The advantages of quad-core server in the process of market gradual warming

The market for quad-core servers is gradually heating up. Because of the emergence of multi-core products, not only reduce the threshold of high-end server market, but also bring users a higher cost-efficient server products. This May, the domestic old server manufacturers wave is joined together Intel, push four-core server, to four nuclear server civilian. But for the market and users, the quad-core server and the single core, dual-core server in the end what is the difference? This includes a range of issues such as technical advantages, product maturity, and how users can upgrade.





Low power High performance





for the four cores, the biggest change is to improve the computational performance and density, while greatly reducing energy consumption. Quad-Core processors integrate four separate processors on a single chip, allowing the chip to sync with four different tasks, which can greatly increase the processor's computational power. "A special test in the intel® Woodcrest Duo and Clovertown four cores found that in http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/14206.html" > Data calculations, Processor High-performance applications, Quad core has more than 50% performance improvement; with Xen virtual software, throughput is 3~4-fold, while in power, the quad is down 50%. "Wave Group computer hardware Marketing department, general manager of the server products Wang Hongli in this reporter interview."





Dual-core or single-core servers can achieve the same performance, if only in contrast performance. However, compared with the dual-core server, in the unit power consumption performance improvement, the four core advantages are very obvious. According to statistics, in the system operation management process, the server system energy cost accounted for the hardware cost 40%. According to the test data, the four-core platform consumes only 14% of the dual core per workload.





in order to combine four core performance with low power consumption, in the quad-core server products, manufacturers also provide a variety of efficient cooling systems. If advanced aerodynamic principles are adopted, designed for four nuclear server "anti-vortex cyclone" structure, through the wind tunnel structure and intelligent regulation, can greatly reduce the heat dissipation CPU heat, improve the cooling efficiency of the chassis to ensure system security and stability; In the power supply, the system power supply and motherboard distribution optimization, to achieve system power loss, If the 2U server power supply from the industry's 800 watts down to 500 watts.





Application Advantage





Quad-core systems are already relatively mature. Upgrade from dual-core platform to four nuclear system, because dual-core systems and four nuclear systems using the same platform, only need to replace the CPU, the BIOS can be refreshed, no need to replace the motherboard and other components, the workload on compatibility testing is also greatly reduced. Especially in software, is not to do what application optimization.




The
four server application is more extensive and focuses on dual-channel server applications. The dual server generally uses the FBD memory technology (fully buffered DIMM full buffer memory), the single path still is the DDR2 memory technology; The dual drive mostly uses the SAS hard disk, the single channel also is the SATA hard disk, in the PCI expansion aspect, the dual configuration quantity also far surpasses the single route product. Comprehensive consideration, whether it is overall performance, scalability, reliability or availability, dual systems are better than single system, single quad core is rarely used. In practice, too, the wave "in the shipment of four of nuclear server products, are all two-way server." "Wang Hongli said.





generally speaking, quad servers are more suitable for key applications such as data-intensive applications, because they are more scalable to the CPU, have extended memory, and have higher memory bandwidth requirements. For four or more servers, with single, dual design ideas will be very different, four servers more value system reliability, availability, so many customers will choose four as data-tier applications, or for server consolidation. Four-core four-way not only satisfies the requirement of reliability, but also expands the application range. "The original cluster technology used in high-speed, large database, for users regardless of product costs or application costs are relatively high." Four-way four-core products come out, the manufacturers into the high-end database market is relatively easy, product performance promotion allows manufacturers from the traditional market to explore new market space. "Wave server technology director Hureyun when talking about the four-core application positioning."





for price factors that directly affect the popularity of applications, manufacturers have also begun to consider lowering prices. As the four core procurement costs continue to decrease, the price is approaching dual-core, which means that the server architecture innovation and optimization design, power consumption, cooling system design, intelligent management and so on will reduce the user's late operating costs, the overall cost of use (TCO) at least than the double core down 30%.