Monthly News International
HP's Moonshot
Experton Group believes Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HP's) adoption of ARM Holdings LLC's and Atom low-cost, low-energy microprocessors into hyperscale servers initiates the next wave of server computing models by mainstream server providers. HP's Project Moonshot architecture is designed to unleash the promise of low-energy processors by incorporating them into an extreme scale server environment optimized for specific workloads such as simple big data searches, large distributed memory caching, and Web serving. HP is not the first server provider to move into this domain but it is the first major server provider, which means others will soon follow. Project Moonshot consists of four major tracks: a federated architecture that addresses fabric, management, networking, power and cooling, and storage; a server development platform; a proof of concept lab; and a partner collaboration program. Customers will be able to experiment with the server development platform starting in 1H 2012. IT executives should understand the impact this transformational server platform will have on current and future data center architectures, determine how, where and when the platform might be applicable to their current and future workload environments, and undertake a pilot program to assess the impacts and value of implementing the hyperscale systems.
Advantages of Hyperscale: HP estimates that a workload that required 400 x86 servers over 10 racks consuming 91 kilowatts could be executed using 1,600 HP hyperscale servers in one-half a rack using only 9.9 kW. Furthermore, the x86 servers require 20 switches and 1,600 cables while the Redstone platform only needs two switches and 41 cables.
As a result, HP estimates the cost drops from approximately $3.3 million to $1.2 million (a 63 percent savings) while there is 89 percent less energy consumed, 94 percent less space used, and the complexity is lessened by 97 percent.
Even if HP is off slightly in its estimates, the Redstone platform is a quantum improvement over current x86 costs and resource usage.
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