89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY White Paper. Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x

Transcription

1 89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY White Paper Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x June 2013

2 This report was developed by Edison Group, Inc. with IBM assistance and funding. This report may utilize information, including publicly available data, provided by various companies and sources, including IBM. The opinions are those of Edison Group, Inc. and do not necessarily represent IBM s position. Printed in the United States of America Copyright 2013 Edison Group, Inc. New York. Edison Group offers no warranty either expressed or implied on the information contained herein and shall be held harmless for errors resulting from its use. All products are trademarks of their respective owners. First Publication: June 2013 Produced by: Abby Christopher, Senior Analyst; David Novak, Analyst; Barry Cohen, Editor-in-Chief; Manny Frishberg, Editor

3 Table of Contents Executive Summary... 1 Introduction... 2 Drivers for Server Refresh... 2 Why Refresh with System x Servers?... 4 IBM System x Outperforms Competition with IBM X-Architecture Blueprint... 4 IBM System x Servers Remedy IT Pain Points... 4 IBM System x Servers Deliver Solutions... 6 Big Data and Data Analytics... 6 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)... 7 Performance and Customer Satisfaction... 7 Conclusion... 8 Resources... 9

4 Executive Summary Over the past several years, organizations have dramatically changed how they operate. The most competitive and innovative organizations recognize these changes and have compressed their server refresh cycles from three-to-five years to one-to-three years to take advantage of the benefits offered by upgrading. Servers and other IT tools and solutions evolve quickly and continually to meet new demands of executives, their employees, strategic partners, customers and other stakeholders. Individuals and teams now thrive on their ability to access and share data, in near-real time, from multiple disparate locations. Increasingly, organizations depend on reliable anytime, anywhere access driven largely by pervasive high-speed networks and the emergence of higher-performance smartphones, tablets, netbooks, laptops, and other mobile devices (i.e., bring your own device, or BYOD). Shifts in how individuals and teams do their day-to-day work raise the bar on what is required of IT infrastructure, particularly servers. User demand for rapid, remote access to complex data, along with new ways of working, drive the need for organizations to refresh or upgrade their servers. Each organization also experiences its own distinct pain points with its servers. At the same time, organizations need to invest in servers that allow them to innovate and compete, rather than simply meet and react to current ongoing IT needs. Independent analysts agree that server refresh is a valuable investment. According to Jenna Maertz, research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, A combination of server consolidation and virtualization can save [organizations] between 40 and 75 percent of upfront ongoing hardware costs, making a server refresh significantly more affordable than replacement parts, system adjustments, and addons. Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 1

5 Introduction This paper focuses on two main questions: Why refresh? and Why IBM? Why refresh? covers the strategic reasons why organizations need to refresh their servers, including pain points. Why IBM? cites a number of solutions that IBM System x servers offer to address pain points and to meet and anticipate growing infrastructure demands. Drivers for Server Refresh Pain points, such as server downtime, slow access time, and rising maintenance and energy costs, are all drivers for a server refresh. Many organizations face some of these challenges and yet may still struggle to determine the end of their servers usable life. Tolerating such pain points can limit an organization s ability to be competitive and responsive. The following are pain points to consider when determining a server refresh strategy: End of Usable Life Servers that appear to be operationally viable in the data center may still have reached the end of their usable life. Older servers often cannot be relied on to run new versions of operating systems or robust applications and services, such as Hadoop and SAP. Third-party software and hardware vendors offer limited, if any, support or certification for their products running on older servers. Downtime and Productivity Losses When servers go down, productivity slows. Unreliable older servers make it difficult for organizations to respond to and anticipate the needs of customers. Losses in productivity are losses in revenue. High Cost of Server Setup, Management, and Maintenance IT administrators must dedicate disproportionately more time to setting up, managing and maintaining older servers. Reconfiguring and setting up older servers requires systems administrators to be up to speed on older systems. As new IT staff is added, organizations also absorb the costs of training on older as well as newer models. Locating parts necessary to keep older servers up and running can be very difficult because many resellers do not stock them. Those that do are in a position to Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 2

6 charge a premium for such products. At the same time, many software vendors will not certify or support current versions of their operating systems and applications to run on older servers, and may no longer offer patches for older versions. Larger Server Footprint Drives Up Cost Due to virtualization, fewer servers can replace multiple servers, reducing their overall physical space requirements. Leasing square footage in an office complex or co-location facility can be very expensive. Older servers can cost more to own simply by virtue of their data center footprint. Performance and Memory Limits Older servers can slow users access time to data, and compromise productivity and responsiveness to customers and strategic partners. Insufficient memory, bandwidth capacity, and scalability can also limit workloads and overall server performance. Capacity and Scalability Limits Limited storage capacity and scalability can compromise the security of organizations data assets and the reliability of Big Data applications. Energy Costs for Cooling Older servers drive up cooling costs, because they are not as energy efficient as newer models. Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 3

7 Why Refresh with System x Servers? IBM System x Outperforms Competition with IBM X-Architecture Blueprint System x servers offer a number of unique competitive advantages over other x86-based platforms. The IBM X-Architecture blueprint forms the foundation of its System x servers by building custom technologies into the server firmware and hardware that increase performance, capacity, scalability, and security. The System x line ranges from the x3100 M4 and x3250 M4 entry-level 1-socket servers, to the x3530 M4 and x3630 M4 2-socket general business servers, to the x3300 M4, x3500 M4, x3550 M4, x3650 M4, x3750 M4, and x3690 X5 2-socket servers for business-critical applications, through the x3850 X5 and x3950 X5 4+-socket systems that support highend solutions. Each of the System x servers support a wide range of networking, storage, memory, and processor options. IBM System x Servers Remedy IT Pain Points System x server features, such as extensive Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA), light path diagnostics, and IBM exflash high-iops (Input/Output Operations per Second) storage, support mission-critical applications and address many IT pain points that organizations face today. Here are examples of how System x servers address IT pain points: Downtime and Productivity Losses System x servers offer better reliability, availability, and serviceability features, resulting in less downtime. For example, IBM light path diagnostics and extensive PFA support mission-critical applications. System x servers come with built-in light path diagnostic sensors that allow system administrators to quickly identify and remedy problems, both onsite and remotely. PFA avoids server crashes by identifying failing components before they fail, giving the administrator time to replace hot-swap parts or, if necessary, schedule a shutdown. 1 The light path diagnostics and PFA features also ensure that IBM is alerted when there are system problems. The Call Home feature alerts IBM ahead of time if a part is failing. IBM or 1 IBM ToolsCenter launch page: Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 4

8 one of its distribution partners can ship the customer a replacement part before they are even aware that there is a problem. System x servers also come with backup components, including redundant, hotswappable disks, fans, and power. According to independent testing conducted by the Information Technology Industry Council, IBM hardware platforms, including System x servers, achieved the highest levels of reliability: 52 percent of Big Blue server users had percent uptime (5.25 minutes of downtime per server/per annum) 2. The High Costs of Server Setup Management and Maintenance System x servers can be preloaded with a wide range of applications and operating systems, considerably speeding up setup time. For example, industry-standard hypervisors can be preloaded on an internal flash drive, making System x servers virtualization-ready. IBM also provides many easy-to-use server setup 3, management, and maintenance tools at no additional cost. These include operating system installation, inventory and diagnostic tools and custom bootable firmware media. 4 Server Performance and Memory Limits The exflash high-iops flash technology allows System x M4 and X5 servers to replace hundreds or even thousands of SAN drives for equivalent I/O operations per second. exflash improves access speeds, greatly reduces the data center storage footprint and energy and maintenance costs. Rapid, anywhere-anytime data access tests the limits of older servers. Big Data and business analytics applications and solutions such as Apache Hadoop and SAP have huge appetites for bandwidth, performance, and secure storage. To ensure optimum productivity, organizations need servers that can reliably and consistently respond to the demand for near realtime access to data. Increased memory capacity also enables the server to process applications faster, saving end users money. Large memory capacity supports larger VMs and faster performance. 2 ITIC 2013 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey, February 2013 by Laura DiDio. Unavailable online. 3 IBM System x servers have many tool-less installation features. For example, Slide Rails for mounting servers in a standard enclosure can be installed without a screwdriver or other tools, as well as hot-swap and simple-swap components, including disk drives, solid-state drives, fans, and power supplies. 4 IBM System x solutions launch page: Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 5

9 Energy Costs for Heating and Cooling IBM Cool Blue is an extensive set of tools designed to make each System x server (and other IBM platforms) energy efficient. For example, many System x servers offer low-voltage Intel processors that offer equivalent performance to highervoltage processors without reducing clock rates. System x 2-socket servers are Energy Star Compliant, and use efficient 80 Plus Platinum certified power supplies that are up to 94 percent efficient at converting AC wall current into DC power. Other standard and optional components are also low-voltage, to save on energy costs, including voltage regulator modules (VRMs) and low-voltage memory modules. System x servers also use the company s proprietary hexagonal ventilation holes, which increase cooling efficiency by fitting more holes in the same space as round ones. Beyond the servers themselves, the water-cooled IBM Rear Door Heat exchanger can remove 100 percent of the heat output before it even leaves the rack, reducing the need for computer room air conditioning. IBM Active Energy Manager is a tool that proactively monitors energy consumption of System x servers. IBM System x Servers Deliver Solutions As solutions and technologies, such as virtualization, data analytics, and mobile access evolve, the platforms on which they rely require periodic refreshes and upgrades. Retiring older servers lowers IT management costs and allows administrators to focus on mastering and managing a limited number of platforms. Consolidating while upgrading servers reduces the number of software licenses that organizations must purchase. Benchmarks also demonstrate that fewer, new and more efficient servers can produce/generate more workloads. Maximizing the benefits of consolidation requires powerful, reliable servers with highperformance processors and memory, capable of handling a large number of virtual machines (VMs). IBM offers System x servers to address organizations diverse needs and requirements. The System x server line ranges from value-priced uniprocessor towers suitable for point-of-sale terminals and small departmental use, to powerful rack and tower units capable of handling most virtualization, cloud, and infrastructure workloads, to 4- and 8-socket enterprise servers for the most demanding needs. Big Data and Data Analytics IBM has tightly coupled, validated reference architectures on System x servers for Big Data and data analysis applications to improve the performance of large scale unstructured and structured data analytics. These application-specific reference architectures optimize management, memory, CPU and bandwidth for SAP, Hadoop, Microsoft and other third-party software. Via its Big Data Systems Center, IBM offers its Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 6

10 customers access to more than 100 subject matter experts in hardware, software, and services who are available to assist with Big Data implementations, maintenance, and other technical support. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) System x servers can be preconfigured as a reference architecture, tailored for individual virtual desktop solutions from vendors like Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft. Each reference architecture is designed to improve the performance of thin-client applications and to simplify and streamline VDI management for system administrators. System x servers embed virtualization-aware and diagnostic technologies that improve reliability and performance and minimize downtime. Performance and Customer Satisfaction In 2013, System x servers achieved the first-ever TPC-C benchmark result to surpass the 1 million transactions-per-minute barrier in a virtualized x86 platform setting a new high bar for x86-64 performance. 5 System x servers have been ranked first 6, a ranking held for 12 of the previous 15 quarters, by the Technology Business Research, Inc. customer satisfaction survey. Rankings were based on hardware quality, reliability, on-site support, phone support, servicing, and replacement parts availability. System x servers have also been ranked first in mean satisfaction in virtualization, efficiency, and scalability. 5 Virtualization performance benchmark results: 6 Quality/Customer Satisfaction: Technology Business Research, Inc. (TBR) Report (IBM System x86 servers #1 in TBR Customer Satisfaction Survey, May 2013): Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 7

11 Conclusion Organizations face a wide range of server-related pain points, compromising their ability to compete and perform optimally. A server refresh with System x servers delivers and supports solutions and capabilities that include: Higher performance. Higher reliability, availability, and serviceability. More effective use of virtualization. Smaller data center footprint. Lower cooling costs. Simplified server maintenance. High customer satisfaction. Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 8

12 Resources IBM ToolsCenter launch page: IBM System x solutions launch page: Customer Satisfaction Survey, May 2013: Virtualization performance benchmark results: 5.pdf Transaction Processing Performance Council Ten most recently published results: Edison: Strategic Server Refresh with IBM System x Page 9