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Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

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Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#71

Post by ChuckMcM »

rbanffy wrote: post #63
ChuckMcM wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are some counter examples, network switches, fiber channel, and Infiniband come to mind. And of course IBM "invented" the data center by defining environmental requirements for their machines in the 50's and 60's. Setting that aside though, its true that easy experimental access can allow a technology to "sneak in" to a market that previously ignored it, but that isn't really the case here. (nor was it the…

This is an excellent way to cater to the legacy app market, but not a very good way to ride the next wave. The next wave is probably running on commodity x86 hardware running Linux and using gamer-grade GPUs. They'll probably be first deployed to production on x86 virtual hardware in a cloud provider. If you want companies to adopt your technology, make their developers adopt it first. That's how most of the current…

No one has accused of IBM of 'riding the next wave', sometimes I wonder if they even start paddling as the wave swells :-).

At least at Google the driving factor is total cost of ownership, full stop. When you need as much compute as they do to deliver on what they deliver, saving a few percent on the TCO flows right to the bottom line.

That said I don't see them going full on with this technology if its QP$S[1] isn't competitive with x64.

[1] Queries per dollar-second.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#72

Post by dman »

dragontamer wrote: post #44
opencl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mobo+single quad core CPU is $2,475, that's way more than the threadripper setup and the threadripper has 4x the core count.

Threadripper also only has 8MB of L3 cache per CCX, and you can't hold more than 8MB of data. (true, there are 4x CCX per chip, but you can't "combine" the datasets. You're effectively limited to 8MB per 4-cores. To communicate cross-CCX requires an expensive ping to main-memory) Its a great architecture, but cross-CCX communication is relatively slow and definitely is a concern for some work problems. Power9 has 120…

I really hope AMD releases a 7601 variant that is clocked similarly to the threadripper chips.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#73

Post by sophacles »

vbezhenar wrote: post #54
YawningAngel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter what enthusiasts use? There are piles of Enterprise software written in Java that can be shifted to any architecture you care to name on a moment's notice. Lots of Java shops would bite your hand off if offered a 20% price cut for instances in exchange for switching architectures.

JVM is heavily optimized for x64.

IBM has their own jvm for power9 across all their OS families.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#74

Post by rbanffy »

walrus01 wrote: post #69
rbanffy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A million times this. There are no entry-level POWER machines, SPARC machines. There is no entry-level IBM i or Z. There isn't even a software emulator for i (and even for Z, where there is a very nice emulator, you can't legally run anything remotely current on non-IBM hardware). You can get a cheap POWER or SPARC on Ebay, with a sharp price drop when the equipment is EOL'ed, but that's no way to entice people…

Seconding what you just said, and another thing is that the cost barrier to entry to developing x86-64 software on a very current Linux platform is almost zero. If you are a curious 15 year old who wants to learn Linux stuff you can get an older Core 2 Duo desktop PC for free, or almost free ($20) from a number of recycling places and install the latest debian-testing AMD64 on it. Put it on your home LAN, ssh into it…

A very important point is that you mostly don't need to buy a new computer. Chances are a lot of teens already own perfectly good x86 computers that can do a lot of things they want and be the machines they learn to develop software on.

IBM has to compete with free hardware.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#75

Post by Someone »

Twirrim wrote: post #13

One thing I think IBM has failed to grasp about POWER architecture is how to get people to use it. Lots of people in tech talk about being interested in trying it, it has a number of interesting characteristics, but the barrier for entry is fairly high. It's possible to get a POWER8 based server on Softlayer, IBM's cloud product, but not as a VM. You can get one as a bare metal server, but you can't get one for an ho…

I don’t know how easy or hard it is to get on board or what strings are attached to it, but https://www-356.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHand...:

”The Power Cloud that enables developers offers no-charge remote access to IBM hardware, including IBM POWER8, IBM POWER7+ and IBM POWER7 processor-based servers on the Linux, IBM AIX and IBM i operating systems.”

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#76

Post by hughhalf »

Twirrim wrote: post #13

One thing I think IBM has failed to grasp about POWER architecture is how to get people to use it. Lots of people in tech talk about being interested in trying it, it has a number of interesting characteristics, but the barrier for entry is fairly high. It's possible to get a POWER8 based server on Softlayer, IBM's cloud product, but not as a VM. You can get one as a bare metal server, but you can't get one for an ho…

An interesting discussion to be sure. As far as cloud based access go, off the top of my head both Oregon State and Nimbix give access to P8/P9 instances for developers, free or cheap. One of our members, Raptor do a nice high performance dev workstation, pretty sure they do everything from a mobo+CPU combo to complete systems. I think lower end than that might well come, we certainly see it as something we'd like to facilitate through the OpenPOWER Foundation.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#77

Post by rbanffy »

blattimwind wrote: post #33
rwmj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, you can buy a load of ARM 64 bit development boards starting from just a few tens of dollars. There is no problem at all getting access to ARM. And from there you can scale up to Cavium 2 or Amberwing which have Xeon-like performance (better than Xeon in some ways). If there's a problem with ARM I'd say it's still the lack of standardization, and also very few mid-range servers. POWER is nothing like this. T…

ARM dev boards are generally based on toy-sized SoCs, though.

They are still useful though. If you want to build an 7-node cluster of 2GB nodes on a single Mini ITX motherboard, it's even cheap. And requires no messy cables.

https://www.pine64.org/?product=clusterboard-with-7-module-s...

and seven https://www.pine64.org/?product=sopine-a64

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#78

Post by newman314 »

Twirrim wrote: post #13

One thing I think IBM has failed to grasp about POWER architecture is how to get people to use it. Lots of people in tech talk about being interested in trying it, it has a number of interesting characteristics, but the barrier for entry is fairly high. It's possible to get a POWER8 based server on Softlayer, IBM's cloud product, but not as a VM. You can get one as a bare metal server, but you can't get one for an ho…

So...

I sit on the POWER Customer Advisory Board, what you have raised has certainly been something I've told IBM multiple times over the last few meetings I've had with them.

I plan to continue pushing on this front.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#79

Post by newman314 »

rwmj wrote: post #31
kev009 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any worse than the past decade of arm server "promise" Bootstrapping an alt arch is hard, it really needs a loss leader OR a significant performance delta (which they now have with accelerator workloads). Google deploying it in prod is a major milestone and will help with volume and confidence. Supermicro has a P8 and P9 line. It is price competitive with x86. If you are interested, send their sales a note.

Come on, you can buy a load of ARM 64 bit development boards starting from just a few tens of dollars. There is no problem at all getting access to ARM. And from there you can scale up to Cavium 2 or Amberwing which have Xeon-like performance (better than Xeon in some ways). If there's a problem with ARM I'd say it's still the lack of standardization, and also very few mid-range servers. POWER is nothing like this. T…

What is the maximum dollar amount that you would be willing to pay?

Remember, it's never going to be the same price as a RPi.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#80

Post by newman314 »

classichasclass wrote: post #49
shrumm wrote: post #15

From what I’ve read, POWER was affected by spectre/ meltdown too. However, Intels initial response to play down it’s significance can’t have gone well with large enterprise customers. In addition to the performance boosts the article refers to, I wonder how much of an impact the recent kerfuffle over Intels response had on POWER demand.

IBM already released patches for this, at least for POWER7+. Interestingly the Meltdown issue seems "only" to affect the L1 cache, so L2 does not need to be evicted. Raptor says all Talos systems will be patched prior to shipping. https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Speculative_Execution_Vulnera...

Patching POWER for Spectre/Meltdown was a pain but we are done with it.

You have to apply patches to the LPAR/OS, VIOS and firmware. IBM has acknowledged that there will be a performance hit but have not provided any quantified numbers that I have seen so far.

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