The new game that cloud brings to server

1. Open architecture vs Closed Environment


　　

The essential difference between
open architecture server platform and closed platform is not the software open source or not. What we are talking about here is the openness and closure of the underlying infrastructure. Unlike the traditional RISC minicomputer closed environment, the closed environment in cloud computing is more specific to the solution, the relative closure of each part of the data center. The open architecture, on the other hand, is the x86 architecture server that is at its zenith, and its open ecological environment is widely recognised. So, for cloud computing, is the open architecture or closed architecture more advantageous?


　　


Most of the ideas tend to open architecture good, comprehensive look at three reasons: 1, open architecture solution is more free, users can select suppliers according to their own needs; 2, the compatibility of open architecture is better, whether it is compatible with the past system or future expansion will not be restricted; 3, The open architecture platform is more cost-effective and more widely supported.


　　


but instead, x86 open architecture to build cloud computing environment also has several disadvantages: 1, a large number of vendors easily lead to the increase in late service costs; 2, in reliability and high availability, although vendors such as Intel to promote their RAS capabilities, but still be questioned; 3. x86 cluster environment Network and storage I /O into a new bottleneck.


　　


Similarly, the benefits of a closed environment are: 1, there is a unified solution and manufacturers of the overall environment tuning; 2, relatively more reliable and safe; 3, the support of data center and each part has done a perfect design. The deficiencies are: 1, the scheme from a single manufacturer, users are easily locked by the manufacturer, 2, packaging scheme price is too high 3, compatibility is not good, the application is limited.


　　


So, no matter how the manufacturers are talking about their own advantages, from their own point of view or say reliability is higher, or say scalability better, or say cost-effective advantage. All the reasons are from the open environment and closed environment of their congenital advantages and disadvantages. And as a media person, the closed structure of the manufacturer's advantage is to bind users, the disadvantage is that the complexity of the program is larger, enterprises need to have a solid foundation to serve the customer. The advantage to the user is to be able to enjoy one-stop service, the disadvantage is that the price is high, difficult to external compatibility. The advantage of an open architecture is that it is flexible, and that all vendors need to do their own part of the product. For users, the advantages of open architecture is that it can be selective, cost-effective, disadvantage is difficult to obtain one-stop service, reliability is doubtful.


　　


Therefore, the open architecture of cloud computing and the closed architecture of the dispute, in fact, is the user's own needs decided: want a one-stop service and reliability protection, do not care about the price of the closed environment; want better flexibility and cost-effective, choose an open environment, do not care about reliability and cream Center.


　　


However, from the trend of the industry, as the x86 environment gradually from the traditional RISC ecosystem for example, such as RAS reliability and unified Solutions, the voice of open architecture is also more and more high, I believe that the future of the cloud computing center will be mostly x86 environment, after all, this is a thriving ecological. and closed environment also has its own value, for "Not bad money" enterprises, its stable service and unified program support is the point of attraction.


　　


2, Cloud computing brings new propositions to server design


　　


Cloud Computing is the most important thing is the introduction of the virtual resource pool concept, thus breaking the physical server barrier, so that computing performance can be unlimited expansion or distribution. This has further influenced the design concepts of the vendors when they do the server--for example, if you want a more powerful server computing platform, you may not need to build a 32-way system, but use 8 quad servers to create a unified virtual machine in a virtualized way, with the same effect as 32-way systems.


　　


This not only simplifies the design and development costs of server vendors, but also enables users to gain flexibility in computing resources and computing patterns. However, the convenience of cloud computing brings another challenge: 1, communication bottleneck; 2. Equipment power consumption.


　　


8 Four-way systems can be virtualized into a machine to do operations, but the communication delay between nodes is far greater than the single 132-way server internal communication delays. How to solve the I/O bottleneck in the cloud computing environment is one of the key points for each cloud computing solution. The efforts of the manufacturers are mainly as follows: 1, hardware virtualization support: Through the CPU to add hardware virtualization instructions to support, can effectively solve the virtual machine memory I/O problem, and the chipset, network cards have their own hardware virtualization technology, so that the virtual communication between the nodes to alleviate the problem; 2, Adopt a faster network, such as Gigabit Ethernet, which is strongly advocated by Intel, and Mellanox as the representative InfiniBand proprietary network.


　　


on the other hand is the equipment power consumption, the same know a 32-way server equipment power consumption must be small fish 8 four-way server, then this part of the cost is not only the cost of server consumption, as well as the data center rack space costs, cooling costs and so on.


　　


therefore, from the design of the server itself, there are two trends: 1, server manufacturers generally launched for cloud computing server, or dual, four-way rack products, or more high-density blade products. But everyone will find that this kind of virtualization or cloud computing products, generally have a better network configuration to solve the communication bottleneck, on the other hand will be more concerned about power consumption (increase the computational density is to save power).


　　


can see from Dell to HP launched micro-server to the micro-four-star, and so on, vendors are exploring the updated server design ideas. The former from the low power point of view, with more low performance and even the ARM processor to "set the core of the force" to lower power consumption, better computing density for lightweight applications or as a cloud computing node design. The micro-four-star is another way to increase the computational density in the rack as much as possible.


　　


There are manufacturers to do the opposite, not in the design of the server more brains, but from the scale and application to start, the introduction of system-level solutions. such as Cisco's UCS Unified Computing program, for telecommunications operators such a large number of exchange equipment and computing equipment, the company is very attractive. Oracle's Exadata, Exalogic, and Exalytics are designed for database computing, cloud computing and instant analytics, with focus and ideas. The single node of these system-level scenarios has no significant characteristics, but after integration, with vendor optimization and technical support, as a business node in cloud computing into the data center is an effective solution.


　　


from a previously open and closed perspective, a system-level solution may be a small enclosure in a large environment and a holistic solution for miniaturization. In general, the server area facing the cloud computing tide is relatively stable, the biggest change is that manufacturers are no longer to the technology oligarchy, the product is no longer leading the business direction, in turn, for customer needs and applications to customize the program and design products. This may be the biggest benefit of the cloud computing model for the change of vendor and user roles.