Data Centers: Intel's Perspective

On May 30-31, Moscow hosted the “World Data Center - 2012” forum, in which the Intel delegation took part. Let's take this opportunity to briefly, in an overview form, outline the vision of Intel today and the near future of the data center. The article is intended primarily for those habraly people who have a desire for a short time to get an idea about the topic - we invite experts to go through the comments and express their point of view, where and why the Data Centers go.

Faster

The article on ten gigabytes already said that it was in the data center that high-speed Ethernet technologies, from 10G to 100G inclusive, turned out to be the most demanded, and 40G, one might say, only registered there. This, of course, is not surprising - there is little where you can find such traffic density and multidirectionality. The isolation of data center needs has led to the separation of a whole class of specialized network devices, primarily switches, which have gone from a standard “box” to distributed cluster solutions, for example, the recently introduced Juniper QFabric complex.

QFabric Switching Network Topology

Well, if you do not take the cosmic scale and consider a small or medium data center - will it win the increase in the speed of internal lines, will the investment pay off? Practice shows that yes, it will win. Replacing the "beard" of gigabit lines with 10G will increase the throughput of one server, reduce the number of necessary ports and cables - in general, data processing efficiency will increase by about 50%. Additional profit can be obtained from the transfer of SAN lines (for example, Fiber Channel) to 10G transport.

More modern

Despite the pessimistic statements of Mr. Moore, the law of his name still continues to operate, which means that each year brings a significant increase in processor performance. For example, over the past 4 years, the integer performance of Intel Xeon processors has tripled - that is, a simple upgrade of the server fleet will increase the data center's power by several times without any mental effort. That's why the owners of large Data Centers line up for each new server update - on a large scale, the difference becomes especially noticeable. However, the growth will have a beneficial effect on all other data centers - at least due to the ability to reduce the number of units.
Another breakthrough line is the transition of servers and storage systems from hard drives to SSDs. Here the performance gain is such that even Muru did not dream. It is estimated that an array of 7 SSDs has the same read / write performance as an array of 75 SAS 15k HDDs. Obviously, with an equal volume, the cost of an SSD will be significantly higher, but in the case when the speed plays a decisive role - for example, in OLTP mode - the advantage of an SSD will be obvious. Other progressive features of SSDs should be taken into account: low power consumption and heating, small size - all this is also important for the data center.

Warmer

About heat-loving innovations Intel has already been discussed in a separate article . I can not resist the temptation to show the video from it again - it hurts too picturesque.

Briefly, the initiative can be stated as follows: stop cooling the data center! They were built not for people who are comfortable working at 20 degrees, but for equipment that should be able to function at a temperature favorable to us. Raising the temperature by 1 degree reduces the cost of cooling the data center by 4%: the effect of warming to non-extreme 30 degrees can be easily calculated in the mind.
A sufficient number of experiments have been conducted that showed that Data Centers, including super large ones, work quietly at 30-35 degrees, without air conditioning and humidity control, provided that the equipment is well ventilated and adapted to similar conditions (called Intel HTA - High Ambient Temperature) - at the same time, savings amount to millions of dollars a year. How this adaptation is made is seen in the example below.

HTA in action: on the left - traditional placement of elements on the server motherboard, on the right - optimized for better blowing processors

It is also necessary to prepare data center premises for NTA, using active means of monitoring and controlling heat flows in it. One of such tools is Intel Data Center Manager (DCM) - a set of libraries and development tools that are integrated into the data center management system and provide it with information on the heat and energy consumption of the Data Center components.

More economical

It is necessary to optimize the work not only of the entire data center as a whole, but also of each of its components separately. In Intel's ecosystem of data center solutions, Intel Node Manager, a technology embedded in Intel server platforms, does this work. His responsibilities include fine-tuning the data center servers in order to optimize their energy consumption. The tuning is actually subtle, at the level of the element base, mainly processors and memory (disabling cores, lowering the frequency).
Being built into the very core of the server platform, Node Manager first-hand and in real time receives all the indicators of server functioning, which allows you to accurately measure all the resources he needs.

Intel Node Manager Architecture

For example, uninterruptible power supply racks are always considered with a margin - and rightly so. However, when the rack is equipped and reached the cruise consumption level - is this reserve too large, maybe it will be enough for another server or two? Data Center should be economical! Another important application of Node Manager is managing server resources when it overheats. Again, due to its built-in platform, Node Manager allows you to not only send alarms to the administrator or stupidly shut down the server, but also reduce performance for cooling purposes.

To conclude my short talk about data centers, I would like to draw your attention to the title picture of the message. Let's not forget that energy efficiency not only saves significant amounts, but also to some extent affects the environment. But everyone wants to live, so the “green” data centers are our common choice. May he be conscious and uncompromising!