CeBIT 2007: Storage & Servers
by Johan De Gelas on March 29, 2007 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Superblade
In our first server guide we commented that "the idea behind blade servers is brilliant" but that the current blade server market is filled with relatively overpriced and "vendor lock-in" solutions. Blades are still proprietary, but there is a good chance that the blade market is going to be quite a bit more competitive now that Supermicro's Superblade is here. This puts Supermicro right up against the established blade server vendors such as HP, IBM, Sun and Fujitsu-Siemens...
We could not get Donn Clegg or Angela Rosario to give us the pricing of the Supermicro Superblade, besides the indication of "very competitive pricing". Still, there are indications that the Superblade Enclosure is going to stir things up. Considering that Supermicro sells as many servers as Sun and Fujitsu-Siemens combined, it is easy to see that even if Supermicro is considered a Tier 2 OEM, this move cannot be ignored by the Tier one OEMs.
The Supermicro Superblade is a 7U blade chassis, which can contain up to ten blades. Each blade can use up to four Socket-F Opterons, and Raphael Wong told us that the Superblade will make use of AMD's newest Barcelona (or K10) chip. This means that you can use up to 16 cores per blade, or no less than 160 (!) cores for the complete 7U chassis. The Superblade enclosure also supports blades with dual socket dual core Xeons (51xx) or quad core Xeons (53xx).
Another interesting aspect is the hard disk options. On a 2-way chassis you have the flexibility to go for either two 2.5" or 3.5" drives (either SAS or SATA). Best of all, you can buy your own hard disks; you are not forced to buy your disks from the blade chassis vendor, contrary to what is customary with the other blade manufacturers.
With the 4-way blade you can only use 2.5" SATA drives as the four CPU sockets take away the necessary space for 3.5" disks.
Three kinds of hot-swappable power supplies (1400W, 2000W, 2500W) can be used and the chassis can hold up to four power supplies in a 3+1 configuration. Up to two Gigabit Ethernet switches or up to two 4x DDR InfiniBand switches (20Gb/s per port) can be used for connectivity. The Gigabit Ethernet switches we saw were 10 port Gigabit switches. An (optional) InfiniBand switch will link to each blade server via their own InfiniBand card.
Each of the blade servers has an IMPI 2.0 management module connector, and Supermicro's own management solution was being shown with the server at CeBIT.
In our first server guide we commented that "the idea behind blade servers is brilliant" but that the current blade server market is filled with relatively overpriced and "vendor lock-in" solutions. Blades are still proprietary, but there is a good chance that the blade market is going to be quite a bit more competitive now that Supermicro's Superblade is here. This puts Supermicro right up against the established blade server vendors such as HP, IBM, Sun and Fujitsu-Siemens...
We could not get Donn Clegg or Angela Rosario to give us the pricing of the Supermicro Superblade, besides the indication of "very competitive pricing". Still, there are indications that the Superblade Enclosure is going to stir things up. Considering that Supermicro sells as many servers as Sun and Fujitsu-Siemens combined, it is easy to see that even if Supermicro is considered a Tier 2 OEM, this move cannot be ignored by the Tier one OEMs.
The Supermicro Superblade is a 7U blade chassis, which can contain up to ten blades. Each blade can use up to four Socket-F Opterons, and Raphael Wong told us that the Superblade will make use of AMD's newest Barcelona (or K10) chip. This means that you can use up to 16 cores per blade, or no less than 160 (!) cores for the complete 7U chassis. The Superblade enclosure also supports blades with dual socket dual core Xeons (51xx) or quad core Xeons (53xx).
Another interesting aspect is the hard disk options. On a 2-way chassis you have the flexibility to go for either two 2.5" or 3.5" drives (either SAS or SATA). Best of all, you can buy your own hard disks; you are not forced to buy your disks from the blade chassis vendor, contrary to what is customary with the other blade manufacturers.
With the 4-way blade you can only use 2.5" SATA drives as the four CPU sockets take away the necessary space for 3.5" disks.
Three kinds of hot-swappable power supplies (1400W, 2000W, 2500W) can be used and the chassis can hold up to four power supplies in a 3+1 configuration. Up to two Gigabit Ethernet switches or up to two 4x DDR InfiniBand switches (20Gb/s per port) can be used for connectivity. The Gigabit Ethernet switches we saw were 10 port Gigabit switches. An (optional) InfiniBand switch will link to each blade server via their own InfiniBand card.
Each of the blade servers has an IMPI 2.0 management module connector, and Supermicro's own management solution was being shown with the server at CeBIT.
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BikeDude - Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - link
I've tried to use SuperMicro's management software in the past and quite frankly it is pure and utter c---.Last week I tried HP's management software, and could install the entire OS from a remote location. I could map a .iso image to the blade in question and it booted right up.
OTOH, as I recall, SuperMicro's remote desktop solution is based on VNC. Where HP lets you remotely access the console from before POST is even run, SuperMicro forces you to first install the OS.
(We have lots of Tyan and SuperMicro servers, but of course we might've missed something fundamental along the way -- but... HP has a very nice package once the hardware has been hooked up to the power outlet and your network switch)
Xenoterranos - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
"Enermax showed how much hardware its Galaxy 1000W can power. According to Enermax, the PSU delivered 933 W to 24 80GB hard disks, four Opteron 8212 CPUs, four 3Ware 9650 drive controllers, a GeForce 7600GX and 8GB of RAM (16 x 512MB)."...or 2 GeForce 8800's.
yyrkoon - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
So now we 'need' usb ports on the front of a rack mount server ?! I'd rather have onboard SAS to be honest ;)
Interresting toys, no doubt.
JohanAnandtech - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
Well, I find sometimes very handy for installing quickly a driver or a small testprogram etc. Or in some cases to add a USB CDROM, or to make a quick backup on a USB harddisk.Do you feel that USB has no use on the front of a server?
neogodless - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
I've heard of Home Theatre PC (HTPC) but HPC... is...?laok - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
High Performance ComputingDesslok - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
Tyan should have taken the silica bag off that system before showing it off.AnandThenMan - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
Hellz no! The silica bag and the inanimate carbon rod are the main reasons people flock to these shows.ravedave - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
So the Barcelona is no longer known as the K8L and is now again being called the K10? When is the launch for this part? Last I saw it was Q1, which is almost over...JohanAnandtech - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
AFAIK, the K8L name was never used by AMD: it was invented on the Internet. THe K10 will be launched mid 2007 (that is all AMD says), probably the Summer of 2007