Bladewatch.com

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/supermicro-sets-performance-per-watt-milestones,354621.shtml

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Super Micro Computer, Inc. , a leader in application-optimized, high performance server solutions, today announced unprecedented performance-per-watt benchmarks using its latest SuperBlade(TM) and 1U Twin(TM) servers. Until recently, a metric of 200 GFLOPS/kW was considered impossible to achieve with conventional x86 technology. However, the Supermicro DatacenterBlade(TM), with its measured 290 GFLOPS/kW*, along with the Supermicro 1U Twin, with 240 GFLOPS/kW*, both easily surpass previous standards of excellence for x86-based servers.

A great article illustrating the concept of performance per watt, in this case it’s highlighting this solution based on Super Micro blade technology using Intel processor.

Taking this to the next level might mean talking about the business benefit, the revenue generated per watt used, though this might be difficult to quantify easily, who quantifies business benefit, and how would we ensure that this benefit was representative of the business and not the business unit.

What is very important to the IT teams might not be seen as important to the end user.

Creating the balance therefore, establishing, what the server/solution is, what tier of application/function it is to the business line and then examining the benefit per watt is the way forward – let me give you an example of how I’d go about this. Let’s say we’ve got a Compaq Proliant 5000R with an attached array shelf of 10x9GB drives running as a file server. By all accounts it’s serving files, it’s operating to the end user, it’s meeting it’s service level agreement requirements, it’s fine. But it is doing so at a relatively high cost if we consider what device, what system could provide 81GB of storage to an end user. A DL360 with 2x146gb drives perhaps? 1/16th of a DL585 with SAN storage? A NetApps filer might use similar power and space but provide far more storage – therefore we’re not talking so much on an individual server power utilization basis, we’re looking at the role it has to perform and assigning it an artificial value which we are prepared to expend on that task. I’ll ‘pay’ 300w to provide 90GB of storage for an isolated business unit where NAS or the equivalent wont do?

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