New HP ProLiant Gen8 4-Socket Servers - Double Computing Density

In the modern world, the development of the HP ProLiant server product line, like any other server line, is affected not only by the work of engineers and managers of the manufacturing company. New technical solutions often depend on the appearance of technological solutions. For example, the release of Intel Xeon E5-4600 processors designed for ultra-dense computing contributed a lot to the appearance of two new models in the list of HP server models, DL560 Gen8 and BL660c Gen8.




Now, users of HP products will be able to get double the amount of processor power in the familiar 2U format (DL560 Gen8) or in one standard form factor blade server (BL660c). That is, where previously it was possible to install only two processors, now it will be possible to fit four. The result is continuous savings, especially in terms of the number of processors in the rack of the data center. And from the point of view of technological solutions, everything also looks interesting: new models, on the one hand, embody the best of mass infrastructure of dual-socket servers, and on the other, are equipped with technical moves from high-performance 4S platforms, which gives the entire lineup additional flexibility. For example, the DL560 Gen8 fits perfectly between the dual-processor DL380p and the powerful enterprise-wide system, the DL580 G7.

HP ProLiant DL560 Ultra-Dense 4-Socket Layout Enhances Space Utilization

At the same time, they were not limited to one increase in the number of processors and cores in HP; the other elements also received the closest attention. For example, due to the number of slots and support for 32-gigabyte memory modules in the DL560 Gen8, the amount of installed RAM is brought up to 1.5 TB. There are 6 PCI slots for expansion cards, but you don’t have to put a RAID controller there: the DL560 Gen8 comes with a built-in SmartArray controller, which, in addition to its other features, fully supports SSD drives. This controller allows you to get the most out of super-fast disks and maintains their longevity.

Even more important updates fell on the BL660c blade server. It has a standard width and full height, so up to 8 of these servers can be installed in a standard c7000 chassis. Each of them can be equipped with four Xeon processors with 8 cores. So, if desired, using the BL660c, you can bring the processor density to 256 cores per shelf. The maximum RAM capacity is slightly lower than that of the DL560 Gen 8, “only” 1 TB, but this is not so important for a blade server. In the same way as the number of slots for drives. The BL660c Gen 8 has two of them; they are equipped with hard and solid-state drives of the SFF form factor, that is, 2.5-inch ones. Given that blade baskets are usually connected via high-speed interfaces to storage systems, or equipped with their own data storage systems, these two slots perform, in fact, service function. But the capabilities of the FlexibleLOM network controller integrated into the BL660c are likely to be used to its full potential. The installation of various network adapters is supported, up to the FlexFabric solution on 4 10-gigabit Ethernet ports.

Whatever the other technical characteristics of the new servers may be, the key to them is still the number of processors per server unit. We are living in an era of increasing use of virtualization, including for business-critical applications, so that many corporate information systems will be able to get a serious increase in productivity by working on the BL660c and DL560 Gen 8. Moreover, today the BL660c blade server Gen8 leads in performance among the leading 4-processor servers in the SPECfp_rate2006 test