The most recent addition to our kit list.
If you have not heard of Supermicros Twin (Squared) line of servers and are interested in increasing your computing density without making the investment and commitment of a Blade Center - you need to take a good look at our 6026TT-H6IBXRF.
From the outside and looking front on - this server looks like any normal 2 U server with 12 disk bays.
Turn the server around, and looking at the back - suddenly the awesomeness of this server is immediately apparent. This server is not just one server - it’s actually four!
The four servers are hot plug ’nodes’ which I guess are not too dissimilar to server blades. However there is no Blade center here - no propitiatory switch or connectivity options - it’s basically four servers - all with their independent I/O ports. This means you can rack the server up and it will fit right in to your existing infrastructure.
For the 6026TT-H6IBXRF - each node has:
2 X Socket for Intel 55xx or 56xx CPUs
12 X 1.5v DDR3 DIMM slots for a maximum RAM capacity of 48GB per node
1 X Mellanox Infiniband controller @ 20Gb/s
1 X LSI SAS 2108 hardware RAID controller (RAID 0, 1 and 5 support)
3 X Hot swap SAS drive bays
1 X IPMI over LAN, KVM over LAN via dedicated port
1 X Dual 82574L Intel SRIOV/ IOAT gigabit network controller
1 (x8) PCI-E 2.0 via riser card (low-profile)
Aside from saving you space, this server will also save you power.
The server has two redundant power inputs, which can provide redundant power to all four nodes. On a traditional setup, to supply four servers with redundant power, one would need to connect these with eight power leads (two for each server).
With a 6026TT-H6IBXRF - now you need just two. So not only does this server save space, and power, but your cabinet power distribution units are going to be free six power connectors!
Early tests on this server show that when idling, a single node uses approx 0.3 amps when idling. Previous low power servers that we have deployed have used more than twice this at 0.65 amp - so that represents a huge power saving, and reduction in CO2 if you are into that kind of thing.
Supermicro is generally known as the ’specialists’ choice of hardware - take a walk around any UK datacenter and you will see hundreds. The brand is not as well known as Dell or HP and some organizations may feel uneasy about using a brand they are not so familiar with.
We would say - come down and take a good look.
It will save you power, and power - is money!
