Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation Hardware for the Cloud

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Anil Rao

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Jun 14, 2010, 11:42:45 AM6/14/10
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Greetings Friends,

This morning SeaMicro launched the first server purpose built for cloud computing.

It resolves many of the pressing issues in the cloud: it reduces power draw, takes less space, and enables secure and reliable performance for users.

The SeaMicro SM10000 brings together in a single standards-based x86 system, compute, storage, switching, server management, and load balancing. SeaMicro has reconceived the server as a single box cluster computer built around 512,  1.6 GHz Intel Atom processors, with an integrated load balancer front end. The result is a system that uses 1/4 the power and 1/4 the space of the best in class volume server. The SM10000 is 10 rack units tall and draws less than two kilowatts of power for 512 Atom CPUs. Four SM10000s fit in a standard 19 inch,  8KW Rack, allowing us to deploy 2,048 physical servers in a single rack.  It is plug and play, and runs existing operating systems, applications, and management tools without the need for custom drivers or any software modifications or recompilation.  

SeaMicro’s SM10000 is the first system that enables cloud providers to guarantee security and performance.  The SeaMicro SM10000 provides the ability to cost effectively offer a dedicated and physically secure server including a CPU, memory, Ethernet and storage.  For customer that want more than one physical server,  the SM10000 can cluster multiple physical servers into secure domains.

We are eager to hear your thoughts

Thanks
-Anil Rao
Vice President, Product Management and Marketing.
http://www.seamicro.com.

Ray Nugent

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Jun 14, 2010, 12:03:59 PM6/14/10
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Anil, how do you guard against a rack failure and what is special about the SM1000 that makes it "secure"?


From: Anil Rao <rao...@gmail.com>
To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 8:42:45 AM
Subject: [ Cloud Computing ] Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation Hardware for the Cloud
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Anil Rao

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Jun 14, 2010, 12:24:41 PM6/14/10
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Ray,
 
The SeaMicro SM10000 system has sufficient levels of redundancy built in.  The system has built in redundancy against various failures including compute, networking interfaces, storage, power supply, and fans.  You can even connect the power supplies to two separate circuits to protect from circuit failure in a rack.
 
With regard to the security - the system provides dedicated hardware units for cloud users.   In the on-ramp and off-ramp to the system, physical entities - ethernet interfaces, and storage can be assigned to specific users that also provides complete isolation between users.  No sharing of resources is done, thereby protecting one user from having access to the resources of another user. 
 
-anil.

Ray Nugent

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Jun 14, 2010, 12:48:49 PM6/14/10
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Ahh, so it's not really cloud then since cloud is, by definition, sharing of resources.

Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 9:24:41 AM
Subject: Re: [ Cloud Computing ] Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation Hardware for the Cloud

Ray,
 
The SeaMicro SM10000 system has sufficient levels of redundancy built in.  The system has built in redundancy against various failures including compute, networking interfaces, storage, power supply, and fans.  You can even connect the power supplies to two separate circuits to protect from circuit failure in a rack.
 
With regard to the security - the system provides dedicated hardware units for cloud users.   In the on-ramp and off-ramp to the system, physical entities - ethernet interfaces, and storage can be assigned to specific users that also provides complete isolation between users.  No sharing of resources is done, thereby protecting one user from having access to the resources of another user. 
 
-anil.

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Ray Nugent <rnu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Anil, how do you guard against a rack failure and what is special about the SM1000 that makes it "secure"?

From: Anil Rao <rao...@gmail.com> Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 8:42:45 AM

Subject: [ Cloud Computing ] Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation Hardware for the Cloud
Greetings Friends,

This morning SeaMicro launched the first server purpose built for cloud computing.

It resolves many of the pressing issues in the cloud: it reduces power draw, takes less space, and enables secure and reliable performance for users.

The SeaMicro SM10000 brings together in a single standards-based x86 system, compute, storage, switching, server management, and load balancing. SeaMicro has reconceived the server as a single box cluster computer built around 512,  1.6 GHz Intel Atom processors, with an integrated load balancer front end. The result is a system that uses 1/4 the power and 1/4 the space of the best in class volume server. The SM10000 is 10 rack units tall and draws less than two kilowatts of power for 512 Atom CPUs. Four SM10000s fit in a standard 19 inch,  8KW Rack, allowing us to deploy 2,048 physical servers in a single rack.  It is plug and play, and runs existing operating systems, applications, and management tools without the need for custom drivers or any software modifications or recompilation.  

SeaMicro’s SM10000 is the first system that enables cloud providers to guarantee security and performance.  The SeaMicro SM10000 provides the ability to cost effectively offer a dedicated and physically secure server including a CPU, memory, Ethernet and storage.  For customer that want more than one physical server,  the SM10000 can cluster multiple physical servers into secure domains.

We are eager to hear your thoughts

Thanks
-Anil Rao
Vice President, Product Management and Marketing.
--
~~~~~
UP 2010 Call For Proposals: New Cutting Edge Cloud Computing Conference http://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals.
Official Cloud Slam websites - http://cloudslam10.com/ and http://cloudslam09.com/

Posting guidelines: http://bit.ly/bL3u3v
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/cloudcomp_group or @cloudcomp_group
Post Job/Resume at http://cloudjobs.net/

cloudsigma

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Jun 14, 2010, 1:51:44 PM6/14/10
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I agree with the comments above. We just looked into this and would
have been very keen to use this for our growing capacity but having
investigated it uses Atom processors. These are very low power
consumption but unfortunately one of the ways they achieve this is by
not including virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x/AMD SVM) so you
can't run kvm
guests on them. This precludes us from considering a SeaMicro server.

It might be worth considering doing another non-Atom version. There
will definitely be a great many cloud providers such as ourselves that
would then be extremely keen to purchase the units.

Best wishes,

Robert

--
Robert Jenkins
CloudSigma
www.cloudsigma.com
www.twitter.com/CloudSigma

On Jun 14, 7:48 pm, Ray Nugent <rnug...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ahh, so it's not really cloud then since cloud is, by definition, sharing of resources.
>
> ________________________________
> From: Anil Rao <raoa...@gmail.com>
> To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 9:24:41 AM
> Subject: Re: [ Cloud Computing ] Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation  Hardware for the Cloud
>
> Ray,
>
> The SeaMicro SM10000 system has sufficient levels of redundancy built in.  The system has built in redundancy against various failures including compute, networking interfaces, storage, power supply, and fans.  You can even connect the power supplies to two separate circuits to protect from circuit failure in a rack.
>
> With regard to the security - the system provides dedicated hardware units for cloud users.   In the on-ramp and off-ramp to the system, physical entities - ethernet interfaces, and storage can be assigned to specific users that also provides complete isolation between users.  No sharing of resources is done, thereby protecting one user from having access to the resources of another user.
>
> -anil.
>
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 9:03 AM, Ray Nugent <rnug...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Anil, how do you guard against a rack failure and what is special about the SM1000 that makes it "secure"?
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Anil Rao <raoa...@gmail.com>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >To: cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
> >Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 8:42:45 AM
>
> >Subject: [ Cloud Computing ] Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation Hardware for the Cloud
>
> >Greetings Friends,
>
> >This morning SeaMicro launched the first server purpose built for cloud computing.
>
> >It resolves many of the pressing issues in the cloud: it reduces power draw, takes less space, and enables secure and reliable performance for users.
>
> >The SeaMicro SM10000 brings together in a single standards-based x86 system, compute, storage, switching, server management, and load balancing. SeaMicro has reconceived the server as a single box cluster computer built around 512,  1.6 GHz Intel Atom processors, with an integrated load balancer front end. The result is a system that uses 1/4 the power and 1/4 the space of the best in class volume server. The SM10000 is 10 rack units tall and draws less than two kilowatts of power for 512 Atom CPUs. Four SM10000s fit in a standard 19 inch,  8KW Rack, allowing us to deploy 2,048 physical servers in a single rack.  It is plug and play, and runs existing operating systems, applications, and management tools without the need for custom drivers or any software modifications or recompilation.  
>
> >SeaMicro’s SM10000 is the first system that enables cloud providers to guarantee security and performance.  The SeaMicro SM10000 provides the ability to cost effectively offer a dedicated and physically secure server including a CPU, memory, Ethernet and storage.  For customer that want more than one physical server,  the SM10000 can cluster multiple physical servers into secure domains.
>
> >We are eager to hear your thoughts
>
> >Thanks
> >-Anil Rao
> >Vice President, Product Management and Marketing.
> >http://www.seamicro.com/.
>
> >--
> >~~~~~
> >UP 2010 Call For Proposals: New Cutting Edge Cloud Computing Conferencehttp://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals.
> >>Official Cloud Slam websites -http://cloudslam10.com/andhttp://cloudslam09.com/
> >>Posting guidelines:http://bit.ly/bL3u3v
> >Follow us on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/cloudcomp_groupor @cloudcomp_group
> >>Post Job/Resume athttp://cloudjobs.net/
> >Buy hundreds of conference sessions and panels on cloud computing on DVD at
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H07SEC,http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H0IW1Uor get instant access to downloadable versions athttp://cloudslam09.com/content/registration-5.htmlandhttp://cloudslam10.com/content/registration
>
> >~~~~~
> >You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cloud Computing" group.
> >To post to this group, send email to cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
> >>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cloud-computi...@googlegroups.com
>
> >--
> >~~~~~
> >UP 2010 Call For Proposals: New Cutting Edge Cloud Computing Conferencehttp://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals.
> >Official Cloud Slam websites -http://cloudslam10.comandhttp://cloudslam09.com
> >>Posting guidelines:http://bit.ly/bL3u3v
> >Follow us on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/cloudcomp_groupor @cloudcomp_group
> >>Post Job/Resume athttp://cloudjobs.net
> >Buy hundreds of conference sessions and panels on cloud computing on DVD at
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H07SEC,http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H0IW1Uor get instant access to downloadable versions athttp://cloudslam09.com/content/registration-5.htmlandhttp://cloudslam10.com/content/registration
>
> >~~~~~
> >You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cloud Computing" group.
> >To post to this group, send email to cloud-c...@googlegroups.com
> >>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cloud-computi...@googlegroups.com
>
> --
> ~~~~~
> UP 2010 Call For Proposals: New Cutting Edge Cloud Computing Conferencehttp://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals.
> Official Cloud Slam websites -http://cloudslam10.comandhttp://cloudslam09.com
> Posting guidelines:http://bit.ly/bL3u3v
> Follow us on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/cloudcomp_groupor @cloudcomp_group
> Post Job/Resume athttp://cloudjobs.net
> Buy hundreds of conference sessions and panels on cloud computing on DVD athttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H07SEC,http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H0IW1Uor get instant access to downloadable versions athttp://cloudslam09.com/content/registration-5.htmlandhttp://cloudslam10.com/content/registration

smgar...@comcast.net

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Jun 14, 2010, 3:06:04 PM6/14/10
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Shameless marketing

Curious if you get any real leads back

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T


From: Anil Rao <rao...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:24:41 -0700
Subject: Re: [ Cloud Computing ] Introducing SeaMicro - Next Generation Hardware for the Cloud

Anil Rao

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Jun 14, 2010, 4:36:14 PM6/14/10
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Robert,
 
The Intel Atom CPU that SeaMicro uses in its SM10000 does support VT-x.  You can run Xen/KVM on each of our servers to divide it up further.
 
Ray,
 
Yes, Cloud does allow sharing, but cloud is also definited as the ability to provision and obtain compute resources economically and at a very short notice.  SeaMicro SM10000 provides customers with the ability to share what is needed and not share things that are not necessary.  As an example, you get tremendous benefits by sharing physical chassis, management infrastructure, power supplies, fan trays and in certain cases even physical ethernet uplinks.  Providing dedicated compute (or groups of compute servers) for each user allows one customer software and activity to not impede another customer software and activity.  This provides for predictable performance and secure computing.  Now, if a customer wants to share the compute resources as well, one can always run Xen/KVM to further virtualize and Atom processor and share it among multiple users.
 
If you stretch this analogy to apartment complexes, you want to share the management office, walkways, pool etc.   But you do not want to share living units or kitchen.  That has to be dedicated for security and privacy.  However, if one wants to share that too, it can be done...
 
thanks, anil.
 


 
UP 2010 Call For Proposals: New Cutting Edge Cloud Computing Conference http://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals.
Official Cloud Slam websites - http://cloudslam10.com and http://cloudslam09.com
Posting guidelines: http://bit.ly/bL3u3v

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Krishnakanth PPS

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Jun 14, 2010, 4:42:20 PM6/14/10
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Hi Anil.

Is this something similar to what Cisco launched a year ago called UCM.

Looks like a good product for SMEs in India.

KK

Yiping Zhang

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Jun 14, 2010, 7:02:30 PM6/14/10
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Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with a cloud consisting of only
physical nodes.
In such a cloud, you may not have all the flexibility of configure
just enough resources for your app's needs, cpu, memory and disk etc.
Whether such a physical node only cloud is cost effective would be a
totally different question to ask.

As for SM1000, how much storage is available for entire cluster, how
much and how easy can storage be allocated to individual nodes?

Yiping


On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 10:51 AM, cloudsigma <rob...@cloudsigma.com> wrote:

Anil Rao

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Jun 14, 2010, 9:32:39 PM6/14/10
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Yiping,
 
...a section from our System Overview whitepaper which is available on http://www.seamicro.com
 

SeaMicro SM10000 can be configured with zero to 64 2.5 inch SATA hard disk drives (HDD) or solid state drives (SSD).  The 512 CPUs in the system can be allocated portions of a disk or whole disks. A physical disk (HDD or SSD) can be divided into multiple virtual disks -- from 2GB to the maximum capacity of the disk -- and assigned to one or more CPUs.  Data resiliency is maintained by marking a disk to be part of a RAID pool or by assigning multiple disks to a CPU.  The system can be configured to run without disk or  in 8 disk tray increments, ensuring the flexibility to appropriately provision storage for the desired applications.

-anil.

--
~~~~~

UP 2010 Call For Proposals: New Cutting Edge Cloud Computing Conference http://www.up-con.com/content/call-proposals.
Official Cloud Slam websites - http://cloudslam10.com and http://cloudslam09.com
Posting guidelines: http://bit.ly/bL3u3v

Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/cloudcomp_group or @cloudcomp_group
Post Job/Resume at http://cloudjobs.net

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cloudsigma

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Jun 15, 2010, 4:21:49 AM6/15/10
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Dear Anil,

Thanks for this feedback regarding the Atom CPU chip you are using. We
will look into this further as it looks ideal for our new cloud
availability zone we are going to open later this year in the US.

Kind regards,

Robert

On Jun 15, 4:32 am, Anil Rao <raoa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yiping,
>
> ...a section from our System Overview whitepaper which is available onhttp://www.seamicro.com
> > Follow us on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/cloudcomp_groupor
> > @cloudcomp_group
> > Post Job/Resume athttp://cloudjobs.net
> > Buy hundreds of conference sessions and panels on cloud computing on DVD at
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H07SEC,
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H0IW1Uor get instant access to

cloudsigma

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Jun 18, 2010, 4:16:21 AM6/18/10
to Cloud Computing
Hi Anil,

Having investigated this further the main issue is that the CPU chosen
can do either 64bit computing or 32bit computing with virtualisation
not 64bit computing with virtualisation. This means a cloud
environment using this server would be restricted to 2GB per virtual
instance (i.e. it would be in a 32bit environment only).

Kind regards,

Robert

--
Robert Jenkins
www.cloudsigma.com
www.twitter.com/CloudSigma
> > >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002H0IW1Uorget instant access to
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