelf, The main reason to discuss this system of IBM is 4 for a chassis. Assists to create remote connection to that in [5] it is used as a basis for comparative evalua- the service processor of every blade server. Reduces tion. The main BladeCenter blade servers are [9]: the length of the cable using only one management IBM BladeCenter HS22 - 2-socket Quad-core connection to the chassis. Ensures optional aggregated Intel® Xeon®, up to 96 GB memory. point for supervision of the fans and power modules IBM BladeCenter HS12 - 1-socket, Dual or of the chassis using module Integrated Lights Out Quad-core Intel® Xeon®, up to 24 GB memory. Manager - ILOM). IBM BladeCenter LS42 - 2-socket or 4-socket, B. Blade servers of the family Sun Blade 6000 Quad-core AMD Opteron, up to 128 GB memory. Sun Blade T6340 Server Module: Two IBM BladeCenter LS22 - 2-socket, Quad-core UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors. Supports highest AMD Opteron, up to 64 GB memory. memory capacity in the industry for blade servers (up to 256 GB per module). TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP – TCO Sun Blade T6320 Server Module: One processor From the descriptions in the part 2 and from UltraSPARC T2. Manages up to 64 simultaneous threads Figs. 1 and 2 it is clear that the modular server plat- per module with 4-, 6- or 8-core UltraSPARC T2 pro- form is complex in configuration and includes a lot of cessors. Flash Solid State Drives (SSDs). components (the total number of processor cores may

72 G. Elenkov, I. Gerdjikov, V. Metodiev, I. Ivanov

Table 3. TCO savings over performance-equivalent configurations.

Savings over performance-equivalent configurations Dell over HP Dell over IBM Acquisition costs $138,279 29.3% $87,950 20.8% TCO for 1 year $147,988 27.9% $98,280 20.4% TCO for 3 years $167,408 25.9% $118,940 19.9% TCO for 5 years $190,259 23.4% $143,536 18.7%

vary from 48 up to 1152 for example). That is why in processing power, memory and I/O bandwidth to blade September Dell Inc. commissioned Principled Tech- servers, they deal with larger and more diverse workloads. nologies (PT) to compare blade servers on the basis of Although blade server technology in theory al- the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) [5]. TCO includes lows for open, cross-vendor solutions, the stage of de- hardware, support, management of the software, I/O velopment of the technology as of 2009 users encounter virtualization, power, cooling, network ports and data fewer problems when using blades, racks and blade center space. It is adopted to examine TCO for 1, 3 and management tools all from the same vendor. 5 years. Three blade solutions are compared by TCO: Eventual standardization of the technology might Dell PowerEdge M1000e, HP BladeSystem c-Class and result in more choices for consumers; as of 2009 in- IBM BladeCenter H Type 8852 (Table 1). creasing numbers of third-party software vendors have Dell TCO analysis per rack, chassis and com- started to enter this growing field. putational blade module (Table 2) is focused on four Application of the modular-blade servers may key categories, that vary among the blade solutions and be illustrated by the Experion Process Knowledge Sys- for which test results are provided: hardware and sup- tem. EPKS is Honeywells unified control system for port costs for blade, chassis and rack; costs for system process, business, and asset management that helps in- management software; facilities costs, including: per rack dustrial manufacturers increase their profitability and space costs, power costs, cooling costs and Ethernet costs; productivity. Experion takes customers well beyond dis- costs for out-of-box set up. Second type of analysis with tributed control system functionality with an advanced TCOconcerns performance equivalence (Table 3), that automation platform solution and innovative applica- is TCO is examined in the perspective of configurations tion integration to improve business performance and that deliver comparable performance, as searching of a peace of mind. The Experion platform comprises many solution to ensure the necessary performance, means to different integrated hardware and software solutions determine the size of the blade servers that is satisfac- depending upon the needs of the application. This pic- tory. This process of sizing may has as a result deci- tured architecture (Fig. 3.) is a representation of many sions that vary widely in size, complexity and price. For of the possible nodes that can be utilized in the Experion performance measurement are used results of the architecture and by virtualization it can be integrated SPECjbb2005 test. The latter is a standard industrial into a single modular server. benchmark system, developed by Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC www.spec.org), to measure a REFERENCES servers Java performance [5]. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_server. CONCLUSIONS 2. RLX blade server. 3. Intel® Modular Server, 01. 2009. Blade servers function well for specific purposes 4. Intel® Modular Server, Spares/Parts List and Con- such as web hosting and cluster computing. Individual figuration Guide, 01.2009. blades are typically hot-swappable. As users add more 5. Principled Technologies, Total Cost of Ownership

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(TCO) of Dell, HP, and IBM Blade Solutions, White /en/pedge-portfolio-brochure.pdf, 2009. Paper, 2008. 8. http://www.sun.com/servers/blades/6000chassis/ 6. http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/blades/compo- datasheet.pdf. nents/enclosures/c-class/index.html. 9. IBM System x® Configuration and Options Guide, 7. http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge 07.07.2009.