Blades Made Simple™ » VMmark

Dell M910 Blade Server Achieves #1 VMmark Score

Kevin Houston — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 04:01:07 +0000

The VMware VMmark web site was recently updated to show Dell’s PowerEdge M910 blade server in the #1 slot (for blades) in the 16 core space. I think the PowerEdge M910 is very intriguing, so I thought I’d spend some time highlighting the features. Before I begin, let me explain what the VMmark testing is about. VMmark enables equipment manufacturers, software vendors, system integrators and other organizations to:

Measure virtual machine performance accurately and reliably
Determine the performance of different hardware and virtualization platforms
Make appropriate hardware decisions for your virtual infrastructure

VMware developed VMmark as a standard methodology for comparing virtualized systems. According to VMware’s VMmark website, the benchmark system in VMmark is comprised of a series of “sub-tests” that are derived from commonly used load-generation tools, as well as from benchmarks developed by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC®). In parallel to VMmark, VMware is a member of the SPEC Virtualization subcommittee and is working with other SPEC members to create the next generation virtualization benchmark.

In testing the terms, a “tile” is simply a collection of virtual machines (VM’s) that are executing a set of diverse workloads designed to represent a natural work environment. The total number of tiles that a server can handle provides a detailed measurement of that server’s consolidation capacity. The more tiles, the better. The faster the performance, the better.

Top 3 VMmark Results for 16 Core Blade Servers (as of 8/5/2010)…click on the link to open the details

#1 – Dell PowerEdge M910 (2 Sockets, 16 cores; Intel Xeon X7560 CPU) running VMware ESX v4.0 –37.11@26 tiles (published 7/13/2010)

#2 – Dell PowerEdge M905 (4 Sockets, 16 cores; AMD Opteron 8393 SE) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 22.90@17 tiles (published 6/19/2009)

#3 – HP ProLiant BL685 G6 (Four Core AMD Opteron 8389) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 20.87@14 tiles (published 4/24/2009)

About the Dell PowerEdge M910 Blade Server
Some details about the server:

uses Intel Xeon 7500 or 6500 CPUs
has support for up to 512GB using 32 x 16 DIMMs
comes 4 Ethernet ports via two embedded Broadcom NetExtreme II Dual Port 5709S Gigabit Ethernet NICs with failover and load balancing.
has two 2.5″ Hot-Swappable SAS/Solid State Drives
4 available I/O mezzanine card slots
comes with a Matrox G200eW w/ 8MB memory standard
can function on 2 CPUs with access to all 32 DIMM slots

One important note is that Dell has 4 I/O mezzanine cards. This is very important to understand, so let’s take a look at the Dell M1000e Chassis’ I/O Mapping.

YES – this looks complex, but it’s not. Here’s the breakdown by I/O Bay Module. For the record, I have them labeled as “I/O Bay 1 – 6″ however Dell uses “A1, A2, B1, B2 and C1, C2″. They are the same – I just listed them numerically to make it easier to follow.

I/O Bays 1 and 2
These I/O Bays are connected to the on-board Ethernet. In the case of the M910, there are 4 Ethernet ports.

I/O Bays 3 and 4
These I/O Bays are connected to Mezzanine Card Slots 1 and 3. These can provide 4 ports per card if a QUAD port card is used – otherwise, only two ports would be used.

I/O Bays 5 and 6

These I/O Bays are connected to Mezzanine Card Slots 2 and 4. These can provide 4 ports per card if a QUAD port card is used – otherwise, only two ports would be used.

From the design of the Dell M1000e Chassis, you can see that Dell’s M910 offers:

a) physically redundant card connections

b) Up to 20 ports of I/O

Let me give an real-world example of how Dell’s blade architecture can be very exciting. Imagine you have a need for 12 Ethernet Adapters and 2 Fibre HBAs, however you want to have redundant, physical fibre HBAs. You can do this with the M910 blade server:

4 Ethernet Ports on the motherboard

+ 4 Ethernet NICs (via a Quad Port Ethernet Adapter) on Mezzanine card 1

+ 2 Fibre HBA ports on Mezzanine card 2

+ 4 Ethernet NICs (via a Quad Port Ethernet Adapter) on Mezzanine card 3

+ 2 Fibre HBA ports on Mezzanine card 2

= 12 Ethernet Ports and 4 Fibre Ports (redundant)

In fact – if you didn’t need the Fibre HBAs, you could put in 2 x Quad port Ethernet cards and have ANOTHER 8 Ethernet ports (total of 20)! This is remarkable! No more physical I/O port limitations, you can achieve the quantity of I/O ports you need without moving to 10Gb.

FlexMem Bridge Technology Allows for More Memory in 2 Sockets

Intel’s Xeon 7500 architecture requires that you have a processor to access the associated memory DIMMs. However, Dell created an innovative design that allows for you to use the memory associated with a 3rd and 4th processor without the need for the processors. This technology is called “FlexMem Bridge.” Dell’s FlexMem Bridge technology allows for you to sits in CPU sockets #3 and #4 and connects a memory controller from CPU 1 to the memory DIMMs associated to CPU socket #3 and CPU 2 to the memory associated to CPU Socket #4. The FlexMem Bridge does two things:

It extends the Scalable Memory Interconnects (SMI) from CPU 1 and CPU 2 to the memory subsystem of CPU 3 and CPU 4.
It reroutes and terminates the 2nd Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) inter-processor communications links to provide optimal performance which would otherwise be disconnected in a 2 CPU configuration.

Sometimes it’s easier to view pictures than read descriptions, so take a look at the picture below for a diagram on how this works.

I wrote a post on this technology a few weeks back, so jump over to this page and take a look (read the comments – good discussions were had.)

So – that about covers it.

For more information on the Dell PowerEdge M910, check out the PowerEdge M910 Product Site at
http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/poweredge-m910/pd.aspx?refid=poweredge-m910&s=biz&cs=555

(UPDATED) Best Blade Server for VMware Is…

Kevin Houston — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:01:26 +0000

(Updated to include links to results)

I’ve had a few questions lately about “the best” blade server to use for virtualization – specifically VMware virtualization. While the obvious answer is “it depends”, I thought it would be an interesting approach to identify the blade servers that ranked in the top 5 in VMware’s VMmark benchmark. Before I begin, let me explain what the VMmark testing is about. VMmark enables equipment manufacturers, software vendors, system integrators and other organizations to:

Measure virtual machine performance accurately and reliably
Determine the performance of different hardware and virtualization platforms
Make appropriate hardware decisions for your virtual infrastructure

THE RESULTS (as of 6/2/2010)…click on the link to open the details

24 Cores (4 Sockets)
HP ProLiant BL685c G6 (Six Core AMD Opteron 8435) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 29.19@20 tiles (published 7/14/2009)
HP ProLiant BL680c G5 (Six Core Intel Xeon E7458) running VMware ESX v3.5.0 Update 3 - 18.64@14 tiles (published 3/30/2009)

16 Cores (4 Sockets)
Dell PowerEdge M905 (Four Core AMD Opteron 8393 SE) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 22.90@17 tiles (published 6/19/2009)
HP ProLiant BL685 G6 (Four Core AMD Opteron 8389) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 20.87@14 tiles (published 4/24/2009)

12 Cores (2 Sockets)
Cisco UCS B250 M2 (Six Core Intel Xeon X5680) running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 35.83@26 tiles (published 4/6/2010)
Fujitsu BX922 S2 (Six Core Intel Xeon X5680) running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 32.89@24 tiles (published 4/6/2010)

8 Cores (2 Sockets)
Fujitsu BX922 S2 (Four Core Intel Xeon X5677) running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 27.99@18tiles(published 5/10/2010)
HP ProLiant BL490c G6 (Four Core Intel Xeon X5570) runningVMware ESX v4.0 – 25.27@17tiles (published 4/20/2010)

THE WINNER IS…
Cisco UCS B250 M2 running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 35.83 with 26 tiles

Cisco’s Winning Configuration
So – how did Cisco reach the top server spot? Here’s the configuration:

server config:

2 x Intel Xeon X5680 Processors
192GB of RAM (48 x 4GB)
1 x Converged Network Adapter (Cisco UCS VIC M81KR)

storage config:

EMC CX4-240
Cisco MDS 9134
1173.48GB Used Disk Space
1024MB Array Cache
50 disks used on 5 enclosures/shelves (1 with 14 disk, 4 with 9 disks)
55 LUNs used
*21 at 38GB (file server + mail server) over 20 x 73GB SSDs
*5 at 38GB (file server + mail server) over 20 x 73GB SSDs
*21 at 15GB (database) + 2 LUNs at 400GB (Standby, Webserver, Javaserver) over 16 x 450GB 15k disks
*5 at 15GB (database) over 16 x 450GB 15k disks
* 1 LUN at 20GB (boot) over 5 x 300GB 15k disks
RAID 0 for VMs, RAID 5 for VMware ESX 4.0 O/S

As you can see from the information above, the Cisco UCS B250 M2 is the clear winner above all of the blade server offerings. As you can see, none of the Xeon 7500 blade servers have yet to be tested but when they do, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Cisco Takes Top 8 Core VMware VMmark Server Position

Kevin Houston — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:49:39 +0000

Cisco is getting some (more) recognition with their UCS blade server product, as they recently achieved the top position for “8 Core Server” on VMware’s VMmark benchmark tool. VMmark is the industry’s first (and only credible) virtualization benchmark for x86-based computers. According to the VMmark website, the Cisco UCS B200 blade server reached a score of 25.06 @ 17 tiles. A “tile” is simple a collection of virtual machines (VM’s) that are executing a set of diverse workloads designed to represent a natural work environment. The total number of tiles that a server can handle provides a detailed measurement of that server’s consolidation capacity.

Cisco’s Winning Configuration
So – how did Cisco reach the top server spot? Here’s the configuration:

server config:

2 x Intel Xeon X5570 Processors
96GB of RAM (16 x 8GB)
1 x Converged Network Adapter (Cisco UCS M71KR-Q)

storage config:

EMC CX4-240
Cisco MDS 9130
1154.27GB Used Disk Space
1024MB Array Cache
41 disks used on 4 enclosures/shelves (1 with 14 disk, 3 with 9 disks)
37 LUNs used
*17 at 38GB (file server + mail server) over 20 x 73GB SSDs
*17 at 15GB (database) + 2 LUNs at 400GB (Misc) over 16 x 450GB 15k disks
* 1 LUN at 20GB (boot) over 5 x 300GB 15k disks
RAID 0 for VMs, RAID 5 for VMware ESX 4.0 O/S

While first place on the VMmark page (8 cores) shows Fujitsu’s RX300, it’s important to note that it was reached using Intel’s W5590 processor – a processor that is designed for “workstations” – not servers. Second place, of server processors, currently shows HP’s BL490 with 24.54 (@ 17 tiles)

Thanks to Omar Sultan (@omarsultan) for Tweeting about this and to Harris Sussman for blogging about it.