CASE STUDY Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 Family Storage Performance Data Center Efficiency Enabling high-density, low-power data storage for efficient microblogging Intel® Xeon® processor E3 family helps Sina develop a cost-effective cold storage solution for its microblogging platform Sina Weibo* is the information-sharing and communication platform Sina developed to provide users with an effective and efficient microblogging service, allowing them to post messages, upload photos, share, and communicate with friends and family anytime and anywhere via their laptop, PC, or mobile device. Since its launch, Sina’s microblogging service has become a leading communication platform in China, with over 500 million subscribers and more than 300,000 certified users including over “The TCO benefits of the Intel® 130,000 corporate and institutional accounts. Xeon® processor E3 family helped Sina facilitates its microblogging service through Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT), Sina increase our storage capacity which is dedicated to providing cloud computing data center clients through a full range by approximately 70 percent while of products including solutions for rack-mounted servers, storage devices, network switches, and integrated cabinets. Quanta Cloud Technology also performs system reducing server power consumption integration, tuning, and optimization according to the needs of its clients, strengthening by approximately 40 percent. Choosing and enhancing efficiency according to their needs and designing system solutions for Intel® architecture for our cold server large data centers and enterprises. Through this fruitful partnership, Sina helps its users storage solution ensures compatibility communicate with the rest of the world whenever and wherever they are. with existing infrastructure and CHALLENGE applications, reduces complexity, and • Inactive data uses valuable data center resources. Social media data is created rapidly lowers total cost of ownership.” in large volumes, but also has a short life span as active data. When data becomes inactive, it wastes storage resources designed for frequent access. Wang Shuo Operation Director SOLUTION Sina Research and Engineering Department • Intel® Xeon® processor E3 family-based cold storage solution. Deploy Quanta Cloud Technology’s STRATOS* S100-L11SL cold storage servers running on the Intel Xeon processor E3 family, which provides a high-density, low-power cold storage solution for Sina’s massive volume of inactive data. IMPACT • Cost-effective cold storage solution. Sina increased its storage capacity by “Utilizing the Intel Xeon processor approximately 70 percent while reducing server power consumption and lowering unit E3 family, Sina has been able to capacity power consumption by approximately 40 percent. take advantage of Quanta Cloud • Optimized utilization of storage resources. Sina’s microblogging service can store and Technology’s high-density, low-power serve cold data to users while reducing the overall cost of storing infrequently accessed data. cold storage servers at low operating With the rapid rise of social media, people To meet this challenge, Sina sought help from temperatures and low failure rates. can now exchange information whenever Quanta Cloud Technology to implement a The solution meets the requirements and wherever they want. Along with this cold storage solution. Cold storage is a way and applications for scale-out storage impressive rise of social media comes to store rarely accessed data in large volume in large-scale data centers. Through a rapid and exponential increase in the with low energy consumption. this project, our storage solution volume of data stored by social media service providers. A great amount of social Compared to general storage solutions, was proven to not only meet Sina’s data is only viewed by users for a very short cold storage primarily focuses on requirements, but also to exceed time, immediately after it is uploaded (active delivering cost-optimized data storage. customers' expectations for price/ data). The data is accessed increasingly “Within the Sina microblog’s 20,000 less over time, becoming inactive data. servers, a great amount of data is rarely performance and power consumption. accessed, with a processor utilization Quanta Cloud Technology will continue Processing inactive data the same way as active data reduces the efficiency of the rate of less than 15 percent. However, optimizing our products and services to resources dedicated to storing and serving this kind of data increases by 30 percent provide the best solution to large data active data. Even so, while this aged data every year,” explained Mike Yang, general center customers. is not accessed frequently, it needs to be manager at Quanta Cloud Technology. available any time a user requests it. The According to Yang, although Sina's challenge for Sina is how to cost-effectively microblog has been in service for only a Mike Yang store this aged, inactive data while few years, the amount of data it possesses General Manager maintaining durability and availability. has been increasing at an exponential rate. Quanta Cloud Technology The new cold storage solution increases storage capacity by up to 70 percent while reducing power consumption per unit storage by approximately 40 percent Traditional Intel® Xeon® processor Another storage LESSONS LEARNED storage server E3-1220L v2-based sever server option • Although cold storage techniques 217 W 127 W 330 W are still in their initial development stages, Intel has released a series of 220 V processors optimized for the cold 12 Disks 12 Disks 24 Disks storage sector and is committed to 13 A 2 TB 2 TB 2 TB developing a wide range of solutions cabinet that meet the demands for cost- 2860 W Per server Per server Per server effective cold storage solutions. 13 sets 22 sets 8 sets Maximum Maximum Maximum • Intel® technology-based cold storage servers can provide users: HDD capacity: HDD capacity: HDD capacity: - Superb performance by driving a higher 312 TB 528 TB 284 TB number of data disks per processor Power consumption: Power consumption: Power consumption: - Excellent energy efficiency, since they 9.04 W/TB 5.29 W/TB 6.88 W/TB can achieve higher cabinet server density and reduced operating cost Comparison of cold storage solution servers done by Sina using Intel® Xeon® processor - Compatibility with broad range of E3 family, a traditional storage server and another type of storage server industry standard applications, substantially decreasing Without effective cold storage solutions, support their current applications, resulting investment in data migration, rising business costs can result in an in a higher overall total cost of ownership testing, and maintenance unsustainable business model. (TCO) for the cold storage solutions from Quanta Cloud Technology. The improved - Proven maturity. Intel technology- Meeting the demands of massive data efficiency of Sina’s microblog service is based platforms have a long history To help Sina solve this problem, Quanta also enabling the company to develop of reliability in the enterprise data Cloud Technology proposed cold storage new business platforms such as emails center, with a continuing roadmap servers running on the Intel Xeon and videos and pursue further business of innovations. processor E3 family. expansion opportunities. When selecting its cold storage solution, Improving microblogging performance engineers from the Sina microblog team Considering the advantages of using Intel A brighter future needed to ensure they were getting the most architecture, Sina went for the Intel Xeon In the future, Sina's microblog team aims cost-effective solution for their business processor E3 family-based STRATOS S100- to deploy more cold storage systems and model while maintaining the same user L11SL 1U cold storage server offered by to continue utilizing servers based on the experience. The Intel Xeon processor E3 Quanta Cloud Technology. The server Intel Xeon processor E3 family. It is also family can drive data stored on 12 disks, while was installed with up to 14 SATA hard evaluating the new Intel® Atom® processor the processor of a non-Intel® architecture- disks. As a high-density storage server, the C2750. Intel is also working with the Sina based solution accommodates fewer disks, STRATOS S100-L11SL 1U cold storage microblog team to apply erasure coding resulting in a greater number of processors server is suitable for large data centers with and other techniques to the cold storage per rack. Utilizing the Intel Xeon processor E3 a demand for storage software, allowing for system to save storage space, using the family-based cold storage platform meant horizontal expansion. processing capabilities of Intel® processors. higher density and simpler architecture solution. Moreover, the energy-efficient Intel Test data from Sina showed that compared Xeon processor E3 family-based servers with traditional storage servers, the Intel contribute to reducing energy consumption Xeon processor E3 family-based cold Find a solution that’s right for your and operating costs for the data center. storage servers have increased storage organization. Contact your Intel capacity by approximately 70 percent while representative, visit Intel’s Business Success By using Intel Xeon processor E3 family- reducing server power consumption and Stories for IT Managers (www.intel.com/ based servers, Sina microblog can ensure lowering unit capacity power consumption itcasestudies) or explore the