You may remember MEGACORE, the monster of a server we built for the FreeBSD Foundation. Recently one of our clients had specific networking requirements for a 2U/4 node solution, so we came up with a custom build that fit all of their needs. Meet “MEGAPORT”. To get an idea of how impressive this system is, we have to look at it piece by piece.
First, we outfitted a 2U with four compute nodes.
Each of the four compute nodes is providing Dual 10-core Intel CPU’s, resulting in a total of 80 physical cores packed in 2U of rack space.
There’s 256GB of RAM in each of the 4 nodes, providing a total of 1TB of memory. With 6 x 10GbE (4 x Intel SFP+ 10GbE ports and 2 x Intel X540 RJ45 10GbE ports) in each of the 4 nodes, that’s 24 x 10GbE ports in 2U of rack space.
The sheer density of what we managed to fit in 2U of space is amazing, but it’s a good example of the kind of custom solutions iXsystems specializes in building for our clients. In fact, we already have a similar system lined up as we speak.
MEGAPORT
March 21, 2014
