HP

AMD Opteron powering top servers on VMmark list

AMD’s quad-core Opteron processors powered the top three performing servers on VMware Inc.’s VMmark virtualization benchmark for 16 core x86 servers.

Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) ProLiant DL585 G5 with AMD’s Opteron processor is the top performer for 16-core systems on VMmark’s list. It is also used in HP’s 32 core, eight socket Proliant DL785 on VMmarks list, which achieved a score of 21.88@16 tiles or 96 virtual machines.

These results from AMD based systems aren’t surprising, since AMD Opteron’s virtualization assist technology has received high praise from VMware. One VMware engineer called AMD’s Nested Page Table (NPT) technology the answer to virtualizing large workloads.

Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI), a feature of AMD’s third-generation Opteron, includes NPT, is designed to offer near-native performance of virtualized applications and allows fast switching between virtual machines (VMs.)

Intel Corp. has announced a technology similar to NPT, called Extended Page Tables (EPT), which will be available in its next-generation eight-core microarchitecture, code-named “Nehalem.” Nehalem is slated for production later this year

VMware helps hospital reduce data center power, increase performance

Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware, Inc. announced that Rochester General Hospital(RGH) deployed VMware Infrastructure 3 to scale and manage its growing IT environment.

RGH, a community-based teaching hospital, has an IT infrastructure supporting business applications and patient-critical systems as well as massive amounts of data storage that is growing exponentially.

“We started using virtualization to address power and space issues in our main datacenter. We quickly adopted VMWare ESX as our standard platform for new projects and consolidated existing servers,” Tom Gibaud, an IT manager at RGH, said in an email. “It allowed us to continue business as usual and we experienced no delay in completing projects on time. Today we are way below our power threshold and gained about 50% of our floor space even after we doubled the amount of Windows Servers.”

In VMware’s statement, VMware Infrastructure has improved application performance and availability, and strengthened the hospital’s disaster-recovery capabilities. “Before going virtual, our datacenter power supply was maxed out. We couldn’t plug in a toaster. Now, with less hardware, we have capacity to handle whatever comes our way,” Gibaud said.

The hospital now runs 50 virtual machine hosts running 400 Guests with a mix of large and small workloads including terminal services, Gibaud said. In all, RGH has virtualized about 95% of its Windows-based applications, including Exchange, SQL Server, the ClinicalCare portal that physicians and nurses use to access electronic medical records, and RGH’s billing system.

In the initial phase of the virtualization deployment, Gibaud said the hospital used IBM Bladecenter servers (HS20, HS21, LS20). “This allowed us to condense many servers is a small amount of space. With VMware and IBM Bladecenters we were able to consolidate over a 150 Servers into one rack,” he said. “Today we use IBM x3850 and HP DL580 G5 to handle larger server workloads.”

In addtion, the hospital is running 200 Windows XP desktops using VMware’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on just two IBM x3850’s.

New HP unit to offer one-stop desktop virtualization shopping

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has expanded to incorporate a new business unit that will focus on desktop virtualization. Client-side virtualization has been a tough sell, primarily because the ROI comes from areas that companies aren’t used to valuing, such as security, technical support and power savings over regular desktops or notebooks. “Generally, these are encompassed in the facilities cost of the buildings,” said Roberto Moctezuma, VP and GM of the new desktop solutions global business unit. “When we present the ROI case to customers they find it very compelling, but it’s not as granular as in the server virtualization world.”

Roberto Moctezuma

Although no major product announcements will be made for another two weeks, HP shows promise in the client-side virtualization space due to its Remote Graphics Software (RGS), a technology that seeks to address one of the obstacles of virtual desktop adoption to date: the lack of graphics capabilities. RGS enables remote users to access high-end graphic software such as CAD.

Mixed virtual environments
HP hopes to position itself as a one-stop shoppinag vendor for all types of virtualization and data center purchases. “We think we have a unique portfolio in terms of breadth from the client-side and access devices, to notebooks to hardware for the data center coupled with differentiated software and manageability offerings.”

Partnerships with all three major virtualization vendors (VMware, Microsoft and Citrix) have allowed HP to preload their thin client devices with any of the above platforms, which enables a plug-and-play like experience for the end-user.

“When you look at the market a couple of years out, people will be using all types of virtualization platforms and technologies. HP’s strategy is to be the best option that brings them all together,” he said.

For VMware users, HP entering the thin-client virtualization space could mean fewer headaches about hardware and software compatibility in the future. “HP is working very closely with VMware to make the client virtualization paradigm simple to use and deploy. We want to provide a leading experience for our customers, both from an end user perspective and an IT perspective,” Moctezuma said. HP can now provide the thin-client, the virtualization software via its partnerships with virtualization software companies, and the blade servers to run the system.

Security still a major concern
There is a need for businesses to have the ability to keep data secure in an increasingly mobile work force, and the ability to add end-users quickly when, for example, opening up a call center in a new country, Moctezuma said.

Security is a primary concern in health care and financial industries. “You get high-CPU consumption users in the financial trading industry that are running four 24-inch monitors off of one thin-client device, accessing a single blade workstation back at the data center,” he said. Moctezuma also said that other high-end users get better hardware utilization because of worldwide remote employees: now, a blade server can be accessed around the clock from different parts of the world via employees’ thin client devices. HP calls this the “follow the sun” model.