Michael Dell is Bullish on Nehalem-EX in Oracle Open World Keynote

Nehalem-EX has been in the news quite a bit over the past several months. 

First, in May, Intel described how Nehalem-EX will be at the heart of the next generation of intelligent and expandable high-end Intel server platforms, delivering a number of new technical advancements (Intel Nehalem Architecture, Quick Path Interconnects, 16 threads, 24MB cache, new RAS features like MCA-Recovery, 16 DIMM slots per socket, 128 threads on 8 Socket systems) and boost enterprise computing performance (the greatest gain in generational performance ever seen at Intel.)

Next at IDF in September Intel described how Nehalem-EX would deliver a bigger generational performance improvement than that delivered by the Intel Xeon 5500 processor (including a 3X Nehalem-EX gain in database performance); a large shift in Xeon scalability with over 15 >8S systems anticipated and expandability for the most data demanding enterprise applications, the addition of about 20 RAS capabilities traditionally found in the Intel® Itanium processor family – along with a demonstration of MCA-Recovery. IBM announced their upcoming BladeCenter products that will support 4S Nehalem-EX blades and Super-Micro announced a 1U box, specifically targeted at HPC.  Staying on the HPC theme, Mark Seager from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was also quoted with stating that “Nehalem-EX allows us to invest in science, not the computer science of porting and adapting software to new architectures, but real science.  Nehalem EX is an innovative SMP on a chip solution that provides us access to a “super node” … The result is an astonishing new level of performance.”

And Oracle Open World on October 13th, the drumbeat for Nehalem-EX continued.  Michael Dell in his Oracle Open World Keynote today discussed how Nehalem-EX will provide a true leap in performance, with up to 9x the memory bandwidth and 3x the database performance vs. prior generation.  And he mentioned that Dell’s unique implementation of the memory architecture will allow the most cost effective scaling, with 4S systems up to 1TB of DRAM (64 Dimms x 16GB Memory sticks) enabling customers to run their entire database in system memory.  He also mentioned that standard based systems are driving new efficiencies with applications like Oracle, where Dell’s data shows Oracle apps run better on x86 vs. proprietary architectures, up to 200% better. 

Keep your eyes on the Server Room for more Nehalem-EX news as it comes between now and launch.  And visit the Intel booth at South Moscone Booth #1621 to learn more.

Bryce

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Intel Proves Xeon 5500 Processors Are “Cash Machines for IT”

When Intel launched “Nehalem-EP,” more commonly known as the Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors back in March, we pointed out that their energy-efficient performance and other attributes lead to a very quick return on investment – as soon as eight months. Pat Gelsinger and Kirk Skaugen even referred to the new servers as literally becoming “Cash Machines for IT.”

Intel began its accelerated server refresh strategy in 2007 – we’re replacing aging servers on a regular basis to cut operating costs, avoiding incremental data center spending and increasing capacity to ensure ongoing innovation. This is especially important since our business computing demand is growing despite economic conditions. This is driven by the innovative design and manufacturing of our chips, which are smaller, faster, and contain an increasing number of features. Our server refresh strategy generated quick results, saving us $45 million in 2008, and we’re continuing to have enormous savings. Some might question the wisdom of a server refresh strategy in the midst of challenging economic times. We actually re-evaluated the strategy but further analysis showed that halting it would actually increase operating costs by $19 million.

An added bonus is the significant energy-efficiency benefits; the server refresh strategy is the No. 1 driver of Intel IT’s carbon footprint reduction. We are projected to reduce our carbon output by 4,000 metric tons in 2009 alone.

Speaking of Green IT, did you know that the newest ally for IT to help drive carbon-reduction and energy cost savings is the energy utilities? A prime example of this is the Energy Trust of Oregon, which offers cash incentives to motivate Oregon businesses to make energy saving investments. Intel gained access to a $250,000 incentive from them as a result of energy savings gained by replacing older servers with newer, more energy-efficient servers in our data centers.

“We applaud and support efforts to reduce datacenter energy consumption at companies from all industries in Oregon,” said Corban Lester, Program Development Manager for Energy Trust’s Data Center Initiative. “By replacing older servers with modern energy-efficient servers, Enterprise IT departments and small/medium business owners may be eligible for utility incentives for energy savings and can lower their operating costs and reduce the impact of their business on the environment.”

Customers such as DreamWorks, Oracle, Humana, and BMW, are just a few of the companies reaping sizeable benefits by refreshing their data centers with Xeon 5500-based servers. In fact, DreamWorks if positively giddy over the chip.

“Nehalem is—by a substantial margin—the fastest architecture we have ever used in the render farm,” said Derek Chan, head of digital operations, DreamWorks Animation. “It performs well on a per-core basis and the wide-open I/O bandwidth lets us keep all cores busy, much more efficiently than previous architectures.”

If you’re still not convinced, try using the Xeon Server Refresh Savings Estimator server to assess the value of replacing aging x86 hardware with Xeon 5500-based servers.

You can also check out this video of a press briefing our CIO Diane Bryant recently held where she and some Intel customers discussed the success of their server refresh strategies.

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Hardware-based Virtualization Built Into Next-Gen Nehalem-EX

Intel Senior Fellow Stephen Pawlowski delivered a session at this week’s Intel Developer Forum (IDF) on Intel’s latest industry-standard, mission-critical platform codenamed Nehalem-EX. And one of the key topics of discussion? Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT).

Nehalem-EX offers scalability along with world-record virtualization performance, enabling the highest consolidation ratios of any industry-standard server. And as IT departments across the board move to lower costs while increasing hardware utilization, Intel has responded to their needs by improving and enhancing its hardware-based virtualization technology.

With Nehalem-EX, Intel has created a feature that enables data packets to come in and be tagged to the appropriate virtual machine (VM). The hardware then places those packets into hardware queues that are focused on a particular Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). Once packets arrive, they are delivered to the appropriate VM in packet order and are re-packetized and put in the appropriate VM queue before they get sent to the virtual machine. It’s Intel’s hardware that is making virtualization software perform even better.

Including broad industry support for an era that is increasingly moving towards the cloud, virtualization technology combined with energy-efficient performance and RAS-rich environments provide a reliable, scalable environment that IT departments can bank on.

Download Stephen Pawlowski’s IDF session (PDF 1.94MB) Nehalem-EXStevePawlowski_IDF.pdf

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