On 10th September 2013 IBM made a number of big
announcements related to System x. These offerings include a brand new dense
computing platform named IBM NeXtScale System that
aims at scale-out datacentres and targets cloud,
technical computing, analytics and social media computing.
NeXtScale has been developed from IBM technologies
including iDataPlex and BladeCenter and provides an ultra-dense platform which
can squeeze up to 84 dual processor servers into a single 42U rack. Effectively,
this equates to up to 2016 processing cores per rack. Unlike iDataPlex,
NeXtScale infrastructure uses industry standard 19 inch racks. With a building
block approach to scalability, it allows organisations of all sizes and budgets
to start small but scale rapidly and easily if required.
The idea behind modern applications is that they
scale across multiple nodes and have their RAS features inherent in the software
layer. Thus there is no technical reason to have so many management controllers,
power supplies, fans, and other components in the box. The machine is stripped
down to the bare essentials to be a node in a cluster with nothing unnecessary
that adds cost. The kinds of parallel applications run by HPC datacentres,
public cloud operators, and enterprises setting up private clouds do not always
need all of the reliability and management features of full-on, enterprise-class
servers. IBM were
quoted as saying "We tried to stay away from building a luxury car. This is a
high performance race car."
The new servers have been built around Intel’s
new Xeon E5-2600 v2 processor family, support ultra-fast 1866 MHz RAM and
feature industry-standard components such as I/O cards and top-of-rack
networking switches, fitting neatly into existing infrastructure. NeXtScale can
operate in temperatures of up to 40C, reducing cooling requirements and further
lowering energy expenditure.
A nice feature of IBM NeXtScale is that it is pre-built by IBM and arrives at the client location racked, cabled, and labelled, ready to power on. It is suggested that this can reduce time from arrival to production readiness by up to 75 percent.
If you require any further information regarding
the new IBM NeXtScale System please do not hesitate to contact your Celerity Representative or
email info@celerity-uk.com
Malcolm Smith - Technical Consultant - Celerity Limited
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