ODCC 2015 Summit Highlights Multi node Server
The 2015 Open Data Center Summit (ODCC 2015) will be held in Beijing National Convention Center on November 5. The eight highlights of the conference are refreshing, and the multi node server technical specification will be a key result of the server working group of the summit.
According to Tang Huabin, an expert in the server working group, the multi node server is a newly designed energy-saving high-density server initiated and led by China Mobile, Another open server design scheme for the industry released by the ODCC server working group. Similar to the whole cabinet server, the multi node server is a fast developing server design form in recent years. With the rapid development of the Internet, cloud computing, big data and other industries, the scale of the data center continues to expand, and the number of servers purchased and deployed increases rapidly. The power consumption and space occupation of servers become an important part of the cost of the data center. In order to adapt to business and technology development and achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase, the server design generally presents the following trends:
1. Cabinets/racks have gradually become the basic units of procurement, deployment, operation and maintenance management;
2. The energy-saving design concept of sharing fans and power supply is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people;
3. The density of the rack keeps increasing, and the power is even higher than 10KW per cabinet.
The multi node server and the "Scorpio" whole machine cabinet server are basically consistent in terms of overall design concept, technical requirements, etc., but also have more extensive application scenarios and flexibility advantages. First, it can meet the needs of more types of customers, especially small and medium-sized users in different industries with decentralized procurement deployment, providing more flexible procurement and deployment granularity; Secondly, it can meet the needs of more data centers, such as traditional data centers with lower power density and new data centers that cannot use full cabinet servers due to restrictions.
The technical scheme of multi node server has been deliberated and communicated for a long time. At the beginning of 2014, China Mobile put forward preliminary design requirements for multi node servers according to its own business and data center deployment requirements, and repeatedly communicated with server manufacturers and completed prototype development. In this process, the technical solution of multi node server has also attracted the attention of other users in the industry, especially operators and enterprise users. After several rounds of consultation and modification within ODCC and for other potential users and suppliers, a generally accepted unified technical specification has been basically formed, and several mainstream server manufacturers in the industry have completed or are carrying out server research and development according to this technical specification.
According to the current technical specifications, there are two basic configurations and forms of multi node servers: computing and storage. Both servers support up to 2-way Intel Xeon E5-2600v3 processors and 16 memory sockets. The main difference is that storage servers can support more hard disks. In addition, considering the scalability requirements of enterprise applications, each node can also support up to two PCIe expansion slots, which can widely meet the needs of various IT systems. The frame height of the multi node server is unified to 4U, which can maximize the storage density and node flexibility. The power density is 100%~200% higher than that of the traditional server, making it match the requirements of the medium and high density data center with a single rack power of about 10KW. For the low-density data center, it can also be flexibly reduced and deployed according to the needs.
In addition, the multi node server also has a unified front panel layout and basically the same indicator design requirements as the "Scorpio" server node. All interface operations except fan and power supply are completed on the front panel (cold channel) of the server. In particular, all hard disks of the multi node server support hot plug operation, which can greatly improve the on-site operation and maintenance efficiency and high availability of the server.
Expert introduction:
Tang Huabin is a senior researcher, doctor and senior engineer of the Institute of Big Data and IT Technology of China Mobile Research Institute. Currently, he works as the project manager of multi node server in ODCC. He has long been engaged in research on IT basic technologies such as data center, server, virtualization, cloud computing, etc., specifically responsible for projects such as energy conservation and emission reduction of China Mobile's data center, server customization, etc., and has a comprehensive and profound understanding of the development trend and key technical solutions of data center and server technologies.
