Intel: Troika drives Open cloud computing

Over the past year or so, after the IT industry reached a consensus that open architecture and open ecosystems will be the key drivers of cloud computing, many it vendors and corporate users are looking to Intel, partly because Intel has achieved the benefits of open architecture and open ecosystems in the server, The advantages of storage and Ethernet, which are closely related to cloud computing carriers, are also inspired by its 2015 Cloud Vision, officially released in October 2010.

Intel's 2015 cloud Vision can be seen as a concrete action plan for building an ideal cloud computing platform, or a direction-oriented technology innovation route. According to Intel's instructions, the three key elements-interoperability, automation, and client-side adaptation-emphasize interoperability and data sharing within the cloud and cloud and cloud, automated management in cloud computing operations, and collaborative interaction between cloud and terminal devices.

These three visions, built on Open data centers, are the starting point for Intel and open architecture partners to advance technology innovation and market development in the cloud computing arena, followed by the creation of an open cloud computing ecosystem that will help advance this vision. In this respect, Intel is the first to fully participate in and support the Open Data Center Alliance (odca,open Datacenter Alliance) in the cloud computing application model and application requirements of the excavation work, Together with a number of IT industry-leading hardware and software vendors to create a collaborative innovation in the Intel Cloud Build program (Intel Cloud Builder), the open architecture and open ecosystems complement each other, and start to effectively promote the entire cloud computing industry, technology and application development process.

Open cloud computing needs Open Data center

With the combined efforts of Intel and IT industry and customer partners, the Open Data Center Alliance and the Intel Cloud Builder plan have made leaps in the past year, with more than 300 members and a total annual IT investment of more than 100 billion dollars, and has released 8 cloud computing application models and corresponding solutions, the latter more than 40 of the participating vendors, but also came up with more than 40 validated, feasible cloud Platform Reference Architecture.

In sync with this, Intel has benefited from its own technological innovations, in fact, it has been in the server-oriented, network and storage areas of products for cloud computing application characteristics and requirements of a number of important optimization and innovation, this effort as early as Intel two years ago, the establishment of the Data Center Division GROUP,DCG, now known as the data center and interconnected Systems Division, DSCG has started, and now, it is the server, storage and network product line innovation into a unified planning to achieve the concept of computing, storage and network integration. The development and application of an Open data center based on open architecture products, technologies, and solutions for efficient, secure, simplified and easy management means that Intel will provide a comprehensive range of computing equipment for the data center, including servers, networks, and storage equipment, based on industry-standard, Chip products optimized for cloud computing environments and applications, and open their instruction set architecture, key features, and related reference designs to partners to develop final Open data center products or solutions for building cloud computing platforms.

With this important mission in mind, Intel treats the IT equipment of the entire data center as an intelligent brain, and the server that carries the task of computing is just like its neuron that specializes in judging and processing information; storage devices are memory cells that can receive massive amounts of information and are ready to be accessed and updated, And the network is connected to all these neurons and memory cells of the neural connections, Intel believes that only three performance and functional balance to achieve the most seamless, and 1+1+1>3 application effect.

To uphold this philosophy, Intel Data Center division in the server, storage and networking these three product lines have achieved significant breakthroughs that have resulted in innovative results that enable users to build High-performance computing data Center IT infrastructures that enable them to excel in interoperability and meet user performance and functional requirements:

"Xeon" core with stronger computing power

Intel's innovation in the server sector is critical to building high-performance, high-performing data centers, as it will be its main performance output engine and the core of the efficient and stable operation of the entire data center. The Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series and the E7 series provide superior performance by up to 60% (maximum) and 3 times times (average) performance for the previous generation of products. The performance advantages of today's dual and multi-channel x86 server processors have been validated by many evaluation agencies and server users, and they In particular, the Xeon Processor 5600 series is also seen as an ideal choice for many of the world's cloud computing pioneers.

The strong processor 5600 series, for example, is the first to use the 32 nm manufacturing process based on new transistor technology in the industry to automatically adjust power consumption and intelligently adjust server performance according to application requirements, helping it to meet data center performance, power consumption and innovation requirements. The Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series delivers powerful performance for servers with integrated Intel Core-frequency Acceleration technology, Intel Hyper-Threading technology, and Intel Express Channel Interconnection Technology (Intel QuickPath Marvell). To meet the needs of various software environments.

At the same time, the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series automatically adjusts power consumption and combines industry-leading energy efficiency and intelligence features to meet different workload requirements. At the same time, intelligent computing features such as Intel Intelligent Energy-saving technology (Intel Intelligent Power Marvell) provide the power needed to run the critical workload when needed, conserve power when it is not needed, and with Intel Core-frequency acceleration technology, Enabling the processor to run at a higher frequency with available power to increase execution speed on demand provides strong intelligent performance and flexibility to meet current and future cloud computing data center requirements.

As the basis of computing the current cloud computing platform, the latest Intel virtualization technology enhances performance more effectively on the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series, increases consolidation ratios, enables integration of generations of servers into the same virtual server pool, and increases virtual machine failover, load balancing, and disaster recovery capabilities. Provides a solid foundation for a balanced and efficient cloud computing platform.

At the same time, the expected next generation of Intel Xeon processor E5 series products have been produced as scheduled. According to Intel's vice president, Intel Data Center and interconnected Systems division general manager Schhode September 13, 2011 at the Intel Information Technology Summit (IDF), compared with the previous Intel Xeon Processor 5500 (NEHALEM-EP) series, Xeon The estimated demand for E5 is approximately 20 times times, and the partner Xeon E5 Processor-based Systems will be designed to exceed 400 sets, twice times the release of the Xeon Processor 5500 series. The processor will bring a more robust computing engine for future cloud computing data centers.

Create richer, more flexible open storage systems

In the data center to bear a large amount of data storage equipment, in recent years, with the explosive growth of data in all walks of life has become popular, and its attention to the extent of users, often even beyond the server. And in Intel computing, the concept of storage and network integration in the Cloud Computing data Center solution, the requirement for storage-related products is to enable it to be used by more storage system vendors, and to provide excellent performance while ensuring that the products of different vendors and between different generations of the same manufacturer, and to achieve better compatibility, interoperability, and data migration capabilities between them and other it devices within the datacenter.

To meet these requirements, Intel extends the Xeon product line to the storage System area. In addition to being based on open, the inherent advantages of a standardized architecture, its storage-system-oriented Xeon processor also has some bright spots, and it is also the key to attracting storage vendors and users, as they do with the server version of "compatriots," which provides excellent computing performance with multi-core and Advanced Micro architectures. On the other hand, it integrates intelligent features that help improve storage device processing efficiency, energy efficiency, and storage virtualization. These highlights complement the industry's strong and sophisticated application development capabilities in Intel's architecture, can help enterprise storage devices to add more, newer features and application patterns, but also through the promotion of storage and server integration, the formation of both computing and storage capacity, the application of more flexible, can adapt to the changes in user needs in a timely manner, A more ideal solution for price/performance.

Higher bandwidth and more accessible information "lifeline"

In the Intel Cloud Computing Data Center solution, the network product represented by Ethernet technology is the information "lifeline". Intel's main product in this area is Gigabit Ethernet related products. In terms of specifications, the advantage of Gigabit Ethernet over Gigabit Ethernet is that bandwidth is greatly increased, latency is reduced, and reliability is improved. But in real-world applications, the effect is not limited to this. Enterprise users often get higher network bandwidth by assembling multiple gigabit network adapters on a single server and pooling their port bandwidth before the advent of Gigabit Ethernet. After using the million-gigabit product, they can achieve the same goal by simplifying the server network adapters and related network devices, which Intel says will reduce the power consumption per rack in the data center by 45%, the network cable and switch interface by 80%, and the cost for users to spend on the data center infrastructure by 15%. and increase the network bandwidth of each server up to twice times. In addition, Gigabit Ethernet can also be a large bridge between Gigabit Ethernet and InfiniBand communication.

On the basis of the above application advantages, Intel is also making technical innovations on Gigabit Ethernet in several aspects to further enhance its performance in the Balanced Data Center solution: one is to add support for more advanced multiple queuing technologies on Gigabit Ethernet cards, In order to allow users to adopt a more powerful multi-core processor and more fully utilize its calculation to save enough space; The second is the use of Gigabit Ethernet to promote the construction of a unified network, for example, this year for its million Gigabit Ethernet server Adapter X520 series added open Fibre Channel Ethernet software stack free upgrades, In order to promote the integration of storage network, the network architecture of the data center is further simplified and unified, thus reducing the cost of users and speeding up the deployment and application of hardware and software devices; The third is to reduce the cost of using gigabit Ethernet, for example, plan to provide onboard Gigabit Ethernet adapters this year, In order to facilitate the Wan port prices in 2012 to the following target of 500 dollars.

Towards convergence, opening to the open, to cloud computing

From the upcoming next generation of Xeon E5 platform product features can be seen, data center trend is unstoppable, so that it can be more open to go into the era of cloud computing. Intel's industry-leading innovative product technology and its actively participatory Open Data Center Alliance and Cloud Building program are leading the industry's data center solutions to its 2015 cloud vision, based on Intel architecture computing, storage, and networking, just like a troika, Will be the future of cloud computing data center of the construction, application and maintenance to an unprecedented realm.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)