HP ProLiant DL385 G7 - A Review

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1 White Paper HP ProLiant DL385 G7 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: Contents Executive Summary Hardware Requirements for Hosting Virtual Machines Introducing the HP ProLiant G7 Server Line > Robust Compute and Memory Capacity > Reduced Management Complexity > Enhanced Power Efficiency > Flexible Network Connection Technology Conclusion A Powerful Platform for Virtualization The AMD Opteron 6000 Series Platform: A Q&A with AMD s Margaret Lewis Datacenter Transformation with the HP ProLiant G7 Server Line

2 2 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization Executive Summary Seeking to lower power and cooling costs, simplify administration and conserve data center floor space, businesses of every size are rapidly virtualizing their physical infrastructures. As a result, demand is greater than ever for server hardware capable of handling virtualization workloads with maximum efficiency. Hardware Requirements for Hosting Virtual Machines Introducing the HP ProLiant G7 Server Line > Robust Compute and Memory Capacity > Reduced Management Complexity > Enhanced Power Efficiency > Flexible Network Connection Technology Conclusion The AMD Opteron 6000 Series Platform: A Q&A with AMD s Margaret Lewis Datacenter Transformation with the HP ProLiant G7 Server Line The next generation of HP ProLiant servers and blades offers the processing power, memory footprint, management features and energy efficiency that organizations need to streamline their virtual environments. Equipped with the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform AMD s newest and most powerful processing platform as well as sophisticated built-in management technologies, advanced power optimization features and innovative network connection technologies, HP s next-generation ProLiant servers can help IT departments increase consolidation ratios, reduce downtime and shorten deployment times for new virtual machines. This white paper discusses the unique requirements that virtualization imposes on host hardware and shows how the next-generation ProLiant server line can help companies with virtualized data centers achieve rapid ROI and dramatically lower their operational expenses.

3 3 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization Hardware Requirements for Hosting Virtual Machines Perhaps no recent technology has entered the IT mainstream faster than server virtualization. Indeed, the percentage of workloads running on virtualized servers will jump from 18 percent in 2009 to nearly 50 percent by the end of 2012, according to the analyst firm Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn. The factors behind that trend are no mystery. By enabling a single physical server to support multiple virtual machines, each running its own operating system and applications, server virtualization empowers companies to reduce spending on hardware and energy, conserve data center floor space, enhance IT agility and heighten disaster preparedness. To realize virtualization s fullest potential, however, organizations need host servers with specific characteristics, including the following: Robust processing and memory resources: Virtualization is a heavily threaded workload. Supporting multiple virtual machines while delivering solid performance requires host hardware with generous CPU capacity and a large memory footprint. High compute density: Using high-density servers amplifies virtualization s money-saving benefits. A high-density server can support a greater consolidation ratio, which, in turn, reduces the number of physical devices that must be administered, lowering management overhead and freeing up more room in the data center. Low energy consumption: To maximize virtualization s impact on power and cooling costs, organizations must deploy the most power-efficient host devices they can find. Effective management insight and control: With technology budgets stretched to their limit these days, IT departments need host hardware equipped for simpler, more efficient management. Cost-effective network connections: Hosting multiple virtual machines on a single physical device raises the demand for network connections. Organizations with virtualized data centers need servers capable of meeting that demand economically. To realize virtualization s fullest potential, however, organizations need host servers with specific characteristics. HP ProLiant bl495c

4 4 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization HP ProLiant DL385 G7 ProLiant G7 servers provide up to 27 times more compute capability than previous generation servers. Introducing the HP ProLiant G7 Server Line The next-generation HP ProLiant G7 server line is designed from the ground up to address virtualization s unique requirements. Servers in the HP ProLiant G7 line have the processing power and memory capacity to cost-effectively handle large numbers of virtual machines. Thanks to advanced power optimization features, they also help decrease energy and cooling costs. In addition, ProLiant G7 servers come with sophisticated management and interconnect technologies that dramatically lower operational expenses. The end results are rapid ROI and a data center equipped to support heavier workloads on fewer, more efficient servers. Consider some of the HP ProLiant G7 server line s top virtualization strengths: Robust Compute and Memory Capacity Certain servers in the HP ProLiant G7 server line utilize the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, an integrated CPU and chipset from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The new AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform has twice as many cores and more than twice the memory bandwidth of previous-generation AMD products. These processors help deliver the computing resources IT departments need to tackle demanding workloads like virtualization efficiently. The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform offers these virtualization-related benefits, among many others: n Heavy-duty processing capacity: The AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor is the x86 industry s first 12-core processor supporting up to 24 physical processing cores in a 2P server, delivering the raw performance organizations need to manage high-intensity workloads. n Massive memory bandwidth: The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform supports up to 512GB of fast, low-voltage DDR3 memory. The additional processing cores are matched with next-generation AMD Direct Connect Architecture 2.0, providing four memory channels per CPU, and HyperTransport 3.0 (HT3) technology to deliver up to twice the performance for core and memory-intensive workloads such as virtualization and database. n AMD Virtualization (AMD-V ) technology: AMD-V enhances and accelerates software-based virtualization to help run more virtual machines with less overhead. It was developed in collaboration with the leading providers of hypervisor and virtualization software. Perhaps most exciting, the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform s breakthrough economics enable the HP ProLiant G7 server line to deliver exceptional price for performance. Traditionally, 4P servers have come at a steep premium relative to 2P servers. AMD, however, has taken a bold step toward eliminating that 4P tax by creating a single platform that fits in both 2P and 4P servers yet comes at a 2P price. It all adds up to an impressive set of benefits. Thanks in part to the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform s heavy-duty CPU and memory resources, ProLiant G7 servers provide up to 27 times more compute capability than previousgeneration servers. They can also support up to a 23:1 consolidation ratio, yielding a 96 percent reduction in physical servers. That translates into an associated 96 percent drop in hardware procurement expenses, software licensing fees and data center floor space usage all of which enables an investment in ProLiant G7 servers to pay for itself in as little as two months. Reduced Management Complexity Like almost all HP servers, the HP ProLiant G7 server line comes with HP Insight Control, an integrated set of essential software for managing both physical and virtual servers. HP Insight Control enables nearly every aspect of server

5 5 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization ProLiant G7 servers pay for themselves in as little as two months. administration and optimization, and allows organizations to deploy ProLiant servers quickly, proactively monitor server health and performance, optimize power confidently and take complete remote control. It also integrates seamlessly into Microsoft System Center and VMware vcenter enterprise management tools. Using HP Insight Control, organizations can significantly lower their operational expenses more than $48,000 for every 100 users, according to research from the Framingham, Mass.- based analyst firm IDC. Integrated Lights-Out HP Insight Control includes extensive use of Integrated Lights-Out Advanced (ilo 3), HP s intelligent embedded management processor. With ilo 3 s help, administrators can perform maintenance tasks or collaboratively address hardware problems on HP servers from any remote location, for faster system recovery times and reduced spending on travel. HP ProLiant next-generation servers are the first to feature the latest and most powerful version of ilo. Available in two editions, Standard and Advanced, ilo 3 provides these and other new capabilities: Standard Edition n AES Encryption: For companies with heightened security needs, ilo 3 provides hardware-based AES encryption, which improves security without slowing down system performance. n Support for IPMI LAN/DCMI: Leveraging these popular standards for simple monitoring and control operations, technicians can power servers on and off, determine whether a server is online and perform other common administrative tasks remotely and easily. Advanced Edition n 800 Percent Faster Remote Console: Best-in-class remote management in real time without the need for software-based remote management tools lets administrators respond faster than ever. n 360 Percent Faster Virtual Media: Virtual media speeds in ilo 3 enable everyday maintenance and deployment in a fraction of the time required with previous generations of ilo. n Remote Console Direct Access: Technicians can access the ilo Advanced remote console without having to navigate through the system s Web interface, allowing faster response to management issues. n Dynamic Web 2.0 Interface: Content updates appear in real time, sparing users from having to refresh the Web page manually. Enhanced Power Efficiency HP ProLiant G7 servers deliver significantly greater compute capacity than previousgeneration servers in the same power envelope, thanks to advanced power optimization features including the following: HP Thermal Logic Technologies Built into every next-generation ProLiant server, HP Thermal Logic technologies enable companies to reduce energy consumption by up to 96 percent and improve performance per watt by 27 times. Among the most important Thermal Logic technologies are: n Dynamic Power Capping: Processors typically account for roughly one-third of server power consumption. Dynamic Power Capping lets administrators set limits on processor power usage and enforce them automatically. This both protects circuit breakers and gives companies more precise control over power allocation, resulting in greater energy efficiency. n Sea of Sensors: Every HP ProLiant G7 server contains 32 sensors that monitor internal temperatures and automatically adjust power distribution to prevent overheating and energy waste. For example, thermal sensors in the hard drives trigger faster fan speeds during periods of heavy disk activity and slower speeds when disks are spinning more slowly. Other sensors automatically shut off power to unused I/O slots and DIMM slots.

6 6 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization n Common Slot Power Supplies: Lightly loaded power supplies are less efficient than highly loaded ones. HP s common slot power supply strategy lets organizations choose from among four interchangeably sized power supplies rated between 460W and 1200W, so they can find the model that most closely meets their needs without exceeding them. n Data Center Power Control: Today, most organizations base their power capacity planning on estimates. Data Center Power Control, part of the HP Insight Control management suite, collects and displays actual consumption figures in real time. That s information data center managers have never had access to before. Plus, Data Center Power Control allows technicians to control power usage more precisely by enforcing energy management policies and automatically powering down nonessential servers during peak periods. AMD-P Power Efficiency Features Included with the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, the AMD-P suite of power management features which includes AMD PowerNow! Technology, Dual Dynamic Power Management and AMD CoolCore Technology dynamically minimizes power usage of the overall processor, individual cores and the logic within each core, based on application needs and server workloads. Flexible Network Connection Technology Traditionally, the only way to provision a virtualization host server with as many network connections as it needs has been to install additional network interface cards (NICs) and switches. That not only raises hardware procurement costs, but increases power and management spending as well. To ease those expenses, HP has outfitted many of its server blades with HP Virtual Connect Flex-10, a hardware-based I/O virtualization technology that enables organizations to partition a single high-performance 10Gb Ethernet connection into four virtual connections. Flex-10 can also help fine-tune the bandwidth of each connection to ensure more efficient use of network resources. The benefits include the following: n Reduced hardware costs: By reducing the number of NICs and switches needed on host servers, Virtual Connect Flex-10 lowers peripheral costs by up to 66 percent and power consumption by up to 50 percent. n Decreased management spending: I/O management accounts for a significant portion of server administration, which, in turn, accounts for more than 80 percent of a typical IT organization s costs, according to IDC. By virtualizing and consolidating blade server I/O, Virtual Connect Flex-10 enables companies to support more network connections with existing staff. n Lower power and cooling costs: Fewer NICs and switches means less powerhungry hardware to cool. What s more, by increasing the number of network connections available to host servers, Virtual Connect Flex-10 allows organizations to boost their consolidation ratio, further reducing power and cooling expenses.

7 7 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization ProLiant G7 servers support up to a 23:1 consolidation ratio yielding a 96 percent reduction in physical servers. Conclusion As virtualization rapidly achieves mainstream status in today s data centers, it is heightening demand for servers optimized to meet the unique challenges of hosting virtual machines. In particular, companies with virtualized infrastructures need manageable, cost-effective server hardware with heavy-duty processing and memory resources and plenty of network connections. Those are precisely the qualities that the nextgeneration HP ProLiant server line delivers. Equipped with the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, ProLiant G7 servers currently support two processors. These additional cores are matched with next-generation AMD Direct Connect Architecture 2.0, providing four memory channels per CPU with up to 288GB of DDR3 memory and HyperTransport 3.0 (HT3) technology to deliver up to twice the performance. And since the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform provides excellent 4P performance at much lower 2P economics, ProLiant G7 servers offer outstanding price for performance. HP Thermal Logic technologies, the HP Insight Control management suite and HP Virtual Connect technology combine to make the next-generation ProLiant server line energy-efficient, highly manageable and easy to interface with the network. All of that ultimately translates into faster ROI and sharply lower operational expenses. Of course, it s possible to house virtual machines on almost any reasonably well-provisioned server. But organizations looking to maximize the benefits of virtualization should insist on using hardware specifically designed to host virtual infrastructures. The HP ProLiant G7 server line is an impressive new addition to that product category. Data Center Transformation with the HP ProLiant G7 Server Line The typical data center today is packed with servers, storage and networking devices, most of which support specific applications or lines of business. Resources in those technology silos tend to be underutilized, contributing to excessive management overhead, unnecessarily complex networking and wasted data center floor space. To overcome this, organizations must transform their technology silos into aggregated pools of resources that all of their applications and services can share. Helping businesses bring that vision to life is the aim of HP s Converged Infrastructure strategy. HP Converged Infrastructure joins a portfolio of battle-tested hardware and software products with a unique, proven architectural framework to help IT departments align IT supply and business demand more closely. Drawing on modular system design and open standards, HP Converged Infrastructure helps organizations create an environment in which resources are dynamically provisioned, efficiently and automatically, resulting in lower operational costs and greater agility. HP Virtual Resource Pools are a critical component of the Converged Infrastructure architecture. Utilizing virtualization technology, HP Virtual Resource Pools aggregate compute, storage, I/O and networking assets, enabling companies to combine, divide, and repurpose infrastructure resources to match application needs quickly and efficiently. HP ProLiant next-generation servers provide an excellent foundation for HP Virtual Resource Pools. Optimized to tackle multi-threaded workloads such as virtualization, ProLiant nextgeneration servers have the robust processing power and large memory capacity needed to increase server consolidation while ensuring fast performance. They also offer low power consumption and sophisticated management functionality, so you can operate your virtual resource pools costeffectively. With the next-generation HP ProLiant servers, the HP Converged Infrastructure can help you deploy new applications in hours versus weeks, slash disaster recovery times to just minutes, and drastically reduce the number of physical servers in your data center, easing administration and helping you postpone or even avoid costly new data center construction. For more information about the HP Converged Infrastructure strategy, portfolio and architecture, visit ConvergedInfrastructure.

8 8 The Next Generation HP ProLiant Server Line: A Powerful Platform for Virtualization The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform is designed from top to bottom to be a virtualization workhorse. AMD Opteron 6000 Series Platform: More for Less As Certain HP ProLiant G7 servers are now equipped with the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, a powerful new integrated CPU and chipset that offers robust support for demanding workloads at breakthrough prices. We recently spoke with Margaret Lewis, director of Commercial Solutions and Software at AMD, about the origins of the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, the business value it provides and the qualities that make it a strong fit for virtualized data centers. The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform represents an important change of direction for AMD. What was your reasoning for making that change? The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform came about as a result of feedback from our customers. Organizations seeking the performance and scalability provided by 4P servers were using 2P products instead, mostly because 4P servers were so much more expensive. So we did something really groundbreaking: We created a single platform with heavy-duty processing and memory resources that fits in both 2P and 4P systems, and then we priced it like a 2P product. What kind of business benefits does that enable? Servers that utilize the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform, like those in the HP ProLiant G7 line, bring tremendous value to customers in terms of price for performance. Now that one platform supports 4P multiple systems, businesses running heavily threaded workloads can leverage the performance and scalability of a 4P server at a 2P price. Without making exorbitant upfront investments, they can enjoy dramatically better performance per watt, significantly reduce the amount of hardware they have to maintain and conserve valuable data center floor space. What makes the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform a good choice for powering virtualization workloads? The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform is designed from top to bottom to be a virtualization workhorse. Virtualization helps companies save money and increase efficiency, but it also imposes increased CPU and memory demands on host hardware. To support large numbers of virtual machines without compromising performance, organizations need host servers with a generous supply of cores and plenty of memory. The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform provides up to 12 cores per processor, four memory channels per processor and up to half a terabyte of memory. That s the level of resources organizations need to achieve high consolidation ratios on their host servers while maintaining strong performance. Yet the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform fits within the same general power and thermal envelopes as earlier six-core AMD Opteron processors, and comes at an outstanding price. That s a perfect combination for heavily virtualized data centers. In addition, AMD works closely with leading virtualization software vendors like Microsoft, VMware and Citrix. So right out of the box, most of the major hypervisors on the market today take full advantage of the capabilities that the AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform makes available.