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HP’s new ExSO servers: skinless, lightweight, for clouds

Tony Chan | June 13, 2009 | 0 Comments

hp-proliantsl HP introduced what it calls its Extreme Scale-Out (ExSO) portfolio of servers and solutions for the high performance requirements of Web 2.0 and cloud computing environments last week. The new portfolio centers around a new skinless, tray-based, server design – instead of the traditional chassis and rack system – in a new server line, ProLiant SL, and some advanced data center environmental control system HP calls, HP Data Center Environmental Edge.

By eliminating the chassis and introducing a modular, energy efficiency design, the ExSO architecture now offers major savings in terms of energy costs, construction costs and shipping costs of the units to customers.

For a 100,000-square-foot data center, the savings of the ExSO portfolio are summarized as:

US$152.8 million in reduced capital expenditure

US$13.7 million in energy savings

US$4.1 million further energy savings due to improve cooling system, equaling 51,842 Mega-watts of electricity per year, or enough energy to power 4,600 average US households

838.5 tons of hardware – equal to the weight of 4.3 Boeing 747 jets

$14.5 million from reduce acquisition costs through volume packaging and lighter shipping

According to HP, the HP ProLiant SL portfolio offers customers 10% less acquisition costs and reduces their energy draw by 28%, while doubling their compute density.

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“Customers with scale-out business models need solutions that make every dollar, watt and square foot in the data center count,” said Christine Reischl, senior vice president and general manager, Industry Standard Servers, HP. “The HP ProLiant SL offers pioneering customers like these the most significant design innovation since the blade form factor, allowing them to achieve an economy of scale never before possible.”

There are a lot of similarities between the new HP platform and previous modular server architectures such as the Google server and even Cisco’s Unified Computing System – both of which are obviously designed for high density deployments.

What the HP platform does not have is an integrated UPS like Google’s server, or Cisco’s integrated networking and virtualization support. The HP platform is simply a server platform, but integrated with shared power and cooling systems and the company’s data center environmental management system.

One of the key differences is the fact that HP’s ExSO gear is designed with perforated casings that dramatically reduces weight (31% lighter) and, according to the company, improves air flow around the processors to reduce cooling requirements. The tray design also doubles compute density, HP says, enabling 672 processor cores and 10 terabytes of capacity per 42U rack.

The other component of the ExSO model is the HP Data Center Environmental Edge, which uses a system of sensors placed throughout a data center to monitor variables such as temperature, humidity, air pressure and power utilization. The system provides real-time visualization of environmental variables so administrators can perform root cause analysis to eliminate excess operational costs.

“Businesses built on extreme scale-out environments, such as cloud, Web 2.0 and HPC, operate at maximum transaction volume and low margins,” said Michelle Bailey, research vice president, IDC. “These customers have very distinct and unique data center requirements, specifically around energy efficiency, cost and time to market. The introduction of technology solutions such as the ExSO portfolio from HP is specifically addressing customer requirements for optimizing capital expenditures while lowering ongoing operating costs. As a result, these solutions are helping to redefine data center economics.”

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