WHITE PAPER Maintaining High Availability at Lower Cost with Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E Servers

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER Maintaining High Availability at Lower Cost with Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E Servers Sponsored by: Fujitsu Vernon Turner March 2010 Jean S. Bozman EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F Fujitsu Ltd. has built a scalable x86 server that provides 64 cores in a 12U, eight-socket system for enterprise workloads such as scalable databases and line-of-business applications (ERP, CRM). This system, the Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E server, is based on Intel Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 processors. It is built with reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features and management software to support highly demanding enterprise workloads with high availability, security, and reduced power and cooling that support the principles of green IT. IDC believes that this system is a logical extension of Fujitsu's PRIMERGY line of x86 servers and also a successor to the Intel Itanium-based PRIMEQUEST server system, which proved many of the design principles on which it is based extending Fujitsu's x86 server products to support workloads that formerly ran on scalable highend enterprise servers. Although it will be competing with many other servers based on Nehalem-EX x86 processors, the Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E server carries forward many of the RAS features and management capabilities that have traditionally been found at higher price points in scalable enterprise datacenter servers. As such, it will provide an example of how x86 server technology is evolving to support enterprise requirements for applications and databases as they migrate from earlier generations of scalable host server systems. SITUATION ANALYSIS Business Benefits of Deploying x86 Servers to Support Enterprise Workloads The datacenter is changing and it is doing so rapidly. The datacenter is being transformed in a process that began several years ago with the introduction of multicore, multisocket servers and the transformation is continuing today with the emergence of converged infrastructure (CI), which is bringing servers, storage, and networking closer together. All of these changes have provided a new set of options to IT managers and business unit managers. New hardware platforms are coming to market that will host workloads in new and exciting ways that directly address the top concerns of IT organizations namely, server utilization, use of datacenter space, and power and cooling.

2 As Figure 1 shows, these issues are among the top concerns within the enterprise datacenter, as reported by several hundred IT managers and datacenter managers in an IDC demand-side study of over 500 respondents. FIGURE 1 Top Datacenter Challenges Q. What is the number one challenge that your datacenter faces today? Power/cooling and energy efficiency Budget/funding and cost control Security Nothing/no issues Space Staffing/qualified staff Uptime/reliability/availability Capacity Keep up with technology/updating Disaster recovery/backup Green initiatives/environmentals Other (% of respondents) n = 504 Source: IDC, 2009 When it comes to operating an enterprise datacenter, limited IT budgets are increasing customers' concerns about efficiency, operational costs, and energy. Power and cooling concerns top the list because energy costs have risen dramatically in recent years. Budget concerns are also at the top of the list following a year, 2009, in which an economic downturn caused budget tightening on a worldwide basis. Security and availability which can be related to incidents of downtime are also near the top of the list. Importantly, the use of datacenter "real estate" is another top concern, prompting many consolidation projects that will result in the hosting of more workloads on a smaller number of physical servers than was possible before. Finally, IT staff and having appropriate IT skill sets for specific workloads are also top of mind, according to the IDC demand-side, customer-based study. 2 # IDC

3 Importance of High Availability and Reliability for Enterprise Applications High availability which is the avoidance of downtime is a highly prized goal of datacenter managers, and there are many key drivers for putting in place high availability. An IDC study, High Availability in a Virtualized World, asked 370 IT managers and executives to describe why they were working to improve high availability often through the use of highly reliable server systems and high-availability software. They were asked to describe the key factors leading them to improve the availability of enterprise applications running in the datacenter (see Figure 2). According to the IT managers, the drivers for high availability include: Need to keep enterprise applications online by improving uptime of systems Concerns about employee productivity Need to support enterprise-level applications or workloads Need to support Web-enabled workloads that can be accessed on an alwaysavailable, 24 x 7 x 365 basis Need to prevent revenue loss to the business Need to retain customers and business partners who rely on access to enterprise systems Legal costs related to downtime and regulatory oversight IDC customer-based research has resulted in consistent findings about these highavailability "drivers": They are found in every major geographic region and in every vertical market. They are universal, precisely because high availability is the quality that allows processing to continue, even in the event that an unplanned event occurs, such as a power outage, network outage, or natural disaster. Any downtime that lasts more than a few minutes starts impacting business operations and business revenue. However, technologies that support high levels of "uptime" with levels of four-nines (99.99% of uptime) or more allow processing to continue and disaster recovery to take place, if needed. That capability is what allows business to proceed as usual even during periods when demand for computing services "peaks" and more computer resources must be tapped in order to support the level of end-user access and database queries IDC #

4 FIGURE 2 Leading Drivers for High-Availability Deployment Solutions Q. Rate each of the following in terms of the importance they play in driving the decision to implement high-availability solutions for your XXX-based applications? More concern about downtime affecting my company and business Impact on employee productivity More important applications on my server than in the past Web-enabled workloads require 24 x 7 x 365 availability Revenue loss Impact on customer satisfaction/retention Impact on business partners or suppliers Consolidation has created a single point of failure Impact on company brand Legal costs/legal department requirements Regulatory fees or penalties (concerns about compliance) (Rating) n = 370 Note: Importance was based on a scale of 1 10, where 1 = not at all important and 10 = extremely important. Source: IDC's High Availability in a Virtualized World, 2009 Importance of Supporting Widely Available IT Skill Sets Most IT organizations generally have strong IT skill sets in Windows and Linux, but not in Unix systems, which require more specialized skills. This means that enterprise systems will increasingly have to be supported by a new generation of programmers and system administrators who are working within x86 server infrastructures with Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. The x86 architecture is evolving, with support for 64-bit computing added in recent years and a large portfolio of ISV software applications available to run on x86 server platforms. Over time, more RAS features have been built into enterprise servers based on x86 architecture, and the layered software supporting virtualization, 4 # IDC

5 workload consolidation, and system management is now in place to provide more granular control of this computing environment, as it matures, supporting more enterprise applications and databases. With the advent of virtualization in the x86 server world, the principles of workload isolation and workload consolidation which originated in the world of businesscritical computing have come into sharp focus and have taken center stage. It is apparent that systems vendors will need to take steps to ensure that important workloads are protected from such occurrences as corrupted memory, failure of hardware components, and software problems. To do that, system designs must anticipate what can go wrong and take steps to mitigate business risk by providing alternate resources within the system and by protecting important data. The Need to Do "More" with "Less" Historically, the midrange and high-end enterprise servers within the datacenter have provided the most reliable hardware systems for enterprise computing, especially important for business-critical workloads. However, as multicore, multisocket server systems began shipping in the 2000s, the capacity and capability of x86 server systems increased greatly within a relatively small form factor. This fits with the economic pressure to do "more" with "less" prompted by the recent economic downturn and to support more work with smaller servers while spending less money to buy and maintain the systems. Now, new advances in technology are reducing the up-front costs of deploying highly reliable servers. Growing Importance of Multicore/Multithreaded Servers in the Enterprise Multicore/multithreaded servers are playing an increasingly important role in enterprise computing, supporting high performance and higher compute density with greater energy efficiency. Rackmounted (rack-optimized) servers are a main building block of large datacenters, but the challenge is to run more workloads in less space because of operational costs associated with each physical server. Powerful multicore processors that are housed in small form factors will address these concerns by providing better price/performance, improving energy efficiency, and reducing operational costs in the datacenter. Importance of Green IT Green IT is becoming a more important consideration for datacenter managers, both to support environmental and regulatory initiatives and to ensure energy-efficient IT operations. The move to green IT has brought attention to the need for better resource management, and more efficient technology, in managing complex computing environments. To achieve this goal, datacenters must put into place better monitoring of heat output and better, more efficient cooling technologies. Importantly, datacenters must rely on a new generation of management software to keep track of the heat that is being generated and dissipated within the datacenter. After that heat is detected, it will be addressed on a system level, a rack level, or a datacenter level IDC #

6 Deploying Business-Critical Workloads on Windows and Linux-Based Servers Customers have long wanted to migrate demanding workloads to systems built on industry-standard x86 components. However, such deployments need a high degree of built-in resiliency to ensure continued operation to cope with unplanned events (e.g., network outage, power outage) or the failure of one or more hardware components within the server system. Following are some of the criteria customers seek for their business-critical workloads: Customer need for scalable x86 servers. In recent years, many important workloads have been deployed on x86 servers, but they now need more "headroom" for growing applications and databases. Otherwise, customers need to deploy scale-out clusters of x86 servers, which often require special skill sets for configuration and management. At the same time, these important workloads need more capacity, more memory, more I/O and more resiliency through the use of more RAS features. Now, with the increasing adoption of virtualization software, more virtual machines (VMs) are being deployed per physical server than ever before, making RAS features an important way to protect those VM workloads. Customer challenges in scale-out x86 IT infrastructure. Many scale-out servers are not outfitted with enough RAS features to support demanding workloads. This means that any incidence of downtime could sideline the physical server for long periods of hardware repair or software updates. Performance of the servers in one-socket and two-socket categories. Although the unit shipments for one-socket and two-socket systems are very high, overall performance in terms of the number of processors, cores, and threads supported has been relatively low. This means that it is harder to support dense computing on any given server "node." RAS hardware features. Traditionally, many one-socket and two-socket x86 server systems have been engineered to support high-volume deployments; individual servers often lacked RAS features that are commonplace on midrange or high-end server systems, so they tended not to be deployed for business processing workloads (e.g., OLTP, ERP, CRM) as much as they were deployed for IT infrastructure and Web infrastructure workloads. That is changing, however, as the capability to support enterprise workloads has improved and as the density of VMs running on each physical server has ramped over time to today's level of 8 20 VMs per physical server, depending on workload. Security. Without security, availability of workloads cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, improved support for security is a "must" in an enterprise datacenter computing environment. Scalability. The ability to scale up is key to deployment of enterprise workloads. These workloads tend to drive up the number of end users supported or the size of the database supported over time. 6 # IDC

7 Trends in the x86 Server Market Hardware Trends As IT managers continue to look for better solutions to increase the overall utilization of the IT infrastructure, one of their primary challenges is to maintain system performance. Customers have now set an expectation that server utilization should be, and will be, expected to increase from levels of 20 40% to levels of 60 70%. In addition, IDC forecasts that over the next three years, the number of VMs being deployed will grow twice as quickly as the number of physical machines being installed. To manage these changes in the computing infrastructure, the industry is responding in several ways. The first is the very powerful combination of server sockets and processor cores being deployed into a very compact, dense form factor or device. IDC is anticipating that the numbers of processing cores being attached to a server motherboard will more than double by The outcome of this very significant change in server architecture will be that IT managers will expect to be able to schedule much more work onto these servers and, therefore, will drive up overall utilization. Supporting this richer server configuration and maintaining an overall balanced system performance will require both more memory and better memory management. In a fully virtualized environment, for virtualized x86 servers, memory management is as important as the core and socket capabilities. As more virtual machines are added to a server configuration, many customers are now asking for larger memory configurations to make sure that memory usage does not become overcommitted. Without extensive memory management capabilities, systems administrators and performance management staff would have to limit the number of virtual machines that are started on a server (or increase the number of physical servers installed in the datacenter). Alternatively, IT managers could offer up another expensive solution by adding to the number of sockets per server, which would then increase the amount of addressable memory on a system. Finally, the workloads that run on today's servers help to dictate both the number of virtual machines and the size of the applications deployed. Concurrent processing workload requirements, combined with addressable memory needs and requirements, set the limits for the number of virtual machines or VM density that can be achieved. Workloads such as transaction-heavy databases or real-time processing have large memory and high I/O bandwidth requirements that traditionally are not good candidates for virtualized environments. However, large I/O throughput and strong memory management, when combined with more sockets and cores to process the workload faster, will allow IT architects to scale the number of virtual machines on a system no matter what type of workload is being run. This significant change to traditional infrastructure design will dramatically increase overall platform utilization and will improve key performance metrics. In summary, now that multicore, multisocket servers are entering the marketplace, providing more processing power per x86 server while ensuring that the servers are more energy efficient than with earlier generations of high-frequency processors, they will transform the value proposition for the overall processing power that is being 2010 IDC #

8 delivered on x86 processors. They will be able to take on more demanding workloads than earlier generations of x86 processors, provided there are: Higher I/O levels Increased memory per server Virtualization for workload consolidation In summary, provided that all of these elements of system design are combined, the resulting servers will have more capacity, more scalability, and more throughput than the earlier generations of x86 servers that preceded them. IT managers considering this next generation of x86 servers will be able to evaluate consolidating more workloads onto fewer server "footprints" than before and deploying more demanding workloads onto x86 servers than ever before. Software Trends IDC's annual Virtualization Study shows that the average number of VMs supported per physical server has doubled from an average of three VMs per physical server in 2006 to more than six VMs per server in This means that ISVs must support VMs, including the "failover" of workloads from one VM to another and from one physical server to another. By applying IT best practices, by refreshing hardware and software products in the datacenter, and by adding highavailability software solutions, enterprise datacenter managers can significantly reduce downtime by as much as 80% as IDC demand-side, customer-based studies show. FUJITSU PRIMEQUEST 1800E SERVER Fujitsu Ltd. has built an enterprise-class x86 server, based on Intel Nehalem-EX x86 processors, to address the requirements of the maturing x86 server environment. It is built with customer requirements for reliability in mind and it supports a wide range of applications and databases as well as software from many ISV partners worldwide. Built on Nehalem-EX x86 Processors Intel's Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 processors are eight-core x86 microprocessors, and each of these eight cores supports two threads. An eight-socket server would provide 64 cores for a total of 128 threads. The Nehalem-EX processors are expected to deliver nearly twice the performance (about 1.7 times) of the earlier generation of Intel Xeon 7400 processors; Intel estimates that they will provide up to three times the database performance of the Intel 7400 series. With Nehalem-EX, on-chip I/O is expected to improve, compared with earlier generations of Xeon processors, because of the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) feature, which links the processors with other system resources improving overall system throughput. Nehalem-EX processors support 20+ RAS features the highest number ever provided on a Xeon platform to support enterprise applications and databases. These RAS features address the same functional characteristics as RAS features on traditional datacenter host servers, including mainframes and Unix/RISC servers. 8 # IDC

9 They include Machine Check Architecture (MCA) on Xeon processors, which flags "interrupt" situations, allowing systems to address them; Error Checking and Correction (ECC); QPI, which provides multiple paths for data transfer; and expanded L3 cache memory, which supports data staging as it moves through the system. Now, Nehalem-EX processors are a building block for x86 server systems and they can be included in volume servers (entry servers priced less than $25,000), midrange servers (servers priced from $25,000 to $250,000), or high-end servers (servers priced at $250,000,or more). Systems vendors can leverage these processors to bring high-end server features to lower price points, offering a way to build scalable servers in the very broad x86 server market space. In the case of Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers, each eight-socket, 12U system supports up to 64 cores (with eight-core processors in each of the system's eight sockets), providing a total of 128 threads per system. Up to 1TB of memory is supported per system and up to four physical partitions can be housed within a single server, ensuring that workloads can be isolated for reliability and security purposes. In addition, up to 16 PCIe I/O slots are embedded in each PRIMEQUEST 1800E chassis, expandable to 40 PCIe slots supporting strong connections to outboard storage devices and I/O for connectivity to other server and storage systems. Importantly, PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers inherit many of their RAS features from Fujitsu's former PRIMEQUEST system, an Itanium-based system, which also features hardware-based partitioning and memory mirroring for high reliability. Each of the partitions is electrically isolated so that workloads will not interfere with one another an important factor in ensuring high availability for all applications running on the system. High Availability at a Lower Cost Fujitsu has focused on innovating many system-level features within its PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers. Some of these types of features were formerly found in RISC-based or Itanium-based servers within the enterprise datacenter. They include hardware redundancy, RAS features, and advanced system management software for more granular controllability of applications and onboard system resources. Now, with availability of these kinds of features, including hardware redundancy and advanced system management software, x86 servers have the opportunity to provide enterpriselevel availability at lower price points for the total systems than was previously possible. Following are some of the leading new features of the Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers: Reserve system board. A reserve system board provides system-level redundancy so that the system can be rebooted with this component, restoring enterprise workloads to operation. Prior to use, the reserve system board is in a dormant, or standby, mode. However, when resources in the primary system board are interrupted or go offline, this system board (which can also be used for test/development purposes) can be placed into action and it can take on the production workloads from the primary system board. Once the primary board is repaired, the workload can be failed back, returning to the originating system board, when it becomes available IDC #

10 QuickPath Interconnect. This capability is shipped with the Intel Xeon Nehalem-EX processors. QPI is a technology that supports point-to-point interconnects between the processor cores and other system components, such as I/O hubs on the system motherboard. All QPI links are fully duplexed for efficient data throughput. Full redundancy. Due to the fact that nearly all the major components are redundant and can be easily replaced system downtime is minimized. Memory mirroring. This capability exactly replicates data and protects it in an electronically isolated segment of memory so that processing can continue, even after an unexpected event that corrupts data in the other partition. This feature eliminates a single point of failure because production data is protected in the mirrored memory segment. Physical partitioning capability. Electrical isolation within each of four partitions supports overall system reliability and application availability. This kind of electrical isolation compares with other electrically isolated partitions found in enterprise platforms based on Itanium and RISC processors. It adds another dimension to the software-enforced isolation found in virtualization hypervisors. Management board. A separate management board monitors the server components and event alerts, supports partition setup, and supports updates to the system's firmware. Flexible I/O. The ability to extend I/O bandwidth, through the addition of more I/O links, recognizes the importance of I/O in supporting the most demanding, business-critical workloads (e.g., database, business intelligence [BI], and transactional workloads). Workload management software. Managing workloads, as they are provisioned across the system's resources, is key to maintaining smoothly running IT operations and to failing over workloads to alternate resources, if needed. This can be done by using Fujitsu ServerView Resource Coordinator software, which manages both physical and virtual computing resources. Cableless design. Cables have traditionally increased complexity and costs within the enterprise datacenter. Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers have a cableless design so that the components can be added or removed more reliably and repairs can be made more easily. Because there is a minimum of cables, the system can be scaled up quickly by adding more hardware components (memory, I/O, fans) within the server cabinet. Support for Virtualization/Consolidation Implementation of key virtualization technologies, such as VMware vsphere 4, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen, and others, provides hypervisors that host VMs on physical servers. Importantly, these VMs have the effect of "isolating" applications, which results in better utilization of the physical server and also results in less "interference" from other workloads running on the same physical 10 # IDC

11 server system. The reduction in interference from workloads that would otherwise compete for the same server resources is an important factor in improving overall availability of the applications running on a virtualized server. Combining Partitioning and Virtualization Most enterprise datacenter servers support some kind of physical partitioning capability, including mainframes, scalable "host" systems, and scalable Unix servers. This kind of physical partitioning has been refined and optimized over many years of engineering and design. For x86 servers, the majority of products today are one-socket, two-socket, and four-socket servers so that partitioning in more scalable servers has not been a customer requirement until now. In contrast, software-defined partitioning, as enforced by virtualization software, has been the primary form of workload isolation (via encapsulation) on x86 servers with two, four, or more sockets. IDC believes that given greater scalability of x86 server designs, following the shipment of Nehalem-EX processors, a new approach, which mixes physical partitioning and hypervisor-based workload isolation, will take hold, resulting in more granular control and management of individual workloads running inside VMs. IDC expects that Fujitsu will support this kind of workload management in its PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers. Primary Goals of Virtualization on x86 Servers Virtualization is often deployed to accomplish the following goals on x86 servers: Improve resource utilization (efficiency). Many x86 servers are underutilized; that is, they are running at 15 20% of their capacity. Virtualization software supports many workloads, encapsulated in VMs all running on one physical server. For this reason, utilization improves greatly to the 60 80% range making full use of the server resource. Support workload consolidation. By leveraging virtualization software, it is possible to consolidate many workloads that were running on underutilized x86 servers onto fewer "server footprints" than would otherwise be possible, saving on datacenter space ("real estate" in the datacenter). This process of consolidation results in substantial reductions of server "footprints," which in turn reduces the use of datacenter floor space and power and cooling requirements. Provide RAS features to protect virtualized workloads. Now that VM density is rising rapidly, accelerated by consolidation of virtualized workloads, it is more important than ever before to support those workloads with RAS hardware features. Any interruption to processing will affect dozens to hundreds of end users deploying those consolidated workloads, with 8 to 20 VMs per physical server. Therefore, the design of RAS features, such as those provided in the PRIMEQUEST 1800E, will improve availability of business-critical workloads. Create potential savings on software licenses. By consolidating workloads onto fewer servers, customers can see reductions in the total number of software licenses that they must maintain, if fewer processors (each of them multicore) are required per server. Today's multicore processors can do more work per physical server and this contributes to the reduction in total software licenses needed. However, each ISV has different licensing policies so that the amount of savings varies from software vendor to software vendor IDC #

12 Business Benefits By deploying Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers, customers can be expected to gain operational benefits associated with centralized management of business-critical workloads deployed on x86 server architecture, including the following: More headroom for growing applications and databases Support for IT skill sets related to Windows and Linux and improved support for enterprise workloads on x86 server platforms Monitoring and management of business-critical workloads by central-site IT staff, leveraging built-in monitoring on the server system board Use of IT "best practices" that reduce operational errors (leading to downtime) Reduction in repetitive maintenance of large numbers of Windows and/or Linux servers running similar workloads Modulation of power consumption, through the ability to "dial up" and "dial down" power use, depending on the workload demands being run on the server platform (That approach reduces power usage during quiet periods and then provides power, on demand, when user requests increase and the pace of computing accelerates on a daily, monthly, or quarterly basis.) All of this means that IT technologies can reduce operational costs (opex) by attacking the sources of those costs: power and cooling, inefficient management of system resources, and IT staff costs, including compensating for a lack of specific IT skill sets for deploying large numbers of smaller servers and clustered systems. If the "best practices" of high-end server design and system management could be combined with the advantages of leveraging industry-standard x86 server components, then the economics of enterprise data processing could be found at lower price points than has historically been the case. CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES The market for scalable x86 servers can be expected to become more competitive, with multiple systems being built on Intel Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500 processors. More than 15 server models are scheduled to be shipped by more than eight server vendors worldwide in the first wave of shipments in The new wave of server products will ensure competition in the marketplace, but vendors can differentiate their products through a combination of hardware design and software support. Fujitsu is well-positioned to compete in this emerging market space due to its ability to leverage previous learning and deployment experience from its mainframe and Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST Itanium-based scalable server systems, with respect to RAS features in the hardware design and management software to control workloads running on the system. While PRIMEQUEST 1800E servers are new in the marketplace, the computer design principles on which they are based are wellestablished in the marketplace. Reliability through redundancy of components, elimination of any single point of failure, and the ability to restart workloads are all RAS features that are supported on the PRIMEQUEST 1800E x86 servers. 12 # IDC

13 CONCLUSION IDC expects that a new wave of scalable x86 server systems will emerge in 2010 in a generation of x86 server systems built on multicore, multisocket x86 designs. This trend will allow many more enterprise workloads to move or migrate to x86 server platforms extending the high-volume world of one-socket and two-socket systems with more scalable servers, housing four or eight sockets, or more. Fujitsu's scalable x86 server, the PRIMEQUEST 1800E server, will build on the company's earlier PRIMEQUEST offering, but the advanced features for resiliency, availability, and maintainability will now be cascaded down to lower price points than on traditional datacenter servers. Fujitsu has taken careful steps to prepare a scalable eight-socket x86 server that will host important enterprise applications and databases, which are the business-critical workloads upon which business processes rely. The new PRIMEQUEST server represents deep investment by Fujitsu in an emerging market space for enterprise, scalable x86 servers supporting business-critical workloads. Copyright Notice External Publication of IDC Information and Data Any IDC information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any reason. Copyright 2010 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden IDC #