Home > Workload Solutions > High Performance Computing > White Papers > Dell Validated Design for HPC NG-Stor Storage - Joint Solution with Kalray > Overview
This solution was released with the latest 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs, also known as Alder Lake (or Sapphire Rapids), and the fastest RAM available at the time (DDR5 4800 MT/s).
This release focuses on the NVMe tier as PCIe 5 allows faster NVMe drives and NICs (Connect X-7 NDR – 400 Gb/s), while performance of ME5 arrays remains the bottleneck for the capacity tier of the solution (see the Dell Validated Design for HPC pixstor Storage white paper for expected performance).
The following figure shows a simplified architecture diagram for this release:
Figure 2. Simplified Architecture for NVMe tier
Table 1 lists the main components for the solution. Some discrepancies were introduced between the wanted BOM and the actual test hardware. For the pre-release (production level) hardware for our project, only a few CPU models were made available, not including the planned life-cycle model.
The At release column in Table 1 lists the components to be used at release time and are available to customers with the solution. The Test bed column lists the components used for characterizing the solution's performance. For full high-speed network redundancy, two high-speed switches must be used (QM9700 for IB and SN3700 for 100 GbE) and each server must have one CX7 adapter connected from each switch.
Note: Software versions in the following table might change in between official releases to include important bug fixes, support for new hardware components, or the addition of important features.
Table 1. Components to be used at release time and in the test bed
Solution component | At release | Test bed | |
Internal management switch | Dell PowerSwitch N2248X-ON GbE | PowerSwitch S3048-ON | |
HDMD storage subsystem | One or more pairs of NVMe tier. See Table 3. | ||
Processor | Gateway/NG-Hub | 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6426Y 2.5G, 16C/32T, 16GT/s, 38M Cache, Turbo, HT (185W) DDR5-4800 | 2 x Intel Xeon Platinum 8452Y 2GHz, 36C/72T, 16GT/s, 67.5MiB Cache, Turbo, HT (300 W) DDR5-4800 |
Storage node | |||
Management node | Intel Xeon Gold 5416S 2G, 16C/32T, 16GT/s, 30M Cache, Turbo, HT (150W) DDR5-4400 | ||
NVMe Nodes | See Table 3. | ||
Memory | Gateway/NG-Hub | 16 x 16 GiB 4800 MT/s RDIMMs (256 GiB) | |
Storage Node | |||
Management Node | |||
BIOS | 1.5.6 | ||
Operating system | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 | ||
Kernel version | 4.18.0-477.15.1.el8_8.x86_64 | ||
NG-Stor software | 6.0.3.1-1 | ||
Spectrum Scale (GPFS) | Spectrum Scale (GPFS) 5.1.8-1 | ||
OFED version | MLNX_OFED_LINUX-23.04-1.1.3.0 | ||
High-performance NIC | 2x Dell OEM DPN 0RYMTY ConnectX-7 InfiniBand NDR (400 Gb/s) (management server, 2x Dell OEM CX7 NDR200 DPN 0M8XMC) | ||
High-performance switch | Mellanox QM9700 for InfiniBand NDR (400 Gbps) SN3700C for 100 GbE, SN3700 for 200 GbE or SN4700 for 400 GbE | ||
Local disks (operating system and analysis/monitoring) | 3 x 480 GB SSD SAS3 (RAID 1 + HS) for operating system with PERC H345 front RAID controller | ||
Systems management | iDRAC9 Enterprise + Dell OpenManage 10.1.0.0 |
Because the Dell Validated Design for HPC NG-Stor Storage is sold with deployment services included, a detailed description of cabling for SAS or high-speed networks is beyond the scope of this document. Cabling of the different components to the management switch is also beyond the scope for this document.