New Host Servers - Is one option going to be overkill?

[timbo343]

I'm to make my mind up about the servers we are having installed in summer and it comes down to the processors.

 

Option 1

2x Xeon 4310 per Physical Host. This processor has a total of 12 cores per physical processor / socket meaning it would give me 24 physical cores per host and up to 48 virtual cores per host.

This means there would be 96 virtual cores to play with in total across both hosts.

 

or

 

Option 2

2x Xeon 5315y per Physical Host. This processor has a total of 8 cores per physical processor / socket meaning it would give me 16 physical cores per host and up to 36 virtual cores per host. This means there would be 72 virtual cores to play with in total across both hosts.

 

Comparisons here: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Xeon-Silver-4310-vs-Intel-Xeon-Gold-5315Y/4322vs4492

 

Both hosts will come with 256Gb Ram connected to a HP 2062 SAN with 4TB flash storage and 8x 2.4Gb 10K sas drives.

 

Going with option 1 will put my MS licensing up by about £300 per year due to me having to purchase another 16 license pack of DataCentre licenses.

 

The difference between the quotes from the same company is, the 5315y is about £36 more expensive overall.

 

Do i really need 96 cores when really i've got about 28 virtual servers but have been told the 5315y is more suited to enterprise databases where there are high end SQL databases running, we don't have any SQL databases running. I'd say the thing that hits the server processors most is the Windows updates and our Ruckus Virtual Zone Director, otherwise everything else is pretty much idling.

 

At the moment i've got 2x hosts, each running 2 lots of E5-2620 v2 which have 6 physical cores each (12 virtual cores each).

 

Any opinions would be welcomed.

Edited June 12, 2023 by timbo343

[Steve21]

Considering the gold beats the E5 in pretty much every part of its spec, unless you're struggling now on a bit with the CPUs I can't see the reason to go to the silver really.

 

I'd assume most those 24 servers would be replaced or reduced going forwards with more cloud based systems, as that seems overkill in numbers of VMs for a modern setup (similar to the storage requirements) - Personally I'd spend the extra money towards upgrading those 10k drives if you hare spare, as that's going to be your bottle neck on those VMs running off that

 

Steve

[localzuk]

My first question would be - do you need the latest and greatest CPUs?

 

We bought 3x refurbished Dell R630 servers, with dual E5-2680 v4 CPUs with 28 cores each, 192GB RAM in each. We then have 4x 10Gb SFP+ ports, and 2x 1GbE ports. Finally, we put 4x 4TB Micron enterprise SSDs in each, and then built it all out as Windows HCI. Cost us less than £10k and runs our entire Trust's VMs.

 

So, I would thoroughly recommend looking at a refurbished option, and looking at HCI instead of a traditional SAN setup - you can get far better performance for less cost.

[FN-GM]

 

So, I would thoroughly recommend looking at a refurbished option, and looking at HCI instead of a traditional SAN setup - you can get far better performance for less cost.

 

I came here to say the same thing! I am deploying my 4th HCI setup. Well worth considering.

[timbo343]

We need at least Xeon processor to me the Ruckus vSZ minimum specs. Their documentation states a 4310 processor and i've tried to install the vSZ multiple times and it fails stating the processor does not meet the minimum requirements.

 

The only way to get Ruckus vSZ to install is to do a 3.6 install, upgrade to 5.1, then 5.2, then 6.0 and then up to 6.1.

 

We are starting to move some services up to the cloud but most of those VMs are required.

 

We had a full internet outage here last monday, someone had hedge trimmed one of the main highway fibres to the school taking out both FTTP lines as both lines are on an aerial line via telegraph poles. We had no internet access to the school for 24 hours whilst OpenReach carried out repairs - one in a million chance of this happening but this goes to show that these things do happen.

Edited June 12, 2023 by timbo343

[localzuk]

The E5-2680 v4 is a Xeon processor? I can't find anything on the Ruckus site saying that it needs something newer than that though. There's a bunch of document recommending the E5-2XXX series chips.

[PotNoodleTech]

I think you need to evaluate the CPU usage on our current servers to make a more informed decision.

 

Two things to consider:

1 Do you actually need all that CPU? My current servers show low CPU usage across the host on average, so when I refresh - do I need to spend extra on 4x the number of cores compared to what I have now? Probably not.

2 What software d you run on the VMs? Some software prefers a low number of fast as possible 3.8ghz cores (e.g. SIMS), other software scales really well and would be happy to use 24 x 2ghz cores.

[soapyfish]

I find that server replacements are mostly governed by the support for the hardware by the manufacturer and the OS that is running on them.

CPU's are almost never the bottle neck. Disks, networking and RAM are where its worth upgrading normally.

SQL servers need CPU, RAM and Fast Storage and you should be monitoring this carefully as this will allow you to spec the hardware according to need but be aware that MS SQL is licensed per core/socket, (I cant remember which) so that cost of adding lots of CPU can get expensive due to the extra licensing.

 

We run ESXi and I have had issues where the combination of Storage and Hosts has not been 100% compatible with the version of ESXi on the hosts which caused no end of problems.

[timbo343]

The E5-2680 v4 is a Xeon processor? I can't find anything on the Ruckus site saying that it needs something newer than that though. There's a bunch of document recommending the E5-2XXX series chips.

 

They must have updated their documentation as i've looked back through my emails and in October 2021 found this: I've just tried 5.1.2.0.302 and that is giving me the same issue - CPU speed metric [118.61] < [Threshold 180] along with this image:

 

 

 

I've found this: Logic Processor 1 vCPU requirement is based on Intel Xeon CPU E5- 2630v2 @2.60 GHz on page 15 of this documentation: https://support.alcadis.nl/Support_files/Ruckus/SmartZone//Manuals/SmartZone%205.1.x/SmartZone%205.1.0.0.496/VSZ-5.1-GettingStartedGuide-RevA-20181109.pdf

 

Someone on the Ruckus forums has the same issue: https://community.ruckuswireless.com/t5/SmartZone-and-Virtual-SmartZone/the-system-capability-is-invalid/td-p/12588

[localzuk]

Ah, looks like its particular about clock speed rather than having a later generation CPU. 2.6Ghz being the minimum vs your existing 2.1Ghz?

 

They must have updated their documentation as i've looked back through my emails and in October 2021 found this: I've just tried 5.1.2.0.302 and that is giving me the same issue - CPU speed metric [118.61] < [Threshold 180] along with this image:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]69137[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]69138[/ATTACH]

 

I've found this: Logic Processor 1 vCPU requirement is based on Intel Xeon CPU E5- 2630v2 @2.60 GHz on page 15 of this documentation: https://support.alcadis.nl/Support_files/Ruckus/SmartZone//Manuals/SmartZone%205.1.x/SmartZone%205.1.0.0.496/VSZ-5.1-GettingStartedGuide-RevA-20181109.pdf

 

Someone on the Ruckus forums has the same issue: https://community.ruckuswireless.com/t5/SmartZone-and-Virtual-SmartZone/the-system-capability-is-invalid/td-p/12588

[DalekSec]

IIRC when i rolled out Ruckus couple years back, it is done on Clock speed and not generation, also is a bit of leeway

[timbo343]

Ah ok, my current hosts have the E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10Ghz.

 

I think the Gold processors are going to have to be used as the 4310 that has been quoted is only a 2.10Ghz so we will have the same issue.

 

The 5315Y at 3.6Ghz will happily run our vSZ plus save us having to purchase an extra DC license.

 

That's made my mind up!

[CHiLL]

Are you accounting for a failover scenario, such as a host failure? Would you have enough physical CPU resources on one host to run all your VMs if necessary?

[timbo343]

Are you accounting for a failover scenario, such as a host failure? Would you have enough physical CPU resources on one host to run all your VMs if necessary?

 

Yep, already accounted for

[timbo343]

Found the specs for the Ruckus VSZ:

 

https://docs.commscope.com/bundle/sz-610-upgradeguide-sz/page/GUID-217EBB12-8C20-48A6-A1F0-411FBC03B636.html

 

It states:

 

Hypervisor CPU/IO Requirements - Private Hypervisor

CPU Performance Requirement:

* CPU single core events per second/per core need > 180 events/sec

* Required CPU level is higher than the Intel Xeon CPU E5-4620 v4 with 2.10 GHz

[Deanuk]

https://www.etb-tech.com/

 

Is your friend.

[localzuk]

That's a really odd requirement, as the difference between the 46xx and 26xx is that the 46xx can be put in a quad socketed server and the 26xx in a dual socket server...

 

I suspect a 26XX series would work with high enough clock speed to hit their 180 events/sec requirement.

 

As basically no servers run just 1 or 2 46XX chips from what I've seen (there's no need for it, as the only difference is how the chips communicate with each other - as the 26XX is only communicating with 1 other chip, it doesn't matter).