How far is zero operation? HP Gen8 server intimate experience (1)

Since the release of Intel Xeon E5 series Processors in 1.1, HP unveiled Gen8, in terms of physical positioning, intelligent management, simple operations, and Energy Optimization, Gen8 is a cross-era product.

After listening to many legends about HP Gen8, the most promising thing is the 3D ocean sensor, 3D marine sensors are indispensable for the implementation of innovative functions such as location, monitoring, physical topology, and energy allocation of servers. Recently, I have the honor to be "in close contact" with HP DL560 Gen8 servers to experience Gen8 at zero distance.

This experience of the DL560 Gen8 is a Xeon E5-4600 Platform Based on 2U four-way server, support 4 4600 series CPU has a good performance, however, performance is not the focus of this experience, the focus is on exploring Gen8.

"Omnipotent" positioning bar

Previously, I had doubts about Gen8's physical location capabilities, but it was hard to say that each server had several GPS devices similar to mobile phones? Are all based on satellite positioning? So how can we control accuracy within 60cm? In the case of internal location detection in the data center, will intensive signal sources interfere with each other? In either way, the cost is too high, right? Is it meaningful to achieve this at such a high cost?

At the very beginning, Jack Ma, the Technical Consulting department of the enterprise business group of Hewlett-Packard Company in China, gave the answer: All this is due to the "positioning bar" deployed on the cabinet ". Two "contacts" are added to each Gen8 server and connected to the positioning bar. The positioning bar in each column is unique and pre-fixed on the cabinet column in sequence, no matter which server is placed in the location of the nth U of the cabinet, you can read the physical location of the server and other related information through contacts.

 
The red box shows the positioning bar connecting to the DL560 Gen8 demo server.

Gen8's unique location discovery service, information collection, energy management, and other new features are implemented based on these positioning entries. Each positioning bar has 7 pairs of electric shock, that is to say, a single bar can support 7 U Height, then usually 42U cabinets need to install 6 positioning lines. I have learned from Mr. maobao.com that because all users using Gen8 blade servers are deployed on a large scale, the corresponding positioning entries are included in the solution. For Gen8 rack servers, these positioning entries are optional. The positioning service is of little significance to users who only need several servers. It can be used in a large-scale data center deployment environment. Although there are only a few positioning lines that are easily overlooked in the cabinet, they are the key to achieving Gen8 features. Only when they exist can the value of Gen8 be realized. In terms of cost that users are most concerned about, the cost of adding the positioning option is only a few thousand RMB. Compared with the new practical features, these thousands of items are worth the money.

 
Locate the back

However, it should be noted that because the Gen8 server side adds "contacts", the length of the corresponding rack increases, and the overall cabinet is also different. Therefore, Gen8 is not suitable for heterogeneous IT environments and is more suitable for overall deployment when data centers are created or servers are replaced in batches.

 
The location of the positioning bar in the cabinet