Thoughts on a VM host

[danb35]

A couple of years ago, I picked up a used Dell PowerEdge C6100 server, configured with four nodes. Each has 2 x Xeon X5650, 48 GB RAM, 3 x 3.5" bays. I didn't really have a clear idea of what I'd do with four servers in 2U, but it sounded neat. I'm using two nodes for VM hosts using Proxmox VE, and they're working reasonably well, but...

Hurricane Irma knocked out my power for a few hours (yes, I know there are many still without power). My UPS was good for about 2:30, but eventually gave up the ghost. I'm wondering how much power I could expect to save with some newer kit. Maybe not "new" new, but a generation or two newer. I still like the idea of at least a couple of nodes in one chassis, which is going to limit the options quite a bit, but I might just worry about that later.

So, with that back-story, I guess the question boils down to this: What, in more recent-generation hardware, would have performance comparable to a pair of X5650s? And how much (if any) power would be saved by making that change?

 

[Ericloewe]

So, each X5650 is six Haswell/Westmere cores at 2.6GHz, plus hyperthreading.

That's fairly easy to beat with most Xeon E5-2xxx models, especially if you're constrained by memory bandwidth (4 channels vs. 3, typically higher supported DRAM frequencies on newer models).

As for power... The greatest gains in dual-socket systems have been with Xeon Scalable, I think, but the price tag would be atrociously high. I'm guessing that Xeon E5-v3/v4-2xxx should still have significantly better power management in dual-socket operation, but I haven't really seen numbers for that particular aspect (I guess the big multi-CPU users don't care much about things like "idle", since their workloads are clearly heavy enough for extremely large systems).

You could go with a 10 or 12 core CPU, saving tons of power at the expense of some workloads (highly parallel applications with local memory usage see an effective memory bandwidth penalty) and added cost (lower power gains each generation, less incentive to upgrade, fewer systems on the secondary market, higher cost - normalized and compared to dual-socket systems of the same version). That's probably the more interesting option to explore.

 

[danb35]

Thanks for the feedback. Other options include "another battery pack for the UPS" and "buy a generator", but any excuse to upgrade the server...

That's fairly easy to beat with most Xeon E5-2xxx models, especially if you're constrained by memory bandwidth

Are you referring to power consumption, performance, or both in this regard?

 

[Ericloewe]

Are you referring to power consumption, performance, or both in this regard?

Performance, though anything newer will burn less power, too (I'm not convinced a straight platform upgrade to dual E5-2xxx v1/2/3/4 will provide meaningful power savings at a reasonable cost).

What might be more interesting is something along the lines of a single Xeon E5-2470 v2, which I guesstimate to be slightly faster than the current twin X5650s for most realistic home workloads. The E5-2687W v4 also looks interesting, at the right price.

 

[Stux]

Or perhaps Xeon D if power savings are what you want ;)

55W peak on the platform I believe.

 

[danb35]

Thanks again for the input. It's kind of looking like anything that would give me a major performance/watt improvement is going to cost more than I want to spend, but that can change...

 

[danb35]

Then again, something like this might be a step up: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-...813427?hash=item58edaf5773:g:gsIAAOSw5cNYj8rK

Only two nodes instead of four, of course. Eight cores per chip vs. six, but at a slower clock speed. One generation newer. IPMI would be usable, unlike my current Dell*, but it wouldn't be the new-generation Redfish with HTML5 iKVM, so I'd still be stuck with the mess that is Java. Two nodes means six bays per node, which might be nice. RAM is less than I'd like, though I have spare 8 GB DIMMs which would bring it to 32 GB/node. Interesting... Makes me wonder if the seller could configure it with 2670s and more RAM (and, if so, at what cost).

 

[Ericloewe]

I'd still be stuck with the mess that is Java

You can always use Serial over LAN for most tasks and minimize the amount of Java in your life.

 

[danb35]

Yeah, I need to play with SoL a bit (though normally that acronym has a completely different meaning). Java-in-browser on my Macs just doesn't work at all. It works OK under Linux or Windows, but those aren't what I use most of the time. And it's not like I need graphics support.

 

[Inxsible]

Java-in-browser on my Macs just doesn't work at all. It works OK under Linux or Windows, but those aren't what I use most of the time.

That's because the browsers no longer support NPAPI plugins. I use Archlinux for my desktop which is a rolling release and it no longer supports java in browser plugin.

I am not sure what distro of Linux you use, but the next update of your distro probably would stop supporting Java and every other NPAPI plugins. Macs or rather Safari dropped support for NPAPI plugins a while back.

You can still use Java Web Start, however. You just need to download the jnlp first and then start it with Java Web Start. I do that now in order to use iKVM over LAN via IPMI on both my servers.