Server Trends
Daniel Bowers
daniel.bowers@gartner.com
@Daniel_Bowers
Agenda
• Server Trends
• Performance
• Power Efficiency
• Price
• Pizzabox Performance Trends
• Subsystem Trends
• CPU
• Memory
• Power
• Other Trends
Server Performance Trends, 2007 - 2012
Server Performance Trends, 2007 - 2012
Same chart, but logarithmic scale
Comparing Trends vs. Moore’s Law
• Moore’s Law is one of these 3:
- Transistors on a chip double every 2 years
- Transistors on a chip double every 18 months
- Chip Performance doubles every 18 months
Server Performance Trends, 2007 - 2012
IDEAS TRENDS: PERFORMANCE
Server Efficiency Trend, 2007 - 2012
March 2012
6
IDEAS TRENDS: PERFORMANCE
Server Efficiency Trend, 2007 - 2012
Same chart, but logarithmic scale
March 2012
7
IDEAS TRENDS: PERFORMANCE
Server Efficiency Trend, 2007 - 2012
Testing Koomey’s Law
March 2012
8
IDEAS TRENDS: PERFORMANCE
Server Price Trend, 2007 - 2012
March 2012
9
Pizzabox
Performance
Trends
2-socket x86 server performance in the last decade
100
101
75
100-fold increase
58
50
25
0
1
2.8
4.7
2002
2004
2006
20
2008
2010
Source: Gartner RPE2 for select HP ProLiant DL360 generations
2012
Server Trend: 2 socket x86 “rack” servers
HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8
(2012)
HP SystemPro/33
(1989)
Photo source: Wikipedia
Data Source: Me
Server Trend: 2 socket x86 “rack” servers
Internal Disk Capacity
Memory Capacity
Clock * Cores
Memory Bandwidth
HP SystemPro/33
(1989)
Photo source: Wikipedia
Data Source: Me
Server Trend: Just for Reference
CPU Trends
CPU Frequency
MHz
Server CPU Frequency by system announcement date, 1998 – 2012
Not including mainframe, GPUs, and other outliers
4-Chip Server Performance by Architecture
Slide Redacted from Copies
Performance (RPE2, log scale)
4-Chip Server Performance by Architecture
Itanium
Opteron
Xeon
SPARC
POWER
Xeon, SPARC are moving averages
Itanium, Opteron, POWER are power trends
x86 Processor Prices
Today, Intel
accounts for ~90%
of x86 server CPU
shipments, down
from ~70% in 2006
Performance-perdollar is capped by
technology but set
by competition
CPU Trends
• More stuff on chip
- More and faster memory channels
- I/O interfaces (e.g. PCIe)
- Accelerators (e.g. Encryption, Decimal Floating Point)
- On-chip GPUs and vector engines
• Processor power modes
- Control at individual core level
- Control for uncore
- Additional low-power states
- “Turbo” modes
- Frequency, voltage scaling
• GPUs in servers
• Hyperscale Computing
Hyperscale Computing
• Energy-Efficient Servers / Microservers
- x86 and non-x86
- Vendors building server ARM ecosystem
• GPU & vector processors
- Robust user base for specific apps
• Very different power efficiency curves
- Optimized for energy per transaction
• Will consume X % of server market
- Ask 3 experts, get 4 values of “X”
Quiz: ARM & MIPS processors are already in your data center. Where??
Intel Public Roadmap for Itanium & Xeon
Source: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/roadmaps/public-roadmap-article.pdf
Oracle Public Roadmap for SPARC
Source: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc-enterprise/public-sparc-roadmap-421264.pdf
IBM Roadmap for POWER
Source: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/es/resources/01_2012_Power_roadshow_Power_Systems_overview.pdf
Memory
Trends
Memory Trends
• Per-DIMM capacity rising
• Explosion of DRAM DIMM options to choose from
• Memory power overtaking CPU power
• Other trends
• Fixing memory bandwidth gap:
- Memory compression techniques
- Direct-to-Memory CPU bypass techniques
• Addition of flash tier below DRAM
• In-memory computing
• What happens next?
- DDR4, 3D chip stacking, PCM / MRAM / memristers
Why You Don’t Need more DIMM slots
Source: HP
Reset your DIMM standards quarterly!
• Different options to optimize capacity, price, power, throughput
• Example: HP DL380p Gen8
• 10 DIMM types, 5 capacities
• Some ways to deploy 64 GB of memory:
DIMM Used
2GB DDR3-1600 1Rx8 UDIMM
2GB DDR3-1333 1Rx8 LV UDIMM
4GB DDR3-1600 2Rx8 UDIMM
4GB DDR3-1333 2Rx8 LV UDIMM
4GB DDR3-1333 1Rx4 LV RDIMM
4GB DDR3-1600 1Rx4 RDIMM
8GB DDR3-1333 2Rx8 LV UDIMM
8GB DDR3-1600 2Rx8 UDIMM
8GB DDR3-1333 2Rx4 LV RDIMM
8GB DDR3-1600 1Rx4 RDIMM
8GB DDR3-1600 2Rx4 RDIMM
16GB DDR3-1333 2Rx4 LV RDIMM
16GB DDR3-1600 2Rx4 RDIMM
32GB DDR3-1333 4Rx4 LV LRDIMM
16GB DDR3-1333 2Rx4 HCDIMM
HP List Price (USD)
1,568
1,440
1,424
1,264
1,584
1,840
1,512
1,512
1,352
1,512
1,432
1,276
1,316
2,798
2,196
Source: Gartner Technology
Planner as of 8 Feb 2013
Memory Power: 5% to 35%
Power for Options
for an IBM x3650 M4
with 2ch E5-2680
Power by Component,
HP Blade with 2
processors, 48GB of
memory
64GB, 2
HDDs
768GB, 16
drives, 6 I/O
cards
DRAM Futures
Samsung Server DIMM roadmap (2012)
Source: JEDEC (http://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/JS_Choi.pdf)
DRAM: What Happens Next?
• What happens next?
- 8Gb density (~2013), 16Gb (~2015)
- 3D stacking
• DIMMs
• Memory-atop-CPU
Picture Source: JEDEC.org
• “Hybrid Memory Cubes”
- Hybrid Memory (combinations of DRAM
+ NVRAM)
- Phase-change memory, magnetic RAM,
memristers
Picture Source: EETimes
Power Trends
Energy Required by IT infrastructure
• Energy used to power
- Servers
45%
- Storage
29%
- Networking
26%
• Inside servers, individual
processors are much more
efficient, but consuming more
absolute power.
Source: Gartner
estimate 2012
2-socket x86 server power trend
Source: HP Whitepaper, “Power efficiency and Power Management in HP ProLiant servers”
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c03161908/c03161908.pdf
Server power efficiency trend
Doubles every 7 quarters
Server performance
per watt,
2007 - 2012
5x increase in 4 yrs
SPECpower results,
Four most recent
x86 server
generations
Power Consumption
More power-hungry options are available
Configuration: 2ch “Top Bin” processor
“Base” Configuration: Minimum required to boot. “Maximum” Configuration: Filled with options with highest power
Power Supplies
Right-Sizing: Smaller power supplies for smaller loads
Source: Dell Whitepaper, “12G Power Efficiency How To”, dell.com
Power Supplies
Zone of highest efficiency is getting wider
Source: HP Whitepaper
Other Trends in
Server Performance
10 Technologies Impacting Server Trends
1. Public Cloud / Off-Premises Cloud
2. VMware Farms as the Server
3. Converged / Integrated / Fabric-Based Systems
4. Appliances
5. New Vendors: ODMs
6. OpenCompute Project
7. Flash Getting Stuck Everywhere
8. Crazy #*@$ like High-Frequency Trading
9. Scale-up x86
10.The Millennium that Mainframes Finally Die
Questions?
41