Posts tagged with Istanbul
AMD Opteron™ Processor + Our Partners = Masters of VMworld
Posted by tmueting in 6:08 PM
Loading ...Well, once again we survived another whirlwind week at VMworld in San Francisco. I want to thank all of you that stopped by our booth to see our demonstrations or to attend one or more of our theater presentations. And, to those of you who attended my session on Thursday morning (after Wednesday night’s party no less!) – a special thank you. It was good to be able to meet many of you personally and I enjoyed hearing about your environment and your use of AMD OpteronTM processor-based platforms.
We ran a full slate of theater presentations in the AMD Booth and, from what I saw, every session was standing room only. This year we were treated to two customer presentations – Scott Ramnitz from First Data Corporation and Michael Foltz of Kroger Co. – two long time AMD customers and early adopters of virtualization shared their experiences.
In addition to Scott and Michael, on Tuesday Steve Pope, CTO of Solarflare Communications discussed the performance challenges that virtualization presents for I/O Devices. Solarflare is a leading silicon vendor delivering products that enable the rapid adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet for data center and enterprise networks. Along with Solarflare and VMware, we demonstrated near native performance of AMD’s I/O virtualization technology on an AMD engineering development system featuring 4 twelve-core AMD Opteron 6100 series processors (codenamed “Magny-Cours”) and four AMD SR5690 chipsets running VMware ESX 4.0 and Solarflare’s 10GeB NIC. Please note that the AMD OpteronTM 6100 series processors, code-named “Magny-Cours,” referenced below are scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2010.
On Wednesday, Ron Graham, Technical Marketing Manager from Sun lead a discussion on virtualization performance on AMD OpteronTM processor based Sun servers like the 8-socket Sun Fire X4600 M2 server and then again on Thursday Ron returned to discuss Sun’s AMD OpteronTM processor-based Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems that deliver mission-critical entry storage. One of the most popular sessions of the week was given by Simon Crosby, CTO of Virtualization for Citrix Corporation. Simon didn’t mince words while giving us his unique perspective on the state of virtualization today and what he believes we can expect in the future in his talk entitled ”Cloud Computing and Desktop Virtualization.” AMD continues our close work with Citrix on XenServer and XenApp and supported the Introduction of Xen Cloud Platform to help accelerate customer adoption of open enterprise-class cloud infrastructures.
Also on Thursday Armando Acosta, Product Manager from Dell presented “Dell Solutions to Power the Efficient Enterprise.” Armando discussed Dell’s AMD OpteronTM processor-based blade and rack server solutions designed specifically for virtualization and the enterprise, including the Dell PowerEdge 905 server which took home a 2009 InfoWorld Technology of the Year Award
For those of you who didn’t have a chance to attend one of these sessions or would like to revisit the slides you can see them here (along with a host of other information) at the AMD Booth on VMworld.com. Also check out the latest AMD Virtualization Update by AMD’s Director of Commercial Solutions, Margaret Lewis.
All-in-all it was another successful event for AMD. As virtualization is hitting mainstream AMD has released a full line of Six-Core AMD OpteronTM processors that provides superior value for your most important virtualization workloads. Don’t just take my word for it, according to a recent blog post at Solori that analyzes price/performance for 2-socket servers – “Istanbul continues to offer a 20-30% CAPEX value proposition against Nehalem in the virtualization use case…”
Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Countdown to VMworld – Hear the latest trends in Virtualization Straight from the Masters
Posted by tmueting in 8:41 PM
VMworld 2009 is just around the corner and you can be sure that AMD will be front and center at what has become one of the premier technical conferences of the year. I’m honored once again to be speaking at one of the breakout sessions during the week. I invite you to come join me on Thursday at 10am for a discussion on Virtualization and Cloud Computing with AMD OpteronTM processor-based platforms. I’ll be covering the latest in AMD OpteronTM processors including exciting new features from our most recent introduction of the Six-Core AMD OpteronTM processor (formerly codenamed “Istanbul”). It is the industry’s only six-core process for 2, 4 and 8 socket servers and offers 34% higher performance-per-watt than Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers in the same power and thermal envelopes.
I promise this will be much more than just a product presentation. I will provide valuable insight into what we’re seeing in the world of virtualization and cloud computing. I’m very excited to announce that we also plan to have a special guest speaker during this session. Not to give too much away, but we expect to have a very special customer that will discuss their experiences as they move towards their goal of being 96% virtualized in their datacenter. This particular customer has been using virtualization for past several years for server consolidation and high availability and they have implemented over 1500 hosted virtualized desktops running on AMD OpteronTM processor-based servers and VMware software.
And speaking of sessions, we also have a complete line-up in our Masters of Virtualization Theater in the AMD booth in the Exhibition Hall. Please come by and say hello. You can check out several of our demonstrations featuring emerging virtualization technologies and attend a variety of presentations to learn the latest and greatest from many of our closest OEMs and industry partners including Citrix, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Sun and Virtual Computer, just to name a few. And as a bonus, we have two of our key customers lined up to present and discuss their experiences with virtualization and AMD OpteronTM processor-based servers.
The theater presentations will run every hour on the hour and last approx 20 to 30 minutes including Q&A. Please consult your VMworld schedule for Exhibition hall times and come by our booth – #1408 – for a complete schedule of the AMD booth presentations.
And if you just can’t wait for the conference you can visit the AMD booth at the VMworld Virtual Conference. I’ve just posted a new “Ask the Experts” piece highlighting the Six-Core AMD OpteronTM processor – check out some of the other new material on AMD while you are there.
We’re just a few weeks away. I hope to see you all there.
Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Countdown to VMworld – Six-Core AMD Opteron™ Processor Flexes Its Muscle
Posted by Margaret Lewis in 9:34 AM
The AMD virtualization team is doing final preparation for VMworld 2009, to be held at Moscone Center in just a few weeks. I was fortunate enough to have attended the first VMworld conference in San Diego in 2004 – and to have made every VMworld conference since then. In this timeframe the AMD OpteronTM processor has grown from its humble single core roots to an impressive six-core processor with hardware assisted virtualization called AMD VirtualizationTM (AMD-VTM) technology that is designed to deliver a perfect balance of price, performance, and power.
Since its introduction in June, Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers have been achieving some solid virtualization proof points. In fact, a new top 48-core VMmark score was recently posted by HP with its AMD Opteron processor-based HP ProLiant DL785 G6 server. This is a new high score for VMmark of 47.77@30 tiles – more than 30% higher than the top 48-core score posted with an Intel Xeon 7460 processor (”Dunnington”).
Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers also currently hold the three top 24-core VMmark scores – the HP ProLiant DL585 G6 has the top spot, and the highest 24-core score for blade servers is held by the HP ProLiant BL685c G6. The SolutionsOriented Blog “RIP Dunnington: HP’s 4P/24-core Istanbul Takes VMmark Summit” takes a look at the dollars per VM of some of the 24-core systems producing these VMmark scores and showcases AMD with a price performance advantage of almost 14% to 28% over the competition, depending on configuration.
Now I don’t think everyone understands how challenging it is to design a processor that achieves a “perfect balance.” AMD engineers are tasked to develop a product with as much performance as possible within a stingy power budget- and all at a cost that addresses today’s market requirements. This is not a processor designed specifically to win “raw” performance benchmarks – but rather to handle real workloads and drive new efficiencies in the data center.
We plan to do a couple of other blogs that outline some of our activities at VMworld – so keep an eye on this blog and our friends over at the @Work site!
Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a Product Marketing Director at AMD.
Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Live Migration: Here to Stay
Posted by tmueting in 11:57 AM
(5 votes, average: 4.40 out of 5)I have recently returned from the HP Technical Conference and, although attendance was down a bit this year (likely due to the economy), there were still plenty of enthusiastic AMD customers and partners in attendance. The buzz around the availability of the recently released Six-Core AMD OpteronTM “Istanbul” processor and HP Proliant G6 servers was tremendous. HP has announced seven HP ProLiant platforms based on “Istanbul” processors as well as the availability of upgrade kits for existing G5/G5p platforms. I’m also happy to report that I had a packed room during my virtualization session on Tuesday.
In our booth on the exhibition floor we demonstrated the ability to use VMware’s VMotion to seamlessly migrate a running virtual machine between an HP Proliant G2 server running Dual-Core AMD Opteron “Rev F” processors (released in 2006), G5 server running Quad-Core AMD Opteron “Shanghai” processors, (released in 2007) and the newest G6 server with Six-Core AMD Opteron processors. We’ve just released a video on YouTube featuring a similar demo -- except that it also includes our upcoming processor codenamed “Magny-Cours”.
I’m constantly getting questions on the topic of live migration and VMotion in particular. Customers want to be assured that they can use VMotion to migrate virtual machines between older and newer versions of their AMD processer-based platforms. Apparently we and our technology partners could do a better job of getting the word out.
So let’s be clear -- the answer is a resounding YES!
Here are the facts. With the launch of our first quad-core processors, AMD formalized a functionality that had existed in our processors for a while under the feature name of Extended Migration. This capability enabled virtualization software vendors like VMware to support the live migration of a virtual machine between different versions of AMD processors starting with Rev E, which was released in 2004. Subsequently, with ESX 3.5 u2, VMware released a feature as part of VMotion called Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) that uses AMD Extended Migration to support VMotion between AMD Opteron processor generations. In order to utilize the feature, each server must be configured for EVC. For information on configuring EVC, see the “Migrating Virtual Machines” chapter in the Basic System Administration Guide for your ESX release. You can also gain a better understanding of EVC processor support and baseline definitions at the Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support VMware web page.
Keep in mind that live migration across AMD OpteronTM processor generations is supported by other virtualization software, including Citrix XenMotion and Microsoft HyperV Server 2008 R2 Live Migration. In fact, you can watch a demo showcasing Hyper-V live migration between Quad-Core and Six Core AMD Opteron processors.
And don’t forget the technology demonstration we did a year ago with Red Hat, showcasing live migration between an AMD and Intel processor -- the YouTube video is still getting a lot of views.
Rest assured, AMD is pushing the technology envelope to cover all bases when it comes to offering broad support for your virtualization environment.
Tim Mueting is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Simply Spectacular Virtualization – Istanbul Edition
Posted by Margaret Lewis in 11:47 AM
(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)Simply Spectacular Virtualization – Istanbul Edition
With the introduction of Six-Core AMD OpteronTM processor (codenamed “Istanbul”), there is now enough public information on the web to take a closer look at configurations and pricing of Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based systems (”Istanbul”) and Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor-based systems (”Gainestown”) that have posted top VMmark scores.
Before I dive into the comparisons, let me acknowledge that I’m sure a lot of people will call “foul” with this comparison since the Intel Xeon 5570 processor-based system uses 96GB of memory and the AMD Opteron 2435 processor-based system uses 64GB of memory. Let me remind you that these are the “VMmark configurations” which are submitted by OEMs.
Here is the comparison of VMmark configurations for similar models of HP ProLiant 2P/2U G6 systems that were priced on the HP ProLiant Server web site on Friday, June 5, 2009. Each system had the processors and memory configuration as listed on VMmark disclosure documents along with the default disk controller, one 146 GB hard drive, and the default hardware warranty.
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|
HP ProLiant DL380 G6 |
HP ProLiant DL385 G6 |
HP ProLiant DL385 G6 |
|
Processor |
Intel Xeon Processor |
AMD OpteronTM Processor |
AMD OpteronTM Processor |
|
Memory |
96GB DDR3 1066 MHz |
64GB DDR2 667 MHz |
64GB DDR2 800 MHz |
|
System Cost |
$18,032 |
$11,724 |
$6,920 |
|
VMmark 1.1 Score |
24.15@17tiles |
15.54@11 tiles |
Estimated 60 VMs |
|
Cost per VM US$ (system cost/VMs) |
$177 |
$177 |
Estimated $115 |
The HP ProLiant DL385 G6 running Six-Core AMD Opteron processors (”Istanbul”) offers the same cost per VM as the ProLiant DL380 G6 running Intel Xeon 5570 model with a system cost that is about 1/3 less. It should be noted that the DL385 is using a standard processor model as opposed to the high-end processor model used by the DL380.
You can configure the AMD technology-based DL385 with a considerably cheaper 64GB configuration using 16 x 4GB DIMMs. This results in a system cost that is almost 2/3 less than the Intel configuration using 12 x 8GB DIMMs. Assuming that there is about 10% performance difference compared to the 8 x 8GB AMD processor-based configuration with this alternate memory configuration, the estimated cost per VM would be $115. Mind you: the 10% performance difference here is not a measured result – it is more or less an educated guess of what we might see if we changed our memory configuration from 8 x 8GB to 16 x 4GB. But it shows that shows that it should be possible to get an even better cost per VM and overall system cost using AMD technology-based systems. It should be noted that the DL380 does not offer a cheaper 96GB memory configuration – the configuration listed is the cheapest.
In order to show a more comprehensive comparison I have done a hypothetical 64GB comparison (listed below). I have selected a comparable memory configuration for DL380 system using the HP DDR3 Memory Configuration Tool to decide the best configuration for the DL380 system due to the complexities surrounding configuring systems with Intel Xeon 5570 3 memory channel architecture. The recommendation from HP for virtualization was to 8 x 8GB DIMMs. For the DL385 I show both 8 x 8GB and 16 x 4GB memory configurations since both of these configurations are valid and result in well performing systems. I have also listed the cost per VM when running 10, 20, 40, and 60 VMs per system. Keep in mind the average number of VMs per server may be closer to 10. For reference, responses to SearchDataCenter.com’s 2008 Purchasing Intentions Survey reveals that only 5% of respondents are running more than 25 VMs on a server – 61% are running less than 10 VMs per server and 33% are running 10 to 25 VMs per server.
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|
HP ProLiant DL380 G6 |
HP ProLiant DL385 G6 |
HP ProLiant DL385 G6 |
|
Processor |
Intel Xeon Processor 95 Watts TDP |
AMD OpteronTM Processor |
AMD OpteronTM Processor |
|
Memory |
64GB DDR3 1066 MHz Virtualization Config per HP DDR3 Configuration Tool |
64GB DDR2 667 MHz |
64GB DDR2 800 MHz |
|
System Cost |
$14,072.00 |
$11,724.00 |
$6,920.00 |
|
10 VMs |
$1,407.20 |
$1,172.40 |
$692.00 (estimated) |
|
20 VMs |
$703.60 |
$586.20 |
$346.00 (estimated) |
|
40 VMs |
$351.80 |
$293.10 |
$173.00 (estimated) |
|
60 VMs |
$234.53 |
$195.40 |
$115.33 (estimated) |
In both comparisons in this blog it is obvious that the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor (”Istanbul”) continues AMDs focus on producing a processor that offers a balance of performance, power and price. A similar comparison of VMmark systems and price/performance can be found on SolutionOrientedBlog.
Let me know your thoughts about these comparisons.
Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
Margaret Lewis, director, AMD commercial software and solutions
Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a commercial software and solutions director at AMD.
@margaretjlewis
Time for a Quiz? Freeways:LA as CPU Cores:[X]
Posted by Margaret Lewis in 9:29 AM
Earlier this month I attended Microsoft’s TechEd conference in LA, and the question that kept popping up throughout the show was: why more cores??
The interest in multi-core chips has been generated by AMD’s most recent roadmap update outlining our move to processors with 6-, 8- and 12-cores. The benefit of more cores, to me, is most easily equated to something I saw a lot of in LA – freeways.
Adding more cores is like adding extra lanes, allowing for more resources to drive virtual machines more effectively. Further, the more cores you add, the more CPU power you also have to divide among virtual machines, which means you can drive more overall VMs on that preverbal freeway. Essentially, you now have more room and more resources to drive up the efficiency of VMs across an entire system. A more detailed explanation on why more cores are useful can be found on Tim Mueting’s blog post on 4 Socket Servers and Real World Virtualization.
However, even AMD can admit: it’s not all about cores. Advancements in virtualization on the hardware level include features like “HyperTranport assist” – to be introduced with Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processor codename “Istanbul” – to provide optimizations at the cache level that are designed to show a real benefit in 4- and 8-socket systems. Since we are seeing virtualization customers focusing a lot of attention on these larger, robust platforms in terms of cores and memory, this new feature promises to enable improved performance and efficiency (two things we like!). The industry is starting to get excited about “Istanbul” – check out Quick Take: AMD Istanbul Update blog.
Also, as we move to more cores, We’re planning to introduce another exciting development in virtualization – the support of AMD-Vi (IOMMU) which is scheduled to hit the market later this year. AMD-Vi is designed to help improve security and performance by directly assigned devices to virtual machines. Further, continued optimizations are in the works to address the TLB, caches and improving the switching capabilities.
But what about the software? Plain and simple, hypervisors are ready and waiting for more cores. Microsoft, Citrix, VMware all have versions ready to handle the growing number of cores, with Hyper-V, XenServer, and vSphere. Our six-core “Istanbul” is due out in June and will be supported across 2-, 4- and 8- socket servers, which range from 12 to 48 cores! And, as we continue to grow our core count through our 12-core AMD Opteron processor codenamed “Magny-Cours”, expect to see even more collaboration with our software partners to make sure we’re optimizing to provide the most value to the end user.
Finally, talks are heating up around graphic virtualization and live migration across heterogeneous processor environments. Lots to get excited about – stay tuned!
Margaret Lewis, director, AMD commercial software and solutions
Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) is a Product Marketing Director at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
@margaretjlewis