ENTERPRISE EQUIPMENT NETWORK SERVERS: One for Every Pocket

TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS

Entry-level Servers: The entry-level servers can be categorized into
standard Intel architecture servers (SIAS) and RISC/Unix servers. The typical
minimum specs for an SIAS server should include an Intel Pentium 4 processor, up
to 533 MHz front-side bus speed, up to 2 GB memory and at least one HDD, besides
some manageability tools. Typically, the entry-level severs are in the Rs 1—25
lakh bracket. These servers are ideal in case of non-critical enterprise
requirements like e-mail messaging, e-sharing and print-sharing tasks.

lMid-range Servers:
Typically, the mid-range servers can cost somewhere between Rs 25 lakh to Rs 2
crore, depending on whether these are RISC/Unix servers or Intel servers. The
usual specs for mid-range Intel servers are up to four Intel Xeon processors,
512 MB—12 GB memory, hot-pluggable 6x 64-bit/100MHz PCI-X (supports 3V or
universal PCI adapters), up to 10 high-speed SCSI drives in a RAID
configuration. These are ideal for performing multiple functions like
departmental applications, files and print and can exist in a cluster
configuration. RISC/Unix servers that offer mainframe-like capabilities could be
used for large back-end databases. These servers are ideal for consolidating
smaller workloads and to host large applications.

lHigh-end Servers: Typically,
these are the mainframes priced in excess of Rs 2 crore, the de facto servers
for mission-critical applications. Till recently, this segment used to be
dominated by Unix-based servers, while Windows and Intel were relegated to the
background. However, off late, the Wintel combination has grown much beyond
expectations in this segment only. These servers are ideal for mission-critical
applications like database management, data warehousing and e-commerce
applications.

lClustering vs Symmetric
Multi-processing (SMP): There are many applications, which can both
scale-out and scale-in. Scaled-out is inherently the capability of running
across multiple servers, for example, Web servers and mail servers, can all run
and scale from a host of servers. Scale in, refers to the scalability within the
box, that is, the application demand vertical growth. For example, a typical
Oracle database server or any database server or applications, which would run
in a single server.

Clustering provides a tool for enterprises today to build a high scalable
environment or a very highly scalable database environment using off-the-shelf
available products, which are low cost, open and easily available. While SMP
servers are expensive, they are good for scaling in for application growth.

However, if the requirement is to have all the application groups within a
single server, then there would be no option other than SMP. However, wherever
there would be an option the customers are today looking at reducing their TCO
and also to reduce the initial investment cost.

Typically, the high-performance technical competing marketplace and the
education and research labs are good examples of customers who typically looking
at clustering as an alternative to SMP for building high scalability
environment.

lBlade Servers: These are
ideal for environments where space and electrical power are limited, and
powerful processors are not an absolute necessity. Enterprises going for server
consolidation might go for blades, especially since these are easier to manage.
Adoption of blade servers is increasing quite fast.

These servers are strong on power efficiency, space saving and very easy to
manage and maintain. Blade server technology can accommodate 280 servers in a
single industry standard rack. Alongside, one could also have dual and Quad CPU
Xeon servers in a blades form factor.

lItanium Processors:
Itanium is largely looked at as an alternative to the RISC/Unix market place for
customers looking at a different alternatives computing design, which is based
on explicit parallel instruction set computing (EPIC) architecture. This
provides parallel execution of data, provides a architecture which allows the
processor to have more registers for data processing compared to RISC based
processors and is also a 64 bit environment. Depending on its acceptance,
Itanium platform could either restrict itself to being a niche player or it
could straddle the divide between the traditional x86-architecture server space
and the RISC-architecture server space and successfully occupy a significant
share of the CISC and RISC markets.

lOpteron Processors: Opteron
is just an extension to the existing 32-bit processor architecture with some 64
bit functionality like memory addressing etc. Opteron is primarily targeted at
the volume market in the 1 or 2 CPU space while Itanium is for customers looking
at higher levels of performance, scalability and reliability with the capability
to run three different operating systems. Most of Microsoft applications are not
easily portable into Opteron.

However, current third-party benchmarks place the Opteron at a significant
advantage over the 32-bit Intel server CPUs (Xeon and Xeon MP). Although there
has not been a head-to-head comparison between the Opteron and the Itanium
(given the difficulties in designing an apples-to-apples comparison), a lot many
users are probably wondering whether the advantage (of the Opteron) of backward
x86-compatibility does not outweigh the ‘perhaps-not-quite-there’
performance advantage of the Itanium. The adoption of the architecture, first by
IBM and more recently by HP and SUN, is certainly excellent endorsement of AMD’s
strategy.

l Linux Servers: Linux is
an important server OS that is gaining momentum. Initially, it was largely
accepted among technical users like the education industry and R&D labs but
now its gaining momentum in the commercial marketplace too. Many of he
commercial customers do have a Linux strategy and are trying to put some part of
their data center or applications that they are using for their organization on
the Linux environment today.

Linux is a very good alternative for enterprises looking at providing their
applications with an open source and flexible operating system. The fact is that
open source does provide the flexibility that research organizations and
educational institutions need, for example, to modify the kernel for suiting a
particular application need. Lots of Linux-based environments are also chosen in
the high performance technical computing marketplace.

lServer Consolidation: Consolidation
as a trend is definitely gaining momentum. Today, server vendors are providing
servers, which can scale to hundreds of processors and can handle very high
number of transactions, storage that can store huge amount of data and also
connect to multiple different servers and consolidated management features
through which they can manage their entire infrastructure.

Today, solutions are available for providing consolidated solutions for data
backup and for data recovery and also for disaster recovery. So with all these
technology available, consolidation probably is the best approach to build your
data center, coupled with the fact that today the data communication lines
prices have also come down substantially. Consolidation is driven by the
application, rather than consolidation being an objective in itself. Integrated,
enterprise solutions are increasingly being adapted and this will drive the move
towards hardware consolidation. The TCO, security, and availability benefits of
consolidation are welcome incidentals.

BUYING TIPS

The traditional association between
high-availability/high-performance and RISC platforms is breaking down, and with
the introduction of a new range of server models over the next six months (as
well as new releases/flavors of operating environments), there would be an
increasing fit between the mid-range/high-end ‘SIAS < 25K’ platforms, and
the requirements of an enterprise. CIOs need to be aware of this when
contemplating fresh procurement.

l Benchmark
Evaluation: CIOs prefer to evaluate the performance of the server by looking
at a suite of benchmarks rather than just going by any one single benchmark. For
example, customers today look at OLTP benchmarks like the TPC-C, data
warehousing benchmarks like TPC-H, specs benchmark like the specjBB and SpecWeb.
Most of the CIOs will like to refer to at least two or three benchmarks before
making a decision on purchasing a server from a performance point of view.

l Vendor
Choice: The CIO should look at the support level that he gets and the amount
of SLAs that he can ask from the vendors in supporting these particular servers.
In addition, the vendor should have the capability to provide both short term
and long-term solutions to the organization and should have a large India
presence and focus.

A direct interaction with a principal vendor for services and
solution is preferred over a partner or agency providing the same. However,
there is a cost difference in getting direct support services from the server
vendor.

l Reliability
and Redundancy: A fundamentally reliable platform, designed with
self-diagnostic capabilities and redundant subsystems, tends towards a lower TCO.
These features also allow the vendor to commit to higher SLA level slabs with
only marginal increases in cost.

The fundamental design of the servers, aiming at better power
management, has as its objective increasing system mean time between failure (MTBF).
The enterprise server platforms are designed with redundant subsystems in key
areas–memory (in the new range), disk, networking, power supply module, and
cooling module.

The new range of servers will feature an e-Panel for system
health monitoring and alerting as well as for pre-OS self-diagnostic
capabilities. This hardware module will allow a remote/user-organization non-IT
specialist to communicate hardware fault-analysis information to wherever it is
the IT infrastructure administration is based.

l Server
Management: Server vendors today provide many management tools, which help
customers manage complex clusters of servers through a single console and
through a single administrator. They should provide a single window for managing
a number of servers to take their back-up, and to create users. Most of the
management features that is required by the administrator are easy to use
GUI-based, can be done and managed through multiple servers from a single
console.

Vendors also provide remote dial-in management facility and
management of the servers through the internet and through Intranet. It can be
done through any PC in the entire office and need not be in the same premises as
the server. So there is tremendous amount of flexibility and simplification done
for server management and CIOs should look at fully utilizing these
opportunities.

l Scalability:
CIOs should look at a 2004 roadmap for server platforms with significant
expandability headroom as well as incorporating new technologies that will boost
I/O (PCI-Express I/O bus, network controllers with in-built TCP-offload-engine).
This addresses the scale-up requirements of customers. They should also look at
a 2004 roadmap for a Blade Server platform, for scale-out capability. In
addition, an aggressive push of clustering technologies (IP Load Balancing) will
supplement the scale-out options.

l Manageability:
CIOs should look at a modular server management framework starting with a
choice of hardware-specific components depending on the sophistication and SLA
of the requirement. The framework should hook to enterprise management
solutions, to allow the management of these servers to be integrated into the
overall infrastructure management scheme of the enterprise.

l Availability:
CIOs should always check for these.

1. High-availability sub-systems (memory, power supply
   modules, cooling modules, add-on controllers, etc.) in the relevant server
   models

2. Certified cluster configurations

3. Disaster data-recovery solutions through the storage
   consolidation solution

MARKET INFORMATION

The total server market in the country was approximately Rs 2007 crore in FY
2002—03 with Intel still accounting
for 45 percent of the sales. RISC/Unix servers are still second with about 25
percent share while mainframes account for only 5 percent. HP leads the Intel
category, while Sun still rules the roost in Unix space. IBM leads in the
high-end and mainframe category. HP leads in the Blade server space.

Solely for Telcos

Sun’s range of Netra servers are specifically targeted at telcos. Netra
servers are a special class of systems designed to withstand harsh conditions
such as earthquakes or fires. The servers meet Level 3 NEBS (network equipment
building standard) certification, which is the standard carriers require for
this type of rugged hardware. Customers use these products for their messaging,
VoIP, wireless, voice and e-mail services.

The Netra CT 410 and CT 810 servers use Sun’s UltraSPARC IIi processors
running at 650 MHz, which is a boost up from 500 MHz UltraSPARC IIe chips.
Customers can stack up to 48 of these servers in a rack and remove and replace
any components such as fans while the server is still running.

Sun has also brought out its Netra CP2140 and CP2160 boards, which are the
basis for the Netra servers. These systems are sold to OEMs and value added
resellers. Sun has the Netra HA Suite Foundation Services software that runs on
top of the company’s own Solaris operating system.