DoC Private Cloud: Compute Servers
CSG are investigating the hardware that could be used to realise the DoC cloud. This page describes various commodity compute node options.
We want dense compute nodes (a large number of CPUS/cores per cubic volume) so as to make best use of rack-space - power and cooling requirements notwithstanding. We have found that Dell offer the densest server configurations in the form of the PowerEdge C6000 series. We identify two servers in particular: the AMD-based Dell PowerEdge C6145 and the Intel-based Dell PowerEdge C6220
We have considered a number of manufacturers for compute nodes including Dell, IBM and HP. HP have no comparable core-dense servers (the best we found had half the cores, half the memory and yet was more expensive than the Dell options below) so have been eliminated.
Dell PowerEdge C6220
This is a 4-node, 2U server, each node comprising a self-contained two-socket system with its own memory, VGA, 10GbE NIC, USB and LOM port. We have a quote from Dell of £19917 for the following configuration:
- 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2670 2.60GHz 8-core/16-thread CPUs per node.
- 128GB RAM per node (512GB RAM total in the 2U server)
- 2 x 1TB SATA 7.2k 2.5in hard-drives per node (eight in total in the 2U server)
The nodes are separate systems housed in the same 2U server chassis. They are not otherwise interconnected.
One of these servers has sixty-four physical CPU cores in total - 128 via hyper-threading. Given 512GB total RAM, this means 8GB of RAM per physical core or 4GB of RAM per 'thread'.
Note that this server contains Intel Sandy Bridge Xeon processors. These support (amongst other things) on-board CPU energy usage monitoring.
Dell PowerEdge C6145
This is a 2-node, 2U server, each node comprising a self-contained four-socket system with its own memory, VGA, 10GbE NIC, USB and LOM port. We have an old quote from Dell of £14,933.90 for the following configuration:
- 4 x AMD Opteron 6282SE 2.6GHz, 16-core CPUs per node.
- 256GB RAM per node (512GB total in the 2U server)
- 1 x 1TB SATA 7.2k 3.5in hard-drive per node (two in total in the 2U server).
The nodes are separate systems housed in the same 2U server chassis. They are not otherwise interconnected.
One of these servers has 128 CPU cores in total. Given 512GB total RAM, this means 4GB of RAM per physical core.
Dell PowerEdge R820
We have a more-recent quote on a Dell PowerEdge R820. This is a 2U, 128GB RAM, 2U 32-core (64 threads) server costing £16,735.29.
- 4 x eight-core Intel Xeon E5-4650L 2.60GHz CPUs (sixty-four threads with SMT)
- 128GB DDR3 @ 1600MHz ECC RAM.
- 2 x 300GB 2.5in 10000RPM SAS hard-disks.
- 14 x 1TB 2.5in 7200RPM SAS hard-disks.
Note that this is a four-way server with CPUs based on the Sandy Bridge architecture.
IBM System x3690 X5
We also have a quote on an IBM System x3690 X5. The configuration - courtesy of AMS - is a 4U, 1TB RAM, 40-core (80 threads) server costing £36,909.25. The department had a loan server of this configuration - again, courtesy of AMS - during February - March 2012.
- 4 x ten-core Intel Xeon E7-8870 2.4Ghz CPUs (eighty threads with SMT)
- 1TB DDR3 @ 1066MHz ECC RAM.
- 2 x 146GB 2.5in 15000RPM SAS hard-disks.
Note that this is a four-way server with CPUs based on the Westmere-EX architecture.
General Notes
As explained above, we do not include quotes for HP computer servers because we could not find any models that matched the general requirements (CPU core density, modernity, performance, rack-size and price). Nevertheless, we highlight the following general HP models:
HP ProLiant DL580 G7: 4U; four Intel Westmere Xeons.
HP ProLiant DL585 G7: 4U; four AMD Interlagos Opteron CPUs.
HP ProLiant DL980 G7: 8U; 10 Intel Westmere Xeons.