Supermicro is never afraid of trying something new with its rack servers and we’ve seen it deliver some remarkable systems recently. Processor count has always been a high priority, and Viglen’s new HX2220i delivers no less than 16 Xeon cores in a 1U rack server chassis.
The burning question is how has Supermicro achieved this density? Our first thought was it must be harbouring Intel’s new Tigerton Xeon MP processor, but this isn’t due for release yet. No, the server has four quad-core Xeon 5300 processors installed and the HX2220i is actually two servers in one. It’s designed to increase rack processing density beyond that offered by standard servers and is aimed at specific markets, with HPC and server clustering high on Viglen’s agenda.
The front panel doesn’t give much away as to what’s inside, although closer inspection reveals two sets of status indicators and power buttons. Beneath are four standard 3.5in hot-swap drive bays, and Viglen included a single 160GB Western Digital RE hard disk serving each motherboard. For improved cooling, the space above the hard disk bays has been left empty to allow better airflow. It would be impractical to fit DVD and floppy drives for each server, so you’ll need to source USB models.
Whipping off the lid shows two separate motherboards running the length of the chassis, with a shared power supply module located between them. Other than power, each board is totally independent, and both came with a pair of 2GHz Xeon 5335 processors. Intel’s 5000P is the chipset of choice and each board sports an embedded Intel four-port SATA controller, which supports RAID0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays along with hot-swap. A single backplane services the hard disks, but each motherboard is wired through to its own pair of hard disks and provides power from an auxiliary socket. For some reason, Supermicro has avoided the use of low-profile 2.5in hard disks. This is a shame, as these would have given the HX2220i a larger range of storage possibilities. As it is, you can only go for a mirrored pair of drives to provide
fault-tolerant storage to each server.
General internal design is exemplary. The motherboard power connectors are right next to the power-supply outputs, so there’s virtually no cable-related clutter. The pair of SATA cables and the disk backplane power connectors are also carefully concealed. The key components are laid out down the length of each board to maximise airflow, and each is accompanied by a trio of small dual-rotor fans mounted at the front. With so many bits to cool, you’d expect operational noise to be high, but you’d be wrong. Supermicro has managed to keep this down to no more than you’d expect from a standard 1U server.
The network connection is handled by a pair of Intel Gigabit controllers, and another unusual feature is the option for an embedded InfiniBand controller. Supermicro offers four versions of this motherboard, with both the INF models including a Mellanox InfiniBand chip with a single 20Gb/sec port presented on the motherboard edge directly to the rear panel. Although InfiniBand hasn’t taken off as expected, one of its key focuses is high-speed, server-to-server connections in clustered environments.
Incredibly, the HX2220i even offers expansion potential, as each board has a small riser card with a PCI Express 8x slot that accepts half-height cards. However, these have been pushed aside on the HX2220i, as Viglen has also included full remote management facilities. Supermicro only moved into this area in 2006 and it’s done a good job. Its controller cards utilise a Raritan chipset that delivers full KVM over IP and remote browser management facilities. Each board is equipped with the optional SIMSO card that slots into the dedicated mini-PCI slot and extends a header card to the backplate with a dedicated Ethernet port.
The management controller delivers a well-designed web interface from where you can monitor the server, control power and set up virtual boot devices. You also get full server remote-control tools included – HP charges extra, as this is an optional feature on its iLO2 management chips. The bundled SuperO Doctor III utility handles general remote and local server monitoring, and provides plenty of operational information on all critical system components. It also provides basic remote-control facilities, so you can access the server from another system, shut down the OS and
control power.
The HX2220i is undoubtedly an unusual solution to a familiar problem for data centres. Supermicro has done a superb job of combining two independent servers into a single 1U chassis. By its nature, the HX2220i is limited to specific markets, but for sheer density of processing not even the latest blade servers can come remotely close to it.
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