Reality Check: Server Insights : power

Lower energy costs and safeguard your HP ProLiant servers from catastrophic events

Kristie Popp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:16:00 GMT

By Mark Lackey,

Product Manager, Insight Control power management

HP is introducing Data Center Power Control, the newest power management feature of Insight Control. I want to share a cool story about how this product was invented after a nearly catastrophic event at an HP site. We used our experience to innovate and make sure your company doesn’t go through a similar experience.

Last summer, a water chiller failed in the computer room at an HP site. As a result, our engineers had to run around manually turning off the systems before they crashed. We were fortunate because the right people were in place to do this as it happened, even though it was a manual process. That got our engineers thinking… if only there were a way to set pre-defined policies to automatically shutdown servers or lower the power state during catastrophic events. Today that’s a reality because of HP Data Center Power Control. In a nutshell, you set the guidelines in advance so that you can extend the ride-through time for mission critical apps by reducing power usage by non-critical workloads when there’s a failure.

Another important perk is the ability to lower your energy bill by taking control of your power usage during peak times. Imagine the utility company contacts you and says you need to shed 50 KWh of power today from 3 – 6 PM. That’s no problem with HP Data Center Power Control. You can also drop power usage during peak or coincident peak times. This helps you drive your infrastructure into a more efficient operating range. It’s also good for scheduled maintenance. At the given maintenance time, you can shed power to make sure certain servers are powered down. The best part is that it’s as easy as pressing a button.

What are your thoughts on Data Center Power Control? Has your company had a catastrophic failure or needed to shed power quickly where this capability would have been useful?

How will the HP Data Center Smart Grid solve the #1 data center constraint?

Kristie Popp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:37:00 GMT

By Steve Cumings, Director, SCI Marketing, ISS

How will the HP Center Smart Grid solve the #1 data center constraint?

As we talk to customers around the world, they continue to tell us their #1 challenge is power and cooling. The problem is this: When a power or cooling limit is reached in the data center, it can slow or halt deployment of additional IT. And that in turn can slow business growth.

In many cases though, these limits are artificial; the data center has enough power or cooling capacity, but it’s stranded in silos and isn’t actively monitored or managed for most effective use The solution is to approach the data center holistically, and integrate the data center energy elements so they can work at maximum effectiveness. HP’s Data Center Smart Grid will do exactly that, and extend our existing portfolio to actively monitor and manage IT.

Result? A data center where energy capacity is understood, is flexibly architected, and is delivered where it’s needed – in exactly the amount that’s needed. When IT and facilities are actively managed and linked, they can work in concert: the IT working at maximum power efficiency, and the facility delivering exactly the right amount of support. This not only adds data center capacity and thus postpone capital expense, but allows maximum energy savings – giving customers faster ROI, and the opportunity to align with utility and green initiatives.

Doubling Down

s_mathur — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:44:00 GMT

In blackjack, if you have a great hand versus the house, you can double your bet or “double down” to show the confidence that you have in winning it all. HP’s commitment to our new Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor is a clear signal that our technology partnership is strong, and the products are even stronger.

In today’s economic environment, customers can’t afford to make anything other than a safe bet. They are concerned about energy efficiency, performance and manageability – these are the keys to getting the most out of IT investments. With the new HP ProLiant G6 servers, based on Six-Core AMD Opteron processors, HP is increasing the capabilities of their award-winning ProLiant product line. Seven new models feature an uncompromising six-core processor that is designed for outstanding performance while still working within the same power and thermal ranges of existing HP servers based on our quad-core family.

We’ve written over and over again that consistency is critical for our customers. In large data centers, having consistency of platforms provides a huge benefit for customers, helping to turn the complexity of managing thousands of devices into a much easier task. From managing to servicing, if you can reduce the complexity and variance of the platforms, you can reduce the costs. And who wants to spend more in management costs? Especially with the business constraints of today’s market bearing down on you.

While we strive for consistency in our processors, we also offer a no-compromise approach to the products. Some in the industry may artificially limit the capabilities of the processors for marketing reasons, but we believe that keeping a consistent set of features from the top of the line down to the lowest option helps customers better manage their platforms. And, when it comes to planning, you know exactly what you are getting, from I/O to memory to cache – making it far easier to plan for your deployment needs.

HP takes the consistency concept a step further. The G6 servers have a common set of features, regardless of the processor, that allow us to cleanly integrate our technology into their platforms and bring the customer a unified product offering that makes it easier to make HP the clear choice for the data center.

From the “Sea of Sensors” to help manage the systems, to the commonality across power supplies and even the HP ProLiant Onboard Administrator, managing an HP server becomes a simple, and most importantly, repeatable activity. This helps drive more consistency in the data center and allows you to maximize your critical IT resources.

We’re also very excited about the new levels of performance that customers will see with a Six-Core AMD Opteron processor, and a great compliment to that is the new 6GB/second SAS drives that, when combined with the HP Smart Array controllers, allow the I/O subsystem to keep pace with all of those cores. Combining that with our new HT Assist feature is expected to bring an unprecedented level of I/O and memory throughput for AMD-based ProLiant servers.

With all of this new performance, we haven’t pushed the power consumption up, allowing the new six-core processors to work in the same power and thermal ranges as their four-core counterparts. If your goal is to get the most out of your data center while keeping a “green IT” focus, this is the product for you.

There is no greater compliment than being chosen as the cornerstone of a great platform, and with the new G6 servers, there are seven new reasons for customers to choose HP ProLiant G6 servers featuring AMD Opteron processors, each a winning hand for solving today’s IT challenges without breaking the bank.

In Vegas you “double down” when you have a great hand against the house, and it is clear that, with all of these new platforms coming to market, HP saw the great hand that we were dealing with the new six-core processors and doubled down as well.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Your first step in data center infrastructure: choosing the racks

s_mathur — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:13:00 GMT

By Ankit Gupta. Is a rack just a piece of metal in the corner of your data center or is it the first step to solid infrastructure?

Choosing a rack might seem like a "no-brainer," but you might want to take a closer look. Selecting the proper rack is an essential decision for building out an efficiently running data center. Here are some things to consider before your next rack purchase:

Air flow: cool air coming in the front door and hot air flowing out the back of the rack determines the cooling efficiency inside the data center.
Data center density: the ability to hold weight up to 3000lbs defines the density in the data center.
Your changing business needs: the ability to hold up to 2000lbs dynamic load enables convenient shipping of the rack with all of your servers, PDUs, KVMs, and TFT monitors installed - making for quick turn around time for critical business needs.

To know more visit http://www.hp.com/go/rackandpower.

Buying an HP ProLiant Server Bundled with the Insight Control Suite Just Got Easier

aimeeschoaf — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:33:00 GMT

By John Schmitz

On March 30, we announced our new G6 line of HP ProLiant servers - built for performance and reliability. These servers, which run the HP Insight Control suite, are the industry's best managed x86 servers. HP Insight Control suite, popularly known as "ICE," provides essential infrastructure management capabilities for system administrators who need to save time, reduce complexity, and lower the costs associated with day-to-day server administration.

The HP Insight Control suite (ICE) delivers an essential set of management capabilities including: (1) rapid server deployment, (2) proactive server health management, (3) the ability to optimize server power, and (4) server remote control from anywhere. ICE delivers this robust set of management capabilities with our award-winning HP Systems Insight Manager tool which is available for both Windows and Linux-based environments

And, in an effort to make the HP Insight Control suite easier for our customers to buy, HP now offers ICE bundled with select HP ProLiant DL360 G6 and DL380 G6 models. These offerings include a high-performing ProLiant server AND the HP Insight Control suite - and can NOW be ordered as a single SKU/part number. Additionally, customers who choose to buy these bundles with a ProLiant DL360 G6 or DL380 G6 server will save an additional 20 percent off the price of an individual ICE software license. Learn more at www.hp.com/go/insightcontrol You can see the value and savings is tremendous. Be cool and order your next ProLiant server bundled with ICE and save big!

And to get the most out of your HP Insight Control suite, take advantage of HP Education Services, which are available to help train you and your staff on the fundamentals and advanced capabilities of ICE. Learn more at http://h10076.www1.hp.com/education/hp_ice_curriculum.htm

The ROI on power savings alone makes the new HP ProLiant G6 servers worth looking at...

aimeeschoaf — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:41:00 GMT

By Nick Vanderzweep

Director of Product Management, HP Insight Software

OK, we just announced our new HP ProLiant G6 servers and I was told they use a lot less power, are a much better virtualization platform, and let you spend less money without sacrificing service levels for your customers. These topics all strike a deep chord with most of us, especially during these tough economic times.

But is this true? Will they really make a dent in a typical ROI? I decided to put the G6 servers to the test. I had some scenarios run though our Insight Dynamics - VSE capacity planning SW using real customer data and the results will really knock your socks off. Here's roughly what we found:

We took real utilization data that was shared with us from one of our customers on 55 of their older servers; and
Ran that data through Insight Dynamics - VSE's "Smart Solver" module to see how they might work when consolidated onto virtual machines running on the new G6 platforms

The results were amazing based on power consumption alone! Here's how it broke down in terms of rough numbers:

We were able to predict that this customer could get a consolidation ratio of about 11:1 with G6, without compromising application horsepower or end-user service levels in any way;
Average power consumption went from about 12.8 kilowatts to 1 kilowattfor the new scenario; and
The savings on reduced power consumption alone was about $1,100 per month, without even yet considering the beneficial effect of reduced software licenses, less foot-print, and so forth.

I expected pretty good results given the "more-bang-for-less-power" message around G6, but -- WOW -- they still amazed me. Your mileage may vary, but I recommend you run your configurations thru our Insight Dynamics - VSE software to give you a confident estimate what your savings might be. Like me, I think you will find that the new G6 servers are way "cooler" than you already imagined.

I received a new HPC Multi-core server today – Live from SC08

d-field — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:59:00 GMT

This week, I am attending the annual SC08 conference. For 2 decades, the tradition in HPC is to announce and demonstrate new products at the SC conference, and there is a lot to absorb.

For me, the event started with a 2-day HP user conference, attracting some of HP’s largest HPC customers. It was a very full 2 days, with lectures on many subjects from customers, Intel, AMD, software development companies, and of course HP. Even though I work here, I learned a lot about projects in other parts of the company.

At the SC08 show, I saw my 1^st HP POD – portable optimized datacenter – a 40-foot-long shipping container on the outside, and a self-contained computer facility on the inside. This excellently-designed mobile facility can contain 3500 servers or 12,000 disk drives, in standard 19” racks. Just provide a flat location, power, chilled water, and a network cable, and you have a new computer room.

To make the week more interesting, AMD announced the new Opteron Shanghai processor – higher clock speed, bigger cache, faster Northbridge, and improved performance:power ratio.

One of the good things about big companies is that they spawn startups. This year, a startup company announced a new HPC architecture at SC08. Nearly all the employees are my friends and previous HP co-workers. Check out www.conveycomputer.com

I received a new HPC Multi-core server today – How to measure the power usage

d-field — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:38:00 GMT

Given that it is important to measure power usage and correlate it to application performance, how do you measure the power?

We use 2 different methods - one for rack-mounted servers and another for blade servers. The rack-mounted servers do not provide power meters, so we bought a power meter. We plug the server into the power meter, so we are measuring the total power used. Then, with a simple PC interface, we allow the application user on the server to obtain continuous power data which is easy to correlate with the applications.

This is easy for the users, but it requires planning and logistics and some work by our system managers, to connect the meter to the right server at the right time.

We often want to measure the power of a cluster running one HPC application in parallel, and it is usually sufficient to measure the power of any one server in the cluster running the application.

It is easier to measure power on an HP blade enclosure, since the enclosure contains power measurement capability and provides this data in a usable way. The available data includes the total enclosure power and also the power used by each blade server and each fan in the enclosure. We integrated this information with the Platform Computing LSF job scheduler. Now, users of our blade servers submit their jobs via LSF and automatically receive their power usage data as part of the job.

Next week, I expect to post a message from the SC08 conference.

I received a new HPC Multi-core server today – Intro to power measurement

d-field — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:02:00 GMT

Until a couple of years ago, when we referred to performance measurement of an application, we meant the amount of time that it took the job to run vs. the specific resources it used - number of cores, number of servers if you are using a cluster, the specific characteristics of the server cores and memory and other server specs, plus IO/storage resources and specs.

Basically, we only measured one thing, the elapsed time of the job. Then, using the resources and specs, we computed lots of things - throughput efficiency, parallel scalability and efficiency, performance per core or per server, IO metrics, etc, etc.

Now, we make an additional measurement - power utilization, which we correlate in time with the execution of an application. We want to know the average power used during the execution of a single job, and we also look at the variation of power during a job, and the maximum power used.

Of course, lots of people measure power used by computers. But, since most of these people are system managers or system designers, they don't have a reason to correlate power with specific applications and compute jobs. They want to know the average and peak power used to run their overall workload, so they can plan for current and future power requirements. This is important work, but it does not give them the ability to optimize their workload.

If you measure the average power used during the execution of one compute job, and you multiply that power by the elapsed time of the job, you have Application Energy - the electrical energy used to run that specific job. This is a very convenient quantity, since it gives you a single number that relates power usage to compute jobs. You can use Application Energy to optimize your workload, just as you use elapsed time.

A couple of examples:

1. You can measure application energy for a given set of applications on two or more different server models, and then select the more energy-efficient model. You can use this App Energy comparison together with elapsed time comparison, and then make speed vs. energy tradeoffs. If a job runs 30% faster but consumes 50% more Application Energy on Server A than it does on Server B, which is a better choice for your requirements?

2. We are also using Application Energy to determine the most efficient way to run applications which run in parallel on a cluster of servers - a common way to run HPC codes. For one common HPC application, we ran the same job at 3 levels of parallelization and compared the elapsed times and Application Energy. We showed that the job used only 4% more Application Energy running 32-way-parallel (on 32 cores) vs. 16-way parallel. But the job used 20% more Application Energy running 64-way-parallel vs. 32-way-parallel. In other words, there is very little energy cost using 32 cores and returning the results to the user much faster vs. using 16 cores. But there is a substantial energy cost to use 64 cores, which returns the results even faster.

Does anyone find this interesting, or agree (or disagree) with this approach?

Views of the HP POD

aimeeschoaf — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:35:00 GMT

The HP POD had a very busy week indeed... and we had some great photos taken while it was in the Silicon Valley. Here are a few of those pics - thank you for participating! For more information on the HP POD, go to: www.hp.com/go/pod.

Look for the HP POD this Fall at an industry event near you!

The HP POD finds Yahoo... Photo by Ryan Knight

The HP POD introduces itself to Google -- photo by Holly Benson

Photo by Cheryl Edwards

Will Hayes says, "Wait, come back! You forgot to drop off my TV!

Photo by Carlos Mangandy

Congratulations to the winner of our "Spot the POD" Drawing!

aimeeschoaf — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:18:00 GMT

Congratulations to Kenn Durrence, who was drawn as the winner of our "Spot the POD" Drawing. Kenn captured the HP POD in San Jose.

Congratulations, Kenn! Please email aimee.schoaf@hp.com with your contact information!

Thank you all for participating in this promotion - watch for the HP POD coming your way again this Fall.

“Spot the POD” Drawing

aimeeschoaf — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:22:00 GMT

The "Spot the POD" Drawing is now closed. We will be randomly choosing one winner from the eligible entries on Friday, July 18, 2008. Here are some of the photos posted as the POD made its journey through Silicon Valley! Thank you all for participating! For more information on the HP POD, go to www.hp.com/go/pod.

Nascent

aimeeschoaf — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:13:00 GMT

By Christian Post

"Nascent: coming or recently having come into existence."

It would be a short argument to suggest that containerized datacenters are nascent. They have been developed and deployed for years to serve mobile, military, and disaster response needs. Yet we are seeing a ground-swell of containerized offerings at the convergence of unprecedented energy costs, a resurgence of compute demand, and the growth of business dependence on IT. One could claim the interest in containerized datacenter solutions has now emerged beyond background noise and appears to be forming a "nascent" marketplace.

Who is paying attention? Certainly enterprise scaleout, Web 2.0 and HPC customers. Containers offer shorter time to provision and noticeable capex and opex savings. More than clamoring for provider briefings, some users are developing their own concepts. Further, mid-level managers see savings beyond the 20% barrier that normally hinders proposing new approaches to executives. The datacenter construction industry is certainly taking notice: Here is a diversification opportunity in which to invest, a competitive threat to take notice, and a potential fad to counter. Container integrators, also, note the opportunity and are seeking partnerships to extend their reach beyond non-IT applications. Finally, IT providers are staking claims. To them, containers extend the sales and solution opportunity beyond the box, enclosure, and rack to a sales opportunity valued at 2000+ nodes per order and solution opportunity in which to differentiate. How long will it last? That's the problem with "nascent." The early adopter era nears and likely precedes the pause. In the pause, investors and watchers will reflect on whether the return merits the convergence of facilities and IT and the new processes in deployment and operations.

So who will be the preferred provider(s)? Consider the following criteria: First, containers bring together technology at the MEP&IT spheres. Certainly design leadership that offers density, cost, and deployment prowess are mandatory. Second, IT configuration flexibility will be imperative, especially to those seeking best-in-class performance per watt or heterogeneous flexibility. Third, unique services for deployment, break/fix, and management of containers must be included. Few customers would leave any of these three out. But one is still missing. As varied as there are datacenter strategies and building designs, few customers express exactly the same container design expectations.

Thus there is a fourth criteria. In a new market, the provider that can 1) offer sound advice on whether to and how to deploy containerized datacenters and 2) respond to container design modifications quickly with skill and reputation, will likely emerge most trusted for such a "nascent" investment. What do you think? What is "nascent" about the containerized datacenter market? How long will it last? What kind of provider best serves the customer need?