Servers—From Scale to Hyperscale
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
INDUSTRY | IN DEPTH Manish Gupta [email protected] Servers—From Scale to Hyperscale As the efficiency and flexibility offered by hyperscale computing is making noise, enterprises are curious to know how to apply the hyperscale design principles to their more mainstream datacenter needs he requirements placed on the datacenter of volume of data and types or volume of workloads can an average organization have today trans- be accommodated quickly and in a cost-effective man- formed in scale. Organizations require stor- ner. Hyperscale environments have hardware and service age, processing, and network capabilities of needs that are distinct from traditional datacenters. Be- a much larger scale than before and also have cause these environments have a process and focussed Tthe ability to adapt quickly in order to stay competitive methodology of operations, organizations do not want to in today’s dynamic business environment. The answer to pay for capabilities they do not need. this lies in hyperscale computing, a term that has been For example, because the high availability in hyperscale derived from the datacenter efficiency displayed by large- environments is achieved primarily through software, or- scale web companies such as Google, Facebook, and ganizations do not need many of the redundant hardware Amazon. components or availability tools included with other servers. Hyperscale computing or web-scale IT, simply put is a In addition, these organizations do not typically use same- distributed computing environment where increase in the day parts replacement services, instead, they typically have 64 | October 15, 2015 www.dqindia.com A CyberMedia Publication | INDUSTRY | IN DEPTH on-site parts kiosks they can use to service multiple systems tectures for different workloads does not make business during regularly scheduled maintenance windows. sense from a capital and operating expenditure and ef- ficiency point of view. THE SCALING HYPERSCALE COMPUTING The fundamental premise of a hyperscale environment Hyperscale computing in the mainstream datacenter has is to build the environment based on what is most prob- become possible with several vendors investing in build- ably required with blocks of compute, storage, IO, etc, ing such capabilities and making it accessible to the larger which can be mixed and matched based on the need of market. With greater awareness about the flexibility and the application. This allows organizations to maintain a efficiency offered by such technologies, businesses are single pool of infrastructure which can be allocated as paying attention to the possibility of hyperscale comput- the needs arise. Let’s take the example of 3 very differ- ing. They are curious to know how to apply the hyperscale ent workloads a Hadoop environment requires memory, design principles to their mainstream datacenter needs. IO, and a lot of disk space but not CPU cycles, and disk So, while it’s true, there are still sharp contrasts between IOPS. A database requires disk IOPS and a lot of CPU hyperscale and mainstream enterprise computing archi- clock cycles, but may not require significant disk space. tectures, with leading enterprises starting to adopt the A typical environment consists of many such applications guiding principles of hyperscale. from web delivery to a CRM putting all of this on one elas- The concept has caught on the awareness and inter- tic hyperscale environment which allows the organization est of India IT decision makers. In 2014, Dell in associa- to optimize utilization and at the same time minimize the tion with PSB research conducted the Global IT Decision operating expenses. Maker’s survey, according to which 90% of IT decision makers (ITDMs) in India are interested in making IT work THE EMERGENCE OF CONVERGENCE more like the organizations that are primarly hyperscale New converged architectures are available that provide, and have adopted or are developing some of the con- for the first time, a common, scalable platform that eas- cepts, with 77% seeing operational efficiencies as an ily adapts to the ever-shifting business and technology important benefit of hyperscale computing. This is much landscape. By leveraging such a building block concept higher than the global average where 75% of IT decision derived from the large hyperscale IT operations, organiza- makers have shown interest in the technology. tions can better manage, scale, and tailor infrastructure to meet business needs as they change over time. While EVOLUTION TO HYPERSCALE technology to converge server, storage, and networking The server market has changed in dynamics drastically is already here, these new converged architectures will in the past few years due to unique challenges, needs, revolutionize how modern enterprises consume and man- and workload requirements of server market segments. age IT in 2015. On the one hand, you have the large global Internet Leading analyst firms are bullish about the adoption companies that have evolved a seamless IT system that of hyperscale computing or web-scale IT. Research firm helps them achieve agility and scalability of another level Gartner recently predicted that by 2017 web-scale IT will through new processes, architectures, and practices. be an architectural approach found operating in 50% of This is followed by companies that are massive in scale the global enterprises. IDC predicts that in 2015, Asia is such as web-tech and HPC, traditional larger enterprises, likely to focus on web-scale cloud systems. In the da- and small and medium businesses. These unique work- tacenter, the most efficient, cost-effective, and profitable load requirements have transpired into four different ap- technologies are branded fit to survive the market de- proaches to the server and resulted in the cross-pollina- mands and dynamics. We believe that hyperscale com- tion of best practices. puting stands among them as a result of its flexibility, ef- When it comes to hyperscale, we observed that when ficiency, and the business benefits it provide to working with massive Internet companies, IT architecture enterprises. needs to be common, but server, storage, and network- ing needs to be modified to suit specific verticals such as The author is Director, Enterprise Solutions analytics and web serving. To completely modify archi- Group, Dell India | A CyberMedia Publication www.dqindia.com October 15, 2015 | 65.