Marvell: Cloud data center patterns are evolving

For the arm camp, Baidu Nanjing Data Center using ARM server is undoubtedly huge, in Baidu deployment of the entire ARM server platform, can not be separated from a supplier's support, that is Marvell, which Marvell according to the demand of Baidu tailored products, This includes the Marvell four core Armada XP processor, Mavell storage Control chip and Marvell Ethernet control chip, and a full range of solution platforms.

Recently, Marvell Greater China system and solution chief Planner Ganvening in the fifth session of the cloud computing trends in the future of the trend of data center, and received a ZDNet reporter interview.

Marvell, chief planner for Systems and solutions in Greater China Ganvening

"In the cloud computing industry chain, Marvell provides three core chip technology, from computing, storage to the network, while Marvell is the only one with these three product line manufacturers, in the storage area, has done 10 generation, in the Ethernet switch field to achieve seven generation, ARM CPU has done the fifth generation, That's why chip companies have a relationship with the cloud because we've built three foundation pillars. "Ganvening said.

The construction of the data center is evolving

The main functions of the data center are three pieces: the operation of massive data, the storage of massive data and the exchange of massive data, and these three fields are happening or brewing huge changes. In "Data calculation", the Unit server cost calculation force is no longer the only factor, the measurement of performance index from the unit input calculation force into the calculation force per watt, per square meter computing capacity. Data center operators are looking for a new balance between computing power, storage density, and energy efficiency.

In the area of data storage, data centers migrate slowly from vertical scaling (scale-up) to horizontal scaling (Scale-out), and depending on the x86 chip storage structure that increases the ability to gain a single node storage, The ARM architecture storage structure expands storage capacity by increasing nodes, and optimizes the storage of unstructured data, and becomes a new choice for data center.

In the "Data exchange" field, data bandwidth no longer relies on hardware and network architecture constraints, software Definition network (Software tabbed network,sdn) gradually become a trend, so that enterprises can upgrade, install software like the network architecture changes, To meet the enterprise's structure of the entire site to adjust, expand or upgrade, the underlying switches, routers and other hardware without replacement, save a lot of cost, the network architecture iteration cycle will be greatly shortened.

Ganvening said, it is under the new concept, the data center of the industrial structure of the new changes in data center construction of the intermediate link, the system industry is on the land continued to come out, gradually disappeared. These chip manufacturers, foundry, or system design, open source software vendors slowly up the building pillar of the data center to support the construction of the data center, it is now seen in the White Box data center model.

The original data center needs to purchase equipment from the system integrator, and the system integrator is behind the chip provider, software provider and equipment manufacturer, providing system design, operating system and application software operation and Maintenance respectively. And now, an increasing number of data center operators, especially Internet companies, are beginning to direct the support of chip providers and device manufacturers to customize their systems and maintain them, and to gain access to operating systems and some applications from the Open-source community, relying on their own strong research and development capabilities to develop core applications.

For the biggest benefit of this change, Ganvening that the cost of input, hardware, maintenance costs will be much lower. The typical representative of the Internet business is non-Facebook, and Facebook has launched an open computing project, with data centers in the United States and Sweden in the Compute, with the largest data centers reaching 130,000 square meters because of the large number of data centers, Therefore, standards are also disclosed.

Not born to replace x86

In recent years, ARM architecture, and the x86 architecture produced a great impact, but also appeared Facebook, Baidu and other "eat crabs" users, but for x86 and arm before the competition, Ganvening has another interpretation.

"Arm is just going to do something it's good for, and these things are really x86, storage is a very typical example, this is actually different facilities to do different jobs, there is no one who replace the argument." "Ganvening said.

In Ganvening's view, ARM does not have a very strong conflict with the x86 processor, especially in the 64-bit arm before the advent and popularization, and arm is not to replace the x86 processor development, in fact, arm is just to do more suitable work.

"For future data center computing, we will tie arm and Intel together, and the future data center will eventually melt into Intel, arm two architectures." Ganvening that, at present, ARM has not been able to use in many mainstream computing above, at this stage arm in the data center is still in storage, including in the data center of Nanjing, Baidu, ARM processor is also used for storage servers, as well as "biased storage" applications.

"Arm is now on the 32-bit storage where the data center is the only place to enter, because storage is less demanding for 64 bits, and there are some processors that apply to the control level of switches, routers, and these are not x86 strengths. "Ganvening said

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)