Eight-Way Intel Servers Get Stress Test

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August 18, 1999 (12:10 PM EDT)

As a new generation of eight-way Intel-based servers is released in the coming weeks, their ability to run key enterprise applications will be put to the test.

The first eight-way server based on Intel's Profusion chip set is due out next week from Compaq Computer, and several others are expected from Dell, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, among others.

Intel next week will announce immediate availability of the Profusion chip set, which offers a standardized means of connecting up to eight processors in a single system. The previous limit from Intel was four processors, although individual vendors have implemented proprietary architectures that scale up to 64 processors. IT managers have not bought into those systems in a big way mainly because they were proprietary.

Availability of the Profusion, an eight-way architecture developed by Intel will lead more vendors to offer the high-end systems, enhancing users' freedom of choice, company officials said. The availability of the systems as standard products from Intel are expected to encourage software developers to optimize for eight-processor systems; although all existing PC server software will run out of the box on the servers, optimized OSes such as Windows 2000 and applications will run better.

The servers are particularly expected to catch on with IT managers who are looking to consolidate applications from multiple small servers onto fewer, large servers, as well as being used in e-commerce and mission-critical applications requiring large databases, and for data mining.

While IT managers expressed concerns about the reliability and scalability of eight-way servers in the past, they said they would be willing to deploy eight-processor Intel architecture systems if they could be assured by vendors that their concerns are addressed.

"I'm looking for boxes that can handle the work load of [our] company," said Bruce Simkins, senior vice president and director of information systems for BTM Capital, a subsidiary of Bank of Tokyo/Mitsubishi. "We have too many servers. But my overall concern is, can the basic PC architecture handle true, strategic systems and mission-critical systems?" Mainframes and RISC/Unix systems enjoy far greater uptime than Intel/Windows systems, he said.

Alan Bourassa, director of distribution and fulfillment services for Barnesandnoble.com, said scalability is important when it comes to considering eight-way systems for the bookseller's Web site. The company has had five prototype Compaq eight-processor servers deployed three to six months, including two pairs of servers clustered together and one standalone server. Bourassa said there has been 99.99 percent uptime for the clusters. Performance for the eight-ways has been 1.7 times that of a four-way server running Windows NT, and better than twice the performance of a four-way server running Windows 2000.

"Our view of e-business is that if it's business-critical it must be nonstop," said Enrico Pescatori, senior vice president and group general manager of the enterprise solutions and services group for Compaq. "User-visible downtime is not an option."

Compaq said it plans next week to release its first eight-processor, Pentium III Xeon-based system, with another model to come the following week.

The Compaq ProLiant 8000 will be priced at $80,000 for a system with eight 550 MHz Pentium III Xeon processors, each with 1 Mbyte cache; nine, 9-Gbyte hard disk drives and 2 Gbytes of memory. The system is designed for the tight space of data center racks. Another eight-processor Intel-architecture server, the ProLiant 85OO, is designed for even tighter spaces, measuring 7U. That system will ship in two weeks.

The larger Model 8000 supports up to about 380 Gbytes of internal storage; the smaller 8500 is designed to connect to external storage, and therefore has space internally for only four internal disk drives to use as boot disks. The systems support up to 16 Gbytes of memory; although the underlying Profusion technology from Intel lets vendors install up to 32 Gbytes of memory, Compaq left off two memory boards to save space.

IBM plans to ship its Netfinity 8500R server in the first week of September, priced starting at $20,000 for a bare-bones single-processor system with 256 Mbyte of memory. It will support up to 72 Gbytes of storage internally, up to 1.5 petabytes externally, and up to 32 Gbyte of memory.

Hewlett-Packard plans to ship its HP NetServer LXr 8500 in late summer or early fall. Hitachi is using its own implementation of the Profusion chip set for its VisionBase 8880, priced at $130,000 for a six-processor system, available since December.