2nd Gen AMD EPYC now available to power your favorite hyperconverged platform ;) VxRail
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 18:31:32 -0000
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Expanding the range of VxRail choices to include 64-cores of 2nd Gen AMD EPYC compute
Last month, Dell EMC expanded our very popular E Series (the E for Everything Series) with the introduction of the E665/F/N, our very first VxRail with an AMD processor, and what a processor it is! The 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor came to market with a lot of industry-leading capabilities:
- Up to 64-cores in a single processor with 8, 12, 16, 24, 32 or 48 core offerings also available
- Eight memory channels, but not only more channels, they are also faster at 3200MT/s. The 2nd Gen EPYC can also address much more memory per processor
- 7nm transistors. Smaller transistors mean more powerful and more energy efficient processors
- Up to 128 lanes of PCIe Gen 4.0, with 2X the bandwidth of PCIe Gen 3.0.
These industry leading capabilities enable the VxRail E665 series to deliver dual socket performance in a single socket model - and can provide up to 90% greater general-purpose CPU capacity than other VxRail models when configured with single socket processors.
So, what is the sweet spot or ideal use case for the E665? As always, it depends on many things. Unlike the D Series (our D for Durable Series) that we also launched last month, which has clear rugged use cases, the E665 and the rest of the E Series very much live up to their “Everything” name, and perform admirably in a variety of use cases.
While the 2nd Gen EPYC 64-core processors grab the headlines, there are multiple AMD processor options, including the 16 core AMD 7F52 at 3.50GHz with a max boost of 3.9GHz for applications that benefit from raw clock speed, or where application licensing is core based. On the topic of licensing, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention VMware’s update to its per-CPU pricing earlier this year. This results in processors with more then 32-cores requiring a second VMware per-CPU license. This may make a 32-core processor an attractive option from an overall capacity & performance verses hardware & licensing cost perspective.
Speaking of overall costs, the E665 has dual 10Gb RJ45/SFP+ or dual 25Gb SFP28 base networking options, which can be further expanded with PCIe NICs including a dual 100Gb SFP28 option. From a cost perspective, the price delta between 10Gb and 25Gb networking is minimal. This is worth considering particularly for greenfield sites and even for brownfield sites where the networking maybe upgraded in the near future. Last year, we began offering Fibre Channel cards on VxRail, which are also available on the E665. While FC connectivity may sound strange for a hyperconverged infrastructure platform, it does make sense for many of our customers who have existing SAN infrastructure, or some applications (PowerMax for extremely large database requiring SRDF) or storage needs (Isilon for large file repository for medical files) that are more suited to SAN. While we’d prefer these SAN to be a Dell EMC product, as long as it is on the VMware SAN HCL, it can be connected. Providing this option enables customers to get the best both worlds have to offer.
The options don’t stop there. While the majority of VxRail nodes are sold with all-flash configurations, there are customers whose needs are met with hybrid configs, or who are looking towards all-NVMe options. The E665 can be configured with as little as 960GB to maximums of 14TB hybrid, 46TB all-flash, or 32TB all-NVMe of raw storage capacity. Memory options consist of 4, 8, or 16 RDIMMs of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB in size. Maximum memory performance, 3200 MT/s, is achieved with one DIMM per memory channel, adding a second matching DIMM reduces bandwidth slightly to 2933 MT/s.
VxRail and Dell Technologies, very much recognize that the needs of our customers vary greatly. A product with a single set of options cannot meet all our various customers’ different needs. Today, VxRail offers six different series, each with a different focus:
- Everything E Series a power packed 1U of choice
- Performance-focused P Series with dual or quad socket options
- VDI-focused V Series with a choice of five different NIVIDA GPUs
- Durable D Series are MIL-STD 810G certified for extreme heat, sand, dust, and vibration
- Storage-dense S Series with 96TB of hybrid storage capacity
- General purpose and compute dense G Series with 228 cores in a 2U form factor
With the highly flexible configuration choices, there is a VxRail for almost every use case, and if there isn’t, there is more than likely something in the broad Dell Technologies portfolio that is.
Author: David Glynn, Sr. Principal Engineer, VxRail Tech Marketing
Resources:
VxRail Spec Sheet
E665 Product Brief
E665 One Pager
D560 3D product landing page
D Series video
D Series spec sheet
D Series Product Brief