Boost SDS Performance and Cut Costs with Smarter Networking Solutions

Modern data centers are undergoing a transformation. What used to be an environment focused on client/server technologies and a mixture of closed and open system server, storage and networking devices is changing from both an IT and workforce perspective.

The new data center is focused around serving the unique needs of cloud computing, virtualization, automation and mobile computing. Much of this transition involves shifting away from a hardware-focused data center towards one now described as a software-defined-data-center (SDDC), which takes advantage of unique software-focused capabilities to help simplify the deployment, operation and management of devices in the data center. Organizations are embracing this transition toward software-based server and storage platforms, while also taking a closer look at the key underlying infrastructure that serves as the foundation for this modern data center – the network.

This new Dell EMC guide, “The 5 Surprising Ways Server Technology is Advancing Software Defined Storage” describes how global storage array capacity is quickly migrating toward deployment on software-defined-storage (SDS) or hyper-converged platforms. One of the key observations in this guide is how the underlying server hardware plays a critical role in this migration. As you are investigating a migration to SDS, now is a good time to revisit your underlying network infrastructure to ensure they are optimized to work together and deliver against your SLAs.

Modern data center networking solutions provide beneficial alternatives to older proprietary, closed networking systems that are costly to install and maintain. These new disaggregated “open networking” solutions give IT organizations a broader set of choices including high-performance, low-cost, fixed port switching platforms, a variety of network operating systems, highly efficient data center fabrics, and a wide selection of open source network automation and orchestration tools. These networking solutions empower you with the ability to implement the right technology and solutions that best meet your unique data center interconnectivity needs with platforms that also help lower cooling, power and footprint requirements. More importantly, these open networking solutions offer a variety of network virtualization technologies that can help you complete the vision of a SDDC with software-defined server, storage and network services.

Disaggregation through open networking

As you continue to investigate open networking solutions to ensure the success of your SDS migration, you should also take a closer look at the specific needs of the bandwidth hungry workloads and applications. If high-performance and quick response times are critical to your business, take a look at the latest offerings of 25GbE top-of-rack switches that offer 2.5x the bandwidth over existing 10GbE connections to servers and storage devices within the rack. However, if rack space is at a premium, then you can implement several new high-performance 1RU half-width switches that were specifically designed for SDS and hyper-converged environments.

Dell EMC has been a leading supplier of open networking solutions for over four years and has built up a broad ecosystem of 3rd party OS, network virtualization and management application partners. We also offer a holistic approach to SDS solutions with industry-leading SDS offerings like VxRail, vSAN Ready Nodes and XC which integrate hardware, software and networking components from a single vendor.

Open networking alternatives for HCI configurations

There is a clear trend showing how the shift towards software-defined in data centers is gaining momentum, including SDSage. The clear benefits of cost savings, simplification and automation are helping to fuel this transition. When evaluating the server hardware choices and how they can help optimize SDS environments, it makes sense to also closely examine the underlying network infrastructure and change them together. Modern open networking solutions can help ensure the information flow both within your organization and with customers is optimal, while also helping to reduce expenses and increase efficiency. Dell EMC can help you with your migration to SDS with a broad selection of market-leading server, storage and open networking solutions combined with a global support and services organization.

Continue reading

New Open Networking Options for HCI

The Dell EMC Networking business strategy continues to focus on delivering products that empower customer choice, flexibility and innovation at any scale. Our signature open networking switching products in the data center are the foundation for IT transformation with our enterprise, web and service provider customers worldwide.

We continue to lead the industry with the announcement of our latest S4112-ON open networking switches that are purpose-built for hyper-converged and software-defined-storage data center environments.  At one-half the width of standard 1RU switches, these new S4112-ON switches help make efficient use of valuable chassis rack space while still providing high-performance top-of-rack switching within the chassis and fabric connectivity between chassis.

These new switches are available in both a S4112F-ON version for 10/25GbE fiber connections and a S4112T-ON version for 10BaseT connections.  There are also multi-rate 100GbE ports available on both offerings that help future-proof your data center for growing storage connectivity demands with each 100GbE port supporting 10/25/50/100GbE speeds.

S4112T-ON switch with 12 x 10GbE ports and 3 x 100GbE ports

S4112T-ON with 12 x 10GBaseT ports and 3 x 100GbE ports

S4112T-ON with 12 x 10GBaseT ports and 3 x 100GbE portsBoth versions of the S4112-ON support the Open Networking Install Environment (ONIE) which gives customers the choice of running Dell EMC Networking OS10 software or approved 3rd party operating systems. The OS10 Enterprise Edition package provides complete layer 2 and layer 3 networking functionality but also allows customers to easily customize the software for different environments. A customer can integrate additional open source capabilities, add 3rd party Linux applications, or develop their own software using standard Linux and DevOps tools.

One ideal use case for these new switches would be in a hyper-converged fabric switch configuration running a virtual storage area network. Here either one or two S4112-ON switches (if redundancy is required) can be set up as switches in the storage front end fabric for Dell EMC systems like VxRail, vSAN Ready Nodes or XC hyper-converged systems.

Another good use case for the S4112-ON would be as a high-performance, space-efficient iSCSI SAN switch in a rack providing 10GbE or 10BaseT top-of-rack switching for Dell EMC SC-Series, Unity Series, MD-Series or EQL-Series storage platforms, with the ability to easily convert to 25GbE switching connections when needed.

Our mission at Dell EMC Networking is to ensure our customers – regardless of size – derive the fullest value out of their networking investments. As such, we will continue to introduce proven end-to-end open networking solutions, comprehensive global services and a vision that sets the pace in a rapidly changing industry. Find out how we can help you and your network.

Continue reading

Dell EMC PowerEdge Tops Big Data Analysis Systems Benchmark

Dell EMC Re-takes Performance Lead on TPCx-Big Bench Benchmark at Scale Factor 10000 Using 14G Hardware Platform

Computer benchmarking is the practice of discovering, measuring and assessing the relative performance of a system for a specific workload. Industry standard benchmarks allow researchers to compare the best performance being achieved by their systems to those of another entity (competitor) or to an entirely different industry. This information can then be used to identify gaps in an organization’s performance processes to achieve a competitive advantage. It is also used to compare the performance of the various vendor offerings within the Industry.

Dell EMC uses industry-standard benchmark tests to provide objective and verifiable performance data to its customers as it relates to its hardware platforms and solutions. Customers can use this data when designing and sizing a solution to deliver optimal performance for their business use cases and to scale as needed.

As big data analysis systems (BDAS) mature, the pressure to evaluate and compare both the performance and the price performance of these systems rises. To address this, the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) developed the TPCx-Big Bench (TPCx-BB), a benchmark standard for comparing BDAS solutions.

Dell EMC published a SF10000 TPCx-BB benchmark result that occupies the number 1 position for both the Performance and Price/Performance tables on the TPC website. With this result, and as at that date, Dell EMC topped the Performance and Price/Performance tables of the TPCx-BB benchmark at SF10000. 

System Under Test

For this submission, the System Under Test (SUT) comprised 1 x DELL EMC PowerEdge R640 Server (Master node) and 18 x Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd Servers (Slave nodes) as depicted in the System Configuration diagram below:

What was tested and measured?

The benchmark is designed to stress the CPU and IO systems of a Big Data Cluster using a single stream (power test) and concurrent streams (throughput test) of 30 queries (workloads).  Each run is performed under 3 phases: Load, Power and Throughput. For the test to pass an audit, 2 sequential performance runs must be executed.

Results

The overall TPCx-BB performance data for the Dell EMC R640/R740xd configuration is summarized in the table below:

Load Test: 2,190.66s

Power Test: 18,949.43s

Throughput Test: 70,134.07s

Performance Metric: 1,660.75 BBQpm@SF10000

Total System Cost $908,125

Price/Performance 546.82 $/BBQpm@SF10000

Availability Date: March 20, 2018

Competitive Landscape

The TPCx-BB benchmark standard has published results on SF1000, 3000, 10000 and 30000. Dell EMC has one SF10000 published result submitted in May, 2017 based on 13G hardware (Intel Xeon Broadwell based processors). As of April 04, 2018, only Dell EMC and HPE have published results at SF10000 based on servers with Intel Xeon Skylake processors. The published results for SF3000 and 1000 from HPE and Huawei are based on Intel Broadwell and Haswell family of processors. The only result the Dell EMC 14G performance data can realistically be compared to is the latest HPE SF10000 result:

Continue reading

Boosting Business Agility, Eliminating Bottlenecks with 25GbE

Networks are the modern data center’s foundation. Rapid information growth and evolving applications require real-time responses. This has led businesses of all sizes to build up their corporate data centers by including a growing number of modern compute and storage platforms. These modern data centers require high-performance interconnections between all of the various server and storage devices via a high-speed information superhighway, both within the rack and between the racks.

Unfortunately, a bottleneck exists within the data center network infrastructure that prohibits organizations from reaching optimum application performance. That bottleneck is the 10GbE I/O connection from the server/storage devices to the top-of-rack (ToR) Ethernet switch (See Figure 1).

This problem is exacerbated when there is an abundance of virtualization and cloud-based traffic occurring in real time. The rapid growth of server virtualization introduced significantly more east-west Virtual Machine (VM) network traffic between servers and the chassis to accommodate the real-time mapping of resources and led to a migration to 10GbE connections.

However, along with increased use of server virtualization, many organizations are also implementing multi-processor servers, all-flash storage systems and cloud-based technologies that require even higher-speed I/O communications. These transformations are described in the IDC study “Accelerate Business Agility with Faster Server Refresh Cycles,” where businesses must keep infrastructures up to date in order to support the scale and complexity of a changing application landscape. So, now as companies consider and plan their server refreshes as part of IT Transformation, they need to consider upgrading their network – by upgrading to 25GbE.

Figure 1 – 10GbE In-rack connectivity

Based on the projected rapid growth of 25GbE adoption in a 2017 Ethernet Switch market update by the Dell’Oro group, server and storage vendors are now shipping 25GbE I/O on their platforms (See Figure 2). These new 25GbE I/Os utilize more efficient chip technology and provide 2.5x the bandwidth over existing 10GbE connections. That’s like taking an existing 4-lane highway and expanding it to a 10-lane highway.

There are also some added benefits when using 25GbE including a more efficient use of valuable switching ASIC I/Os (1 instead of 4 used by 10GbE and 40GbE) and the ability not having to replace existing 10GbE fiber optic cabling when upgrading to 25GbE. This expanded 25GbE connectivity will greatly enhance traffic flows between devices in the rack as well as enhance traffic up into the data center fabric and to other racks connected to the fabric.

Figure 2 – Data Center switching speeds (Dell-Oro Group 2017)

There are a number of switch vendors in the market, including Dell EMC, who are shipping 25GbE switches to ensure their servers are operating at peak performance and achieve transformational SLAs. These new switches offer ports that can provide native 25GbE connections as well as multi-rate speeds that include 10/25/50/100GbE connections. The best news is that both enhancements in 25GbE chip technology and higher levels of customer demand are helping to bring the cost of 25GbE technology to almost the same price of existing 10GbE platforms.

When going through a server refresh campaign within the data center, it now makes sense to take a closer look at incorporating 25GbE I/Os in those new servers. Also coordinate with the networking team to take a look at the ToR Ethernet switches within the racks and see if they can efficiently handle 25GbE switching connectivity within the rack. If not, it might be a good time to investigate the implementation of a new generation of 25GbE Ethernet switches that support IT Transformation initiatives and additional OPEX savings by using less power, requiring less cooling and taking up less space as compared to existing switches in the rack.

When you’re making the switch over, remember that not all infrastructure is the same. It must be modernized. You don’t have to use the same vendor you’ve always used. In fact, being vendor indifferent is preferred for modern networking. Rather than just upgrading to yet another proprietary switching solution, take the time to investigate Dell EMC 25GbE open networking solutions that can provide you with open, standards-based technology disaggregation that embraces choice, flexibility and innovation within the network infrastructure. For example, when adopting an open networking solution with a choice of operating system (OS) software running on the switch hardware, Linux-savvy server administrators can take advantage of a Linux-based OS running on their switches and adopt a more common interface across both server and networking resources (see Figure 3). They will also be able to leverage the large talent pool available in Linux and open source standards-based communities for data center automation and orchestration tools that help accelerate rapid innovation and organizational agility.

Figure 3 – Empowering Linux in the data center with 25GbE Open Networking

As applications and their respective server platforms continue to evolve, adoption of 25GbE into the data center networking infrastructure is a necessity for all organizations. Including a 25GbE upgrade to the network when going through a server refresh ensures the elimination of bottlenecks that rob modern infrastructures of their performance and agility gains. Let Dell EMC help transform your IT with modern data center 25GbE solutions.

Continue reading

Fasten Your Seatbelt Networking Industry!

I couldn’t be more jazzed about all the news and buzz in the Networking industry. And much of it was happening at last week’s Linux Foundation Open Networking Summit in Los Angeles. Packed keynotes and vibrant conversations characterized the event, as the industry’s collective vision of Open Networking comes more and more into focus.

We at Dell EMC made some news. But more importantly customers made their own news in support of Open Networking. Some sharing their success and others sharing their contributions to the open source community. We were particularly proud of the session we co-hosted with Verizon where they shared their Telematics production environment and the role that our OS10 Open Edition is playing in their disaggregated networking stack.

The buzz was palpable, as was the absence of the dominant industry player. Interestingly, they did make some ‘news’ of their own this week, from afar, with their announcement about disaggregating their carrier-grade OS from underlying hardware. While this is a big step for them, for many it seems more like ‘rear-view mirror’ news.

The fact is, disaggregating networking hardware and software is old news. In fact, we pioneered this notion over 4 years ago. And 4 years in, there is a vibrant Open Networking ecosystem to support this vision offering customers unmatched choice and capability. And the competition has since followed our lead including nearly all of the top-tier OEMs.  Clearly, there’s a movement happening.

Figure 1. Our vision for the open network—from 1.0 to 2.0

But we, and the industry, are not sitting idle which is why we see this as yesterday’s news. You see, the industry is rapidly moving beyond its ‘1.0’ state where networking hardware and software is separated, to a 2.0 state where the software stack itself becomes disaggregated. And we at Dell EMC are doing everything we can to foster these development.

Gavin Cato, our Networking engineering leader, spoke to a standing-room-only audience about this industry shift from 1.0 to 2.0. We also made a very important news announcement with Metaswitch this week announcing commercial offerings around this 2.0 vision. Needless to say it’s an extremely exciting time to be in the Networking industry as vendors and customers of all sizes step on the gas of Open Networking. So fasten your seatbelt, it’s going to be a wild ride!

Continue reading