Data Center
Refresh and Expansion
Considerations

1

Keeping Up With Workloads

2

Why Refresh or Expand

3

Planning, Planning, Planning

4

Early Testing

5Intel/SPR

6

Products/Hyper

7

X13

8

Newer Is Greener

9Green Data Center

10 Innovative Design
11 Flexibility
12 How To Get Ahead of Your
Competitors BBS, Resource Savings
13 TCE
14 Total IT solutions

Keeping Up With Workloads

As organizations across the globe continue
with their digital transformations, IT
departments are being forced to deliver
more performance and capability with static
budgets. In addition, new technologies areconstantly becoming available that allow
for increased employee interaction andcustomer satisfaction. The workloads that
IT organizations must support include new
analytics platforms, artificial intelligence,machine learning, high-performancecomputing, cryptocurrency, virtual desktop
interfaces, database access, and many more.

CONSIDER:

What are my mostimportant workloads?
1Keeping Up With Workloads

While there may be similarities across different
companies’ workloads, each company will havedifferent requirements where applicationoptimized servers and storage systems are thekeys to high performance at reduced costs.
Planning a hardware refresh requires anunderstanding of both corporate goals andIT requirements.

CONSIDER:

What are my mostdemanding workloads?
2Why Refresh or Expand?
Understanding how a current data center
performs is the first step to determining if arefresh is needed. An audit may be necessary
when determining a refresh or expansionof a data center.
• Are the applications delivering theperformance expected?
• Looking forward, what will be the requireddelivery time frames, and for what types
of applications?
• What percent of servers are considered“zombie” servers, running but notdelivering valuable results?
• Will future software releases even be
supported on existing hardware?
• Can older servers that do not deliver
as expected be repurposed for lessdemanding uses?

CONSIDER:

Look at current application
performance.
3Planning, Planning, Planning

As new technologies become available,
there may be hesitance to adopt these newcomputer servers or storage systems.
While the promise of complete compatibility
between generations of CPUs and systems
is desired for all applications, there may
be instances where an entire application
ecosystem does not work seamlessly.
A process for understanding the ins andouts of a hardware refresh is critical for
ultimate success and should be understood.
Additionally, new capabilities in new
generations of servers, often based on
new CPU or GPU technology, can improve
performance beyond the increase in thenumber of cores or clock speed.

CONSIDER:

What new technologies do I need?

4Planning, Planning, Planning

New APIs that give access to new features ofCPUs or GPUs can also increase performanceor security, and these innovations can only
be used with the newer systems. Thus, aplan for understanding the new features andmodifying applications to take advantage ofthe new capabilities should be part of any
data center refresh.

CONSIDER:

What software issues
do I need to be aware of?
5Early Testing

Well before any technology is made available
to end users, there is a tightly choreographed
process between different suppliers that
ultimately results in high quality products.
In the IT industry, this starts with the CPU or
GPU suppliers delivering the next generationof their products and associated bootup
and BIOS settings and code to the server
suppliers. This process can be quite long,as modern CPUs and GPUs contain billions
of transistors. In addition, significant time isspent running test cases at very low levels
and in entire ecosystems.

CONSIDER:

Can I test and validate in advanceof a POC or purchase?
6Early Testing
Get Early Access
Before any new server or product line is madegenerally available (GA), many companies
run a program where qualified users can
get access to the servers and run actualcode. These programs allow developers
to test their applications, experiment withdifferent settings and measure results, bothfor accuracy and performance. Supermicrooffers early access to product lines before
these servers become available. While themain purpose of making servers available
before a product’s official launch, Supermicro
is continuing to make its JumpStart programavailable after the recent X13 launch, todevelopers with a range of servers.

CONSIDER:

Can I use early access to test
and benchmark?
7

Early Testing Systems

With the Supermicro X13 JumpStart program,
applications can be installed and tested forcompatibility, exploration of new features, andbenchmarked. The new systems are designed
for workloads, determining which workload
should be carefully considered to maximize
performance and price and meet SLAs.

CONSIDER:

Which Supermicro product lines
am I interested in?
8Future Supermicro X13 Lineup

The Supermicro X13 product families include
the 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors,with a range of technological innovations. The
Supermicro X13 lineup includes:• Supermicro X13 GPU Servers• Supermicro X13 Hyper and Hyper-E
Servers• Supermicro BigTwin® Servers• Supermicro FatTwin® Servers• Supermicro X13 SuperBlade®
• Supermicro X13 GrandTwin™
• Supermicro X13 Universal GPU• Supermicro X13 Storage Servers• Supermicro X13 CloudDC Servers• Supermicro X13 WIO Servers• Supermicro X13 Edge Servers• Supermicro X13 Multi-Processor Servers

CONSIDER:

Which servers are rightfor my workloads?
9Why Refresh or Expand?
• Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX)
extending built-in AI acceleration capabilities of earlierIntel® Xeon® Scalable processors.
• Optimized internal matrix-multiply micro benchmarks
run over 7x faster using the new Intel® AMX instruction
set extensions compared to a version of the same
micro benchmark using VNNI instructions (1).
• 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors will support
leading industry standard technologies such as DDR5,
PCIe 5.0, and Compute Express Link 1.1.
• 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors integrate
the new Intel® Data Streaming Accelerator (Intel® DSA),
which is designed to offload the most common data
movement tasks that cause the overhead seen indata-center-scale deployments.
• 4th Gen Intel® Xeon Scalable processors will be use
the Intel 7 process technology, formerly referred to as“Enhanced SuperFin”• Support for Intel® Optane™ persistent memory
300 series• Intel® Xeon® MAX processors, with high bandwidth
memory (HBM), integrate HBM to accelerate memorybandwidth sensitive workloads. HBM will have threemodes:HBM only, Flat, and Cache.
• Eight channels of DDR5 memory; Four memory
controllers supporting eight channels; Integrated
memory engine• Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect 2.0, with up to
4 links (x24 @16 GT/s)(1) Claim estimated as of 2/10/2022 based on Sapphire Rapids architecture
improvements vs 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable at similar core counts on
a test scenario using FlexRAN software. Results may vary.

•

CONSIDER:

What will the 4th Gen Intel® Xeon®
Scalable processors give me?
10Liquid Cooling
As part of a data center hardware refresh,
Liquid Cooling can be accomplished as longas the planning is done in advance. Liquid
Cooling of specific servers reduces the data
center Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) in
two ways. The first is that the fans in a serverthat typically draw the cool air over the hot
electronics do not have to run as fast since
the CPUs or GPUs will not generate as muchheat that needs to be removed by flowing air.
The second is that the data center HVAC units
do not have to be run as much to exchange
the hot air for cooler air. Whether Direct To
Chip or immersive, liquid cooling reduces thepower consumption within the data centerbut must be planned for in advance to ensurethat the proper infrastructure is available.

CONSIDER:

Do I need to consider Liquid Cooling?
Will Liquid Cooling reduce my TCO ?
11

Newer Is Greener

Refreshing some percentage of a data center
requires a detailed plan that should consider
the points below. First, however, there aresome general reasons why IT managers should
consider refreshing hardware regularly.
Older servers can’t keep up: New
workloads may require faster CPUs, moredata held in memory, additional cores forprocessing, and faster data access from disk
drives or the network. Nevertheless, the latest
generations of servers and CPUs continue
to offer overall application performance
improvements over previous generations.

CONSIDER:

Which servers need to be updated?

12

Newer Is Greener
Refreshing some percentage of a data center
requires a detailed plan that should consider
the points below. First, however, there aresome general reasons why IT managers should
consider refreshing hardware regularly.
Newer Servers are Greener: The latest
CPUs and GPUs perform more work per wattof electricity needed. While the electricity
required at the very high end for a CPU
generally increases with each generation,
the amount of work performed outpaces
the increase. This means that less electricity
will be used for the workloads compared toprevious generations of CPUs.
Data centers benefit by being able to reduce
the number of servers dedicated to specificapplications while maintaining performancelevels. With the added performance of a
new generation of servers, some workloads
can be delivered on a single server throughvirtualization or containerization.

CONSIDER:

Which servers need to be updated?

13

Increase Your Work Per Watt

Newer Systems Are More EfficientOver time, newer systems can perform
work per watt of power used. The newer
systems are not just faster, but more energy
efficient as well.

CONSIDER:

Get more work per watt14

Newer Is Greener>
Newer Generation

Previous Generation

Newer systems with the latest CPUs allow for a
reduction in the number of CPUs. If workloads
allow, a single socket system may be able toreplace a previous generation dual-socket
system. This not only reduces the number ofsockets but could potentially reduce software
costs that are tied to the number of sockets.

CONSIDER:

Will a new single socket server allow
for the performance that I need?
15

Environmental Considerations

Data center hardware refresh cycles do nothappen all at once. In the 2020 Supermicro
Data Centers and the Environment Survey,
it was found that 68% of respondents wererefreshing their servers within three years. In
addition, new systems containing the latest
Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors have been
designed to perform more work per wattthan previous generations. Thus, applications
will produce results not just faster thanusing previous generations of CPUs but with
reduced power consumption.

CONSIDER:

How will I reduce my data center
environmental footprint?
16

Innovative Design

Supermicro has been producing servers withless environmental impact than competitors
for some time. Not only do the Supermicro
product lines incorporate the latest Intel®
Xeon® Scalable processors, but they are also
designed through innovative mechanicaldesign to use less electricity. By placing
components so that the hottest components
receive more airflow, fans may not have to
run as fast as other designs, which resultsin less electricity being used. Also, products
such as the Universal GPU are designed to be
future-proof, which means that the coolingrequirements of next-generation CPUs andGPUs are easily handled.

CONSIDER:

Is energy reduction important
to your data center refresh?
17

Flexibility

Modern data centersneed to respond to a wide range
of user demands and application profiles.
Servers can be optimized for a number
of applications, whether the needs are theabsolute highest performance, large amountsof memory, high I/O bandwidth to storage
devices, or massive networking capacity.
Various systems can be optimized for thesetypes of workloads, and these applications’
execution will run faster. In addition, specific
Supermicro X13 products are designed to give
IT administrators the flexibility to use themin different environments within the same
product family.

CONSIDER:

Which types of servers do I need?

18How To Get Ahead of Your Competitors

Supermicro is able to deliver a range of systems
based on the latest technologies soon after
introduction. How does Supermicro do it?
By using a concept called “Building Blocks”.
Many of the systems that together create a stateof-the-art server can be used in different form
factors or in application-optimized servers. This
design technique allows Supermicro to deliver
new servers quickly once new technologies fromour suppliers is made available.

CONSIDER:

Getting Systems Fast

19

How To Get Ahead of Your Competitors

Resource Saving Architectures fromSupermicro allow systems to be designed
and manufactured that share power andcooling systems. This reduces the electricity
used as power supplies are more efficient at
more significant loads and larger fans use lesselectricity when running at a slower speed.

CONSIDER:

Getting Systems Fast

20

Total Cost to the Environment
TCE = f (Server power, power density, inlet temperatures, E-waste activity, PUE)

Server environmental considerations go
beyond just the electricity used during its
useful life. The Total Cost to the Environment(TCE) measures how much a server costs
the environment. This is a combination of
the effect on the environment during the
production process, the cost to operate,
and the cost to dispose of the electronic
components and mechanical systems.
According to a United Nations report in
2020, about 54 metric tons of e-waste weregenerated. One method to reduce theamount of E-waste and thus reduce the TCE
is to design systems that do not have to be
entirely scrapped when new components
are developed.

CONSIDER:

How can you lower your TCE?

21

Total Cost to the Environment
For example, with systems designed with a“disaggregated architecture” system, CPUs
can be replaced without having to replace
the entire chassis. Likewise, newer memory
technologies or storage technologies can be
replaced without having to replace the CPUsor the memory. It is estimated that a chassis
could last up to seven years in some cases andhouse multiple generations of components.
Supermicro’s mission is to design the mostenergy-efficient servers using the latest
and most powerful CPUs and GPUs. Using
advanced CFD modeling and simulation,
Supermicro offers a wide range of servers
designed to reduce energy consumption.
Even in small amounts, data center refresh
offers the opportunity to reduce theenvironmental footprint and decrease theTCE. In addition, the latest designs fromSupermicro using the Next Generation
Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors provide an
opportunity to increase workloads while
reducing electricity usage.

CONSIDER:

How can you lower your TCE?

22

Total IT Solutions

When it comes to refreshing parts of a data
center with the most up-to-date servers
and storage systems, an entire, ready-to-go,
and tested solution is the fastest and easiest
method to get productive. Supermicro
Total IT Solutions are tested and validated
combinations of optimized hardware with
software that solve a particular challenge thatan end-user organization may have.

CONSIDER:

Is a total, delivered, ready to run
cluster important to my business?
23

Total IT Solutions

As part of an overall strategy to delivercomplete, ready to install racks of systems,
Supermicro has developed a range ofexpertise up to Level 12 (L12). L12 is defined as
manufacturing testing at the multi-rack level,
where networking is active, tuned, and theentire software stacks are loaded and tested.
The whole cluster is considered a single unit
and would contain cluster management
software and all applications that would
be executed.

CONSIDER:

Is a total, delivered, ready to run
cluster important to my business?
24

Summary

Refreshing a portion of a data center to takeadvantage of the latest technology should
involve careful planning. Getting early accessto the new technology should be high on
the priority list. This will allow developers
and IT administrators to determine if the newofferings will benefit the users of the data
center. Supermicro is a complete server andstorage solutions provider with advanced
manufacturing facilities worldwide. In
addition, full-scale cluster-level solutions
can be built and tested prior to shipping.
Liquid cooling of large numbers of systems
simultaneously can also be accomplished toensure customers get thoroughly tested andvalidated solutions based on their needs.

CONSIDER:

How smooth can my data center
refresh be accomplished?
25

Recap: Consider The Following
Keeping Up With Workloads

Early
TestingIntel

Why Refreshor Expand

Planning, Planning, PlanningGreen Data Center

Products/Hyper

Liquid Cooling

Innovative Design

Newer Is Greener Flexibility
How To Get Ahead
of Your Competitors BBS,
Resource Savings

X13

Total IT Solutions

TCE
26

Learn more at:www.supermicro.com

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