Alexey Pavlov, technical consultant at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), shares his experience in using Selectel services today in the Selectel blog. Let's give him a word.
The best way to check the quality of a service is to use it yourself. Our customers are increasingly considering the option of placing part of their resources in the data center with a provider. It is understandable that the customer wants to deal with familiar and proven platforms, but in a more convenient self-service portal format.
Recently, Selectel a new service to provide HPE servers to its customers. And here the question arises: which server is more accessible? Which is in your office / data center or at the provider?
Let's recall the issues that customers solve when comparing the traditional approach and the equipment rental model from the provider.
- How quickly will you agree on a budget and will you be able to order a configuration of equipment for a pilot launch of your brainchild?
- Where to find a place for equipment. Do not put the server under the table?
- The complexity of the hardware stack is growing. Where to find the extra hours in the day to deal with everything?
The answer to such and similar questions has long been there: seek help from a service provider. Previously, I had never ordered equipment rental services from Selectel, but here I even managed to test and describe everything in detail:
All applications are made through where you can select the service you are interested in.
You can choose ready-made server configurations, there are a lot of options. Previously, such models were called "fixed" configurations. They are chosen when it is known exactly what is needed, and during operation it is not required to change the configuration. The server has already been assembled and mounted in the data center in advance.
It is convenient to search by location, ruler or predefined tags. If there are not enough ready-made configurations, you can assemble the model of interest.
Each server of arbitrary configuration is assembled individually to order. Implemented on the site , which helps to assemble the server with all compatible components. There is room for creativity! Under the contract, servers of arbitrary configuration are leased to clients for up to 5 business days.
In my case, the order was made on Friday evening, on Saturday at 8:00 I got access to the server console.
Many customers are accustomed to working with HPE servers for various reasons, such as the wide range of available certified options for SAP HANA, MS SQL, Oracle, and other industrial software. Now such servers have appeared in the Selectel portfolio:
To effectively deploy such applications, a company must have sufficient resources. At the request of the customer, we design the solution as a whole, and not separately the software and the server. Together with our customers, we discuss and configurations developed by software and hardware manufacturers, we compile the complete configuration, scope and dimensions, all specifications and deployment details.
HPE develops these reference solutions in a program of many different configurations that any service provider can use as a ready-made, tested template for further deployment to a customer's project.
Benchmarks
One of the advantages of the HPE server selection approach is testing them against various benchmarks. So you can choose a configuration for a previously known load: database volumes, number of users, performance.
HPE DL380 Gen10 servers already have 4 TPC-H records (Transaction Processing Council Ad-hoc/decision support benchmark) among all servers.
Data Warehouse Fast Track Results Certificate
Such certificates allow systems in a given configuration within the framework of the test and approximately it with the expected characteristics in the planned project.
From the interesting: the Microsoft SQL Server product, starting from version 2016, was developed as a cloud product, it was tested in the Azure service on more than 20 sites with billions of requests per day, this is another reason why such systems should be launched in the provider's data centers.
βIt is also perhaps the world's only relational database to be βborn cloud-first,β with the majority of features first deployed and tested in Azure, across 22 global datacenters and billions of requests per day. It is customer tested and battle ready.β
HPE's portfolio includes dedicated server solutions that have been tested for various industrial platforms. For example, HPE DL380 Gen10 servers, which can be used as a "building foundation" in the infrastructure. They showed in tests on SQL 2017, with the lowest cost per QphH (Query-per-Hour Performance) for September 2018: 0.46 USD per QphH@3000GB.
Working with databases
What interesting features does the DL380 Gen10 server have for working with SQL?
The HPE DL380 Gen10 supports Persistent Memory technology, which provides bit-wise memory access that reduces latency and increases transaction rates by up to 41%. The results of testing such configurations are .
NVDIMM Technology work with a huge number of I / O queues - 64k, unlike SAS and SATA with 254 queues. Another important advantage is low latency - 3-8 times lower than that of an SSD.
Similar test results are available for Oracle systems and .
In addition to NVDIMM technology, Intel Optane devices are actively used in the arsenal of database acceleration tools, which can be at Selectel on HPE hardware. The preliminary test results were on the Selectel blog.
Features and technologies
The HPE Proliant Gen10 Server has several unique technologies that make it stand out from other servers.
First of all, safety. HPE has introduced Run-Time Firmware Verification, a technology that allows the server to check the signature of the firmware for its origin before installing it on the server, this avoids spoofing it or installing a root-kit (malicious software).
Processor types
HPE ProLiant Gen10 is available in five CPU categories:
- Platinum (8100, 8200 series) for ERP, in-memory analytics, OLAP, virtualization, containers;
- Gold (6100/5100, 6200/5200 series) for OLTP, analytics, AI, Hadoop/SPARK, Java, VDI, HPC, virtualization, and containers;
- Silver (4100, 4200 series) for SMB workloads, web front-end, networking and storage applications;
- Bronze (3100, 3200 series) for SMB loads.
For all customers, in addition, there are a number of innovations in Gen10 servers:
Workload Matching - automatic adjustment of all server parameters to a specific type of load, for example, SQL. The measured results show a performance difference of up to 9% compared to normal settings, which is quite good for customers who want to get the most out of their server.
jitter smoothing - Preservation of the specified frequency of the processor without parasitic peaks after enabling Turbo Boost, ideal for customers who need to work at higher frequencies with minimal delays.
Core Boosting - allows you to get an increase in processor frequency, reducing overhead. Ideal for customers using core-licensed software such as Oracle. The technology allows you to use fewer cores, but at a higher frequency.
Work with memory
- Advanced ECC/SDDC: Memory Error Checking and Correction (ECC), combined with single device data correction (SDDC), ensures that the application continues to run in the event of a DRAM failure. The server firmware removes the failed DRAM of the entire memory card and restores the data in the new address space.
- Demand scrubbing: Overwrite corrected data in memory after recovering a correctable error.
- Patrol scrubbing: Proactively find and fix correctable errors in memory. Patrol and demand scrubbing work together to prevent the accumulation of correctable errors and reduce the possibility of unplanned downtime.
- Failed DIMM isolation: Failed DIMM identification allows the user to replace only the failed DIMM.
Learn more about the technologies used .
Selectel control panel
I managed to work with the Selectel order panel - a very pleasant feeling, the navigation is simple, it is clear where everything is.
It is possible to control all traffic from the server, assign an IP address:
Various operating systems are available for installation, installation starts automatically:
After installation, we go to the KVM console and continue to work in the usual mode, as if we were right next to the server:
more than half of all small and medium businesses transfer at least part of the infrastructure to service providers. Large customers have entire departments responsible for working with service providers.
Solving business problems is easier with Selectel for several reasons:
- Problems with the difficulties of financing (for the purchase of equipment and building their own infrastructure) are being solved.
- The infrastructure is already ready, the launch of the product to the market is accelerating.
- The help of qualified specialists is always at hand.
- It is easy to scale infrastructure, start with simple configurations and then flexibly adapt systems to business needs.
- Modern technologies are available for testing with pre-tested configurations for any application and any load.
- Tested and proven enterprise level solutions from HPE are available in a variety of configurations.
Bibliography:
Source: habr.com