HPE Synergy, field experience
The Synergy 12000 Frame is the new HPE blade chassis. A beta version of this equipment was tested for me, in this article I want to share the experience of operating a new basket from HPE and tell how it all works.
The Synergy 12000 chassis at first glance looks like the HPE c7000 chassis, but it is only at first glance. In fact, this is a completely different basket designed from scratch, only 10U is common with the HPE c7000 and the fact that the servers are inserted in front and interconnects at the back (as well as with other blade solutions). The chassis has 12 slots for installing servers + 2 slots for installing Composer-a (responsible for managing the chassis) and Image tape drive (contains OS images). The decision to reduce the density of servers is due to the forecast for an increase in the thermal package of future generations of CPU. The new chassis received a backplane with separated optical fibers and will support data transmission through photons. It’s still hard to imagine exactly where this might be needed, in a photon switch with minimal delays or in computing modules using light instead of electricity, the fact that there are optical fibers indicates HPE's long-term plans to use the new chassis. By the way, the c7000 chassis has not undergone significant changes for 11 years and remains compatible with the entire line of manufactured servers.
The rails for mounting the chassis in the rack inspire confidence and do not play under the weight of the basket.
The weight of the basket in full packing is almost 250 kg.
The removable partition for installing double-height servers is equipped with two spring clips and has become more convenient compared to the same in the c7000.
The Synergy 12000 chassis has slots for installing the following modules:
Consider each of the modules:
The chassis is controlled via the OneView interface in the WEB browser. Composer is a mini x86 architecture server with a modified Linux kernel. OneView is spinning on it, if you pull out Composer, then this will not affect the performance of the components, but control will not be available. The baskets can be combined among themselves into groups, while all the baskets in the group will be managed through a single OneView interface.
This configuration uses two (Active / Standby) composers installed in different baskets for fault tolerance. Up to 20 chassis can be combined in one group.
Image Streamer is also a mini server, it stores images of operating systems and it is responsible for uploading the OS to the servers.
Located on the right front panel, it is necessary for the initial setup of the chassis, as well as for resetting to factory settings. Provides connection to the active FLM module.
Frame Link Module (FLM) - its tasks include the following functions:
Each chassis has two FLM modules for fault tolerance. When combining several baskets, the FLM modules are connected to form an isolated control network with a ring topology.
Compared to the s7000 PSU, the Synergy PBs have become smaller in size and their capacity has increased. 6 power supplies provide N + N redundancy for all basket components.
An innovation among the switching modules is the use of satellite switches that connect to the master switch located in another basket, i.e. it saves the number of necessary uplinks and budget, since satellite switches will cost less. Satellite switch can only be connected to the master switch, up to 4 satellites can be connected to one Master Switch. In the photo below, the master switch (above the top row of power supplies).
The design of the latch impressed with its monumentality and smooth ride.
This server contains fourth-generation Xeon E5 processors like bl460 Gen9, but differs from it in design: the RAID controller is now located under the disks, the redundant power supply has a larger capacity, and the number of memory slots has increased to 24.
The design of the drive cage with disks allows direct connection drives without a RAID controller, this option will be necessary when using servers as components of software-defined storage systems (SDS).
The connectors for the mezzanine adapters, as well as the connectors on the backplane of the chassis, have become less whimsical and the risk of bending the contacts is now minimized.
The design of the new latch handle is just a gift for escort staff, as it can be used to carry servers.
All basket components are managed through OneView, Synergy does not have separate VirtualConnect management interfaces and SAS switches, you can’t even enter the iLo WEB interface here, although iLo itself is, of course. The OneView interface is simple and straightforward, you just need to get used to the fact that the physical and logical components of the equipment are now separated from each other. All server identifiers (serial number, MAC address, WWN, etc.) can be tied to a specific basket slot, as well as a set of microcode versions of server components, OS drivers, and the OS image itself. For example, if the task is to transfer the database server to the new hardware, then this requires:
Equipment profiles can be transferred between physical servers, thereby optimizing resource utilization. In fact, now it’s not the equipment itself that is configured, be it a basket server or a switch, all settings are stored in the equipment profile that can be applied to any component of the system with the click of a button. There can be many profiles, but there can be only one active profile for a piece of equipment; if a profile is not assigned to the equipment, it will be idle. The server profile contains comprehensive settings information including RAID configuration and UEFI / BIOS settings. Great opportunities open up for DevOps, the control system has RestAPI support, and everything that can be done through the WEB interface can be done through RestAPI.
The OneView menu has a view.
VirtualConnect Management.
Server management menu.
OneView also includes data center modeling functionality with the ability to receive data on rack temperature and power consumption through temperature sensors in servers and iPDUs.
HPE Synergy turned out to be a very interesting product, that rare case when marketing was in second place after the technical part. The new Synergy basket is not positioned as a direct replacement for the c7000; they have slightly different tasks. I believe that the c7000 will exist in parallel with Synergy until the backplane becomes a bottleneck. At the moment, competitors do not have similar solutions, but with a high degree of probability the demand for such equipment will grow thereby creating new proposals.
Chassis Synergy 12000
The Synergy 12000 chassis at first glance looks like the HPE c7000 chassis, but it is only at first glance. In fact, this is a completely different basket designed from scratch, only 10U is common with the HPE c7000 and the fact that the servers are inserted in front and interconnects at the back (as well as with other blade solutions). The chassis has 12 slots for installing servers + 2 slots for installing Composer-a (responsible for managing the chassis) and Image tape drive (contains OS images). The decision to reduce the density of servers is due to the forecast for an increase in the thermal package of future generations of CPU. The new chassis received a backplane with separated optical fibers and will support data transmission through photons. It’s still hard to imagine exactly where this might be needed, in a photon switch with minimal delays or in computing modules using light instead of electricity, the fact that there are optical fibers indicates HPE's long-term plans to use the new chassis. By the way, the c7000 chassis has not undergone significant changes for 11 years and remains compatible with the entire line of manufactured servers.
The rails for mounting the chassis in the rack inspire confidence and do not play under the weight of the basket.
The weight of the basket in full packing is almost 250 kg.
The removable partition for installing double-height servers is equipped with two spring clips and has become more convenient compared to the same in the c7000.
Chassis Modules
The Synergy 12000 chassis has slots for installing the following modules:
- 12 servers
- 1 Composer
- 1 Image Streamer
- 1 Console Connection Module
- 2 FLM modules
- 10 fans
- 6 power supplies
- 6 interconnects
Consider each of the modules:
Composer
The chassis is controlled via the OneView interface in the WEB browser. Composer is a mini x86 architecture server with a modified Linux kernel. OneView is spinning on it, if you pull out Composer, then this will not affect the performance of the components, but control will not be available. The baskets can be combined among themselves into groups, while all the baskets in the group will be managed through a single OneView interface.
This configuration uses two (Active / Standby) composers installed in different baskets for fault tolerance. Up to 20 chassis can be combined in one group.
Image streamer
Image Streamer is also a mini server, it stores images of operating systems and it is responsible for uploading the OS to the servers.
Console Connection Module
Located on the right front panel, it is necessary for the initial setup of the chassis, as well as for resetting to factory settings. Provides connection to the active FLM module.
Flm module
Frame Link Module (FLM) - its tasks include the following functions:
- fan control
- power supply management
- transmission of commands from the composer to the final element
- combining several baskets into one group
Each chassis has two FLM modules for fault tolerance. When combining several baskets, the FLM modules are connected to form an isolated control network with a ring topology.
Power supplies
Compared to the s7000 PSU, the Synergy PBs have become smaller in size and their capacity has increased. 6 power supplies provide N + N redundancy for all basket components.
Switching modules
An innovation among the switching modules is the use of satellite switches that connect to the master switch located in another basket, i.e. it saves the number of necessary uplinks and budget, since satellite switches will cost less. Satellite switch can only be connected to the master switch, up to 4 satellites can be connected to one Master Switch. In the photo below, the master switch (above the top row of power supplies).
The design of the latch impressed with its monumentality and smooth ride.
Synergy 480 Gen9 Server
This server contains fourth-generation Xeon E5 processors like bl460 Gen9, but differs from it in design: the RAID controller is now located under the disks, the redundant power supply has a larger capacity, and the number of memory slots has increased to 24.
The design of the drive cage with disks allows direct connection drives without a RAID controller, this option will be necessary when using servers as components of software-defined storage systems (SDS).
The connectors for the mezzanine adapters, as well as the connectors on the backplane of the chassis, have become less whimsical and the risk of bending the contacts is now minimized.
The design of the new latch handle is just a gift for escort staff, as it can be used to carry servers.
OneView Management System
All basket components are managed through OneView, Synergy does not have separate VirtualConnect management interfaces and SAS switches, you can’t even enter the iLo WEB interface here, although iLo itself is, of course. The OneView interface is simple and straightforward, you just need to get used to the fact that the physical and logical components of the equipment are now separated from each other. All server identifiers (serial number, MAC address, WWN, etc.) can be tied to a specific basket slot, as well as a set of microcode versions of server components, OS drivers, and the OS image itself. For example, if the task is to transfer the database server to the new hardware, then this requires:
- Turn off the old server.
- Insert a new server.
- Wait for the completion of the process of automatic server configuration and OS filling.
- Configure the application on the server if these settings were not initially included in the OS image.
- All!
Equipment profiles can be transferred between physical servers, thereby optimizing resource utilization. In fact, now it’s not the equipment itself that is configured, be it a basket server or a switch, all settings are stored in the equipment profile that can be applied to any component of the system with the click of a button. There can be many profiles, but there can be only one active profile for a piece of equipment; if a profile is not assigned to the equipment, it will be idle. The server profile contains comprehensive settings information including RAID configuration and UEFI / BIOS settings. Great opportunities open up for DevOps, the control system has RestAPI support, and everything that can be done through the WEB interface can be done through RestAPI.
The OneView menu has a view.
VirtualConnect Management.
Server management menu.
OneView also includes data center modeling functionality with the ability to receive data on rack temperature and power consumption through temperature sensors in servers and iPDUs.
What did you like
- OneView single point of control.
- Support Rest API.
- Using equipment profiles.
- The presence of optical links on the backplane of the chassis.
What did not like
- The fixation of the power cables was unsuccessfully implemented; the ties may crack over time.
- On top of the chassis there are holes in which foreign objects can get.
- Profile changes on Virtual Connect are not applied quickly.
conclusions
HPE Synergy turned out to be a very interesting product, that rare case when marketing was in second place after the technical part. The new Synergy basket is not positioned as a direct replacement for the c7000; they have slightly different tasks. I believe that the c7000 will exist in parallel with Synergy until the backplane becomes a bottleneck. At the moment, competitors do not have similar solutions, but with a high degree of probability the demand for such equipment will grow thereby creating new proposals.