Fujitsu Primergy and Primequest Servers With Xeon Scalable Processors and Optane DC Persistent Memory

Fujitsu Ltd. is removing performance bottlenecks that hold back today’s applications by adding (NVRAM) ⁽¹⁾ technology to its new-generation Primergy and Primequest servers based on Intel Corp.‘s Xeon Scalable processors.

Primergy M5 servers

Support for Intel Optane DC persistent memory delivers turbo-charged data processing, enabling applications to derive insights from data faster, even when dealing with massive amounts of information.

The Primergy and Primequest servers benefit from the company’s work in the NEXTGenIO project which forms part of EU Horizon 2020, the European Union’s biggest ever research and innovation program. The company took the lead in using Optane DC persistent memory to reduce bottlenecks caused by the relatively slow speeds of reading and writing data from memory – known as I/O speed – in comparison to the speeds of processing capabilities. This EU project made it possible for the firm to introduce these I/O capabilities to industry standard x86 Primergy and Primequest servers.

The company has released its M5 generation of Primergy as well as Primequest servers which incorporate performance-enhancing nNVRAM persistent memory. This brings data closer to processors, therefore reducing internal data transfer times between processing and storage. System latency times accelerates the performance of critical data workloads, from cloud services to on-premise databases.

Primergy RX2540 M5

These performance upgrades are reflected by newly-published results of independent benchmark measurements. The Primergy RX2540 M5 server breaks two records in the VMware, Inc.‘ VMmark test, which measures the performance, scalability and power consumption of virtualization platforms at the same time ⁽²⁾.

Primergy RX4770 M5

In addition, the Primergy RX4770 M5 system achieved excellent results running the SAP Business Warehouse, edition for SAP HANA Standard Application Benchmark Version 3 with a total of 9.1 billion initial records. In the benchmark, the Optane DC Persistent memory modules were used within the RX4770 M5. While delivering performance, with DCPMM, this also enables customers to triple memory capacity and reduce restart times of their databases. This demonstrates the new possibilities for in-memory databases and new configurations between memory and storage with DCPMM modules ⁽³⁾.

Moreover, both the Primergy RX4770 M5 and Primergy RX2540 M5 set further records on SPECjbb2015, which evaluates the performance and scalability of systems running Java business application environments⁽⁴⁾.

Primequest 3800E2

Further system upgrades enable the Primergy M5 generation and the second generation Primequest 3000 series server models to support more simultaneous users and more VMs per system. Consequently, business can more rapidly scale the applications they deliver on virtual infrastructures – providing more services to more customers, while also improving QoS.

Olivier Delachapelle, head, category management, Fujitsu EMEIA, comments: “Enterprises used to view the need to manage and store vast data lakes as an inconvenience, but now their huge potential is being recognized – it just needs to be unlocked. With breakthrough technology that brings these huge data sets closer to server processors, we can turbo-charge the time to insight, ensuring that our customers can derive more value than ever from their accumulated data. This leap in capability also opens the door for innovative new application development.“

Primergy and Primequest servers are also supported by the company’s Software Infrastructure Manager (ISM) which gives organizations control and visibility over their entire data center, from servers, storage, networking and cloud management software to power and cooling using a single user interface. With this generation of the system, a free-of-charge version, ISM Essential ⁽⁵⁾, is available. ISM Essential provides converged infrastructure monitoring as well as essential server management functions.

Pricing varies according to region and system configuration. Primergy and Primequest servers are available to order either directly from the company or via SELECT channel partners as follows:

Primergy RX2530 M5, RX2540 M5, RX4770 M5, CX 2550 M5, CX2560 M5, CX2570 M5, and Primequest 3000 series second generation systems available
Primergy RX2520 M5 and TX2550 M5 available in June 2019

Models in detail:
Primergy is a range of x86-based servers with performance and energy efficiency.

Models introduced today are:

Primergy TX2550 M5 – an upscale, dual-socket all-rounder tower server designed for a range of appropriately sized, stand-alone or virtualized workloads, including, collaboration, infrastructure, data analytics and enterprise applications.
Primergy rack-based RX2520 M5, RX2530 M5, RX2540 M5 and RX4770 M5 models, designed to address a range of workloads from basic requirements to fully-fledged virtualization, HPC or as part of HCI.
Primergy CX2550 M5, CX2560 M5 and CX2570 M5 can be used inside the Primergy CX400 M4 multi-node system designed for scale-out workloads such as HPC, deep learning or data analytics.

Primequest systems also incorporate the persistent memory technology. These high-end systems combine the efficiency of an x86-architecture with the reliability levels rivaling that of Unix and mainframe architecture. This means Primequest is for processing big data, in-memory solutions such as SAP HANA and business intelligence applications, while maximizing reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) for maximum uptime.

Primequest models introduced are:

Primequest PQ3800B2, designed for high-end and SAP HANA systems
Primequest 3800E2, built for mission-critical computing

⁽¹⁾ NVRAM is a category of RAM that retains stored data even if the power is switched off. How it works: The integration of Intel’s NVRAM changes the way that servers route data. Data is now always stored right at the CPU – in larger quantities than were previously imaginable, allowing for huge leaps forward in system operating speeds. NVRAM also uses the NVMe protocol for data transfer – a higher speed interface designed to rapidly access non-volatile storage.
⁽²⁾ As of April 2, 2019, a configuration of two Primergy RX2540 M5 systems was the best virtualization platform in a matched pair configuration of 2-socket systems with VMware’s VMmark V3 benchmark in VMmark V3.1 (Performance Only) and VMmark V3.1 (Performance with Server Power). Each system was configured with two Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 processors and used the VMware ESXi 6.7 EP 06 Hypervisor. Under official test conditions measured in the Primergy Performance Lab in Kawasaki, Japan, this configuration achieved a VMmark V3 score of 9.02@9 tiles (Performance Only) and 6.3290@9 tiles (Performance with Server Power).
VMmark results were achieved by FUJITSU Server Primergy systems. Full test results including system specification, further details and current results. Comparisons reflect the status as of April 2, 2019. VMware and VMmark are trademarks or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. VMware VMmark is a product of VMware, Inc. VMmark utilizes the SPEC Power and Temperature Daemon (SPECPTDaemon), which is available from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). VMmark results are not SPEC metrics and cannot be compared to SPEC metrics in any way.
⁽³⁾ The SAP BW edition for SAP HANA Standard Application Benchmark Version 3 performed on March 24, 2019, by Fujitsu in Walldorf, Germany, with a total of 9,100,000,000 initial records, was certified by SAP on behalf of the SAP Benchmark Council on April 2, 2019, with the following data:

Benchmark Phase 1

Number of initial records: 9,100,000,000
Runtime of last data set (seconds): 25,111

Benchmark Phase 2

Query executions per hour: 3,478
CPU utilization of database server: 98%

Benchmark Phase 3

Total runtime of complex query phase (seconds): 171
OSs: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
Database: SAP HANA 2.0
Technology platform release: SAP NetWeaver 7.50
Database Server: Primergy RX4770 M5, four processors/112 cores/224 threads, Xeon Platinum 8280L processor, 2.70GHz, 64KB L1 cache and 1,024 KB L2 cache per core, 38.5MB L3 cache per processor, 1,536GB DRAM and 3,072GB persistent memory

The SAP certification number was not available at press time and can be found at the following Web page.
⁽⁴⁾ The Primergy RX2540 M5 and Primergy RX4770 M5 systems set new world SPECjbb2015 benchmark records. Under official test conditions measured in the Primergy Performance Lab in Kawasaki, Japan, the Primergy RX2540 M5 with two Intel Xeon Platinum 8280M processors using Windows Server OS achieved a result of: ‘101.742 SPECjbb2015-Composite max_jOPS and 67.948 SPECjbb2015-Composite critical_jOPS‘ and ‘98.065 SPECjbb2015-Composite max_jOPS and 71.031 SPECjbb2015-Composite critical_jOPS‘. The RX4770 M5 with four Xeon Platinum 8280L processors achieved a result of: ‘259.141 SPECjbb2015-Composite max_jOPS and 207.097 SPECjbb2015-Composite critical_jOPS Competitive‘ SPEC benchmark results stated reflect results published as of April 2, 2019. For the latest SPEC benchmark results, visit the result pages for the different benchmarks. The Standard ISM Essential license is free of charge. Customers can also select the full-featured ISM Advanced license which delivers features for comprehensive management of multiple data centers.

Resources:
Fujitsu Showcases Key Role in EU Project Addressing High Performance Computing Bottleneck
Blog: 25 years of PRIMERGY – 25 years of excellence