Database as the core x86 processor selection three considerations

Database applications due to the specific type and size, the server performance requirements are not the same. High performance and high stability are the most important requirements because of the enterprise data storage and computing tasks. But on the other hand, server security, scalability and objective rationality are also factors that users should consider when purchasing. Less specific to the core database server --CPU in the selection and what needs to pay attention to it?

1) superior computing performance to meet business needs and growth

traditional X86 processors due The difference in architecture and principle, so the performance in the face of parallel computing requirements, floating-point operations and large-scale databases often can not be compared with RISC architecture processors. In addition to these "hard metrics" that depend on the processor architecture, database applications often require multi-core processors with higher bandwidth on the interconnect and memory access - because of their large data throughput, computational randomness and suddenness. Very large. This is also the long-term weakness of x86 processors.

In addition, users in the purchase of servers often also consider future scalability, especially processors. Traditional x86 processors are difficult to directly support extensions of more than 4 channels, so there is a bottleneck in database business development. But in recent years

x86 processor performance quickly, especially after the introduction of Intel's Tick-Tock strategy, x86 processor architecture to a year, the process of fast development pace in a year, the performance of RISC processors The gap is getting smaller and smaller, and in some ways even surpassing RISC.

latest Intel Xeon 7500 series processors, not only can support 2-way to expand up to 256 servers to meet business development, in addition to that it is not in the calculation of performance through powerful Nehalem-EX architecture Weaker than today's mainstream RISC processors, opening up new avenues for database applications.

the generation Xeon 7400 compared to 7500 eight-core Xeon (high-end version) package, coupled with Hyper-Threading Technology (the HT), stroke calculation logic to enhance thread 16, substantially parallel processing capability database increase. According to Intel's official data, the processor's computing performance in data is 2.5 times that of the previous generation, and the most significant effect comes from the ultra-fast communication speed brought by 4 QPI direct-connected buses (up to 6.4GT/s, far) Not the same as the previous FSB bus), large L3 cache (up to 24MB) and 9 times the previous memory bandwidth (four-channel DDR3).

technology makes this series become the most powerful Xeon 7500 x86 processors, enough to easily upgrade existing database applications to deal with, and obtain a higher integration efficiency. In the professional TCP-E test for database applications (see: Xeon 7500 turned out to be the top of the TCP-E database test), NEC and IBM servers using the Xeon 7500 series processors received the top two It shows that its performance is strong.

2) to ensure the reliability is compulsory

x86 processors but another question before us is reliability of the processor. As everyone knows, the database in the enterprise is the core of supporting the front-end business, and its reliability must be guaranteed above 99.9%. Compared with the RISC platform, x86 processors have natural defects in computational reliability and accuracy due to computational limitations. Therefore, the key business areas have always chosen the RISC platform, and the x86 platform is regarded as an unstable and unreliable general-purpose computing platform.

in increasingly large-scale database today, many companies are hesitant to keep the original x86 platform database, take calculated risks; or migrate to RISC minicomputer, bear a significant cost. In fact, such contradictions and concerns have always existed in the game of key business areas on the x86 platform and the RISC platform. Even the DBA, said in an interview: "High performance, stability can be comparable with the minicomputer, of course I would choose a relatively flexible x86 platforms, because the cost is much less."

visible, open source x86 platform And low cost is the main factor that attracts database users to deploy. On the other hand, when x86 processors convince database users, the urgent need to improve is reliability. On

Traditionally, RISC + UNIX + Linux or Windows is more stable than x86. The RISC server is very different from the X86 server in hardware architecture design. It uses a lot of redundancy technology and high-availability technology, so the reliability is higher and the cost is higher. The hardware quality level of X86 servers is uneven, high and low, and hardware work is slightly worse. However, the reliability of X86 servers, especially X86 processors and RISC processors, is also improving.

In the official documentation of the Xeon 7500, there are 22 RAS features mentioned, which solve three problems: First, data protection, using hardware mechanisms such as CRC and ECC. The transmitted data is verified and corrected. If it cannot be corrected, the damaged data is isolated to ensure that no larger data is generated and the system is restarted and shut down. Second

high availability, the main components including various equipment, and hot mirror switch so as to ensure high availability.

third is planned to minimize downtime, including system partition management technology, hot-add CPU and memory and heat removal, it will reduce system maintenance time to a minimum.

These features form a complete MCA architecture (Machine Check Architecture) that can check and correct errors in the processor, memory or IO without shutting down the system. Thermal maintenance ensures uninterrupted operation of the system. It is understood that the MCA function was originally only available on the IA64 architecture processor; and the system, including Microsoft Windows Server, RedHat, SUSELinux, and VMware platforms, already supports this feature.

3) from procurement to create low-cost operators a strong ecological

say if the company before considering buying a database server to consider only adequate performance. So today's enterprise IT department is more concerned with the deployment of the database server is whether its performance is suitable for future business expansion.

from a cost point of view, because the Xeon 7500 compared to the previous generation of products to enhance the performance of 2.5 times (database application), so in the same volume of business scale, the number of deployments accordingly be less than 2 times. The price of Xeon 7500 only increased by about 10%, this account must be calculated by buyers. However, as analyzed in the previous section, the elimination and depreciation of equipment, the product life cycle, and the ability to adapt to the upgrade of the business are issues that users are now paying more attention to. In the future, when the database scale is expanded and more computing is needed, the Xeon 7500 offers two options: one is a processor that seamlessly upgrades to more cores; the other is expanded into a multi-way server system.

As mentioned above, the Xeon 7500 supports 2-way to 256-way multi-way server systems, of which 8 or less expansion does not require the support of third-party power-saving controllers. The performance after the expansion is also completely relieved of the bottleneck due to the internal interconnection of the QPI bus.

In addition, Xeon 7500 series processors support up to 16 DIMM memory slots. In Dell's new Xeon 7500 server, the creative use of Flex Memory Bridge technology allows a four-way server to use only two processors, each processor can use eight DIMMs without additional processors Memory slots (8 DIMM memory slots are standard on each processor), that is, two processors can use 32 memory slots in the entire server (please understand). This gives the user great flexibility - some user databases are large in size and computationally intensive, so they only require a lot of memory and do not need to be full of four processors.

On the other hand, affected by last year's financial crisis, IT industry generally believe that the future IT system should pay more attention to energy efficiency (there are data that the data center is equal to two-year electricity purchase costs). Compared with the previous generation, the Xeon 7500 has improved the average performance by 3 times and the power consumption is between 95W and 130W. Therefore, it can be said that “the performance is the same, the electricity bill is only 1/3 of the past”.

compared with minicomputers, x86 Xeon 7500 environment more open to support Linux, Windows, Solaris and other Caozuoxitong. In addition, due to the large number of x86 platform software vendors, the number of supported applications is far more than RISC+UNIX, so it can be more flexible to adapt to various environmental changes, database migration is relatively easy.

from the development of the industry point of view, X86 server has a wide range of ecosystems, a large number of various hardware and software vendors, and even user base is quite large, the whole industry has a strong vitality. The manufacturers of RISC minicomputers are fighting each other. IBM, HP, and Sun are all in one family. The hardware and operating systems are relatively closed, so the vitality is not as good as X86. Based on the above three aspects, the performance advantages, reliability advantages and scalability advantages of the RISC platform in the traditional database field still exist, but under the impact of the X86 processor led by the Xeon 7500, the gap is gradually narrowing. We believe that in the competition and development of x86 and RISC platforms, the benefits will always be users.