“Let’s buy new & get less!”​ said no one ever, yet …

Everyone reading this article is a consumer and as consumers when you bought your last vehicle did you set out to purposely buy that vehicle for it to underperform your current vehicle? Less fuel economy decreased reliability and slower acceleration. Likewise, when looking at different manufacturers and models of the same model year, do you seek the model that underperforms?

No, this isn’t what any of us expect. If you could buy a vehicle that was more reliable, had better fuel economy and faster over another of the same model year, that is very compelling.

Benchmark Observations

As I look over the SAP SD benchmark results for HPE models ranging from 2 sockets, 4 sockets, 8 sockets and 16 sockets I can’t help but make some observations. Likewise, when looking at IBM POWER9 results, some of which are unpublished I can’t help but also make some observations.

Tale of Two Platforms

General observations are this. HPE Intel systems deliver less performance on systems with more sockets. It ranges from just over 2% to over 40% decrease in per-core performance. Regarding POWER9, per-core performance increases going from 2 to 4 sockets by 2.5%, is essentially flat between 4 and 8 sockets and sees a 4% decrease in per-core performance from the 8 socket to the 16 socket model.

Looking only at the Intel results, there is obvious pressure on the scalability for their servers as they scale from 2, 4, 8 and 16 sockets. This isn’t unique to HPE by the way as every Intel vendors results which I looked at exhibited similar results, though my analysis was not exhaustive. Then, if we look at the POWER9 results, they show near-linear scaling regardless of the number of sockets.

Oh My!

The last observation is what I call the ‘foot-race’ results. POWER9 outperforms the other HANA alternatives, anywhere from 220% to 356% per core on systems with the same # of sockets.

S is for Scaling

Of course, POWER9 cores offer SMT8, which is 8 threads per core of parallel and simultaneous execution. SMT is configurable by VM and not the entire server as is the case with alternative systems. For POWER9 VM’s using 96 cores or less, SMT8 is supported. For POWER9 VM’s with more than 96 cores, SAP requires SMT-4 be used. (SAP Note: 2188482). This means a 2 socket 24 core POWER9 server or VM would deliver 192 threads while a 96 core VM would deliver 768 threads. SAP HANA loves threads. The more available, the greater the potential for increased throughput and performance.

Fill in the blank “_orrible”

Regarding Intel systems and threading. Intel’s threading technology is called hyperthreading. It only provides 2 threads per core if enabled. When disabled, there is 1 thread per core. SAP Notes 2100040 & 2711650 state hyperthreading should be disabled for systems with more than 8 sockets. Regarding any size system and hyperthreading, SAP’s position is to go with what each system manufacturer suggests. They have an opinion and recommendation on virtually every aspect of the SAP platform but with this one hot-button issue, they are choosing to pass the buck. For systems using virtualization on Intel systems. VMware in SAP Note 2393917 and VMware KB 55806, they recommend hyperthreading be disabled where the number of vCPU’s match the number of physical cores in the server. Red Hat Virtualization 4.2 states explicitly that hyper-threading must be disabled in SAP Note 2852117. It goes on to say that you should increase the capacity or sizing of the server to compensate for the loss of disabling hyperthreading. Maybe this bumps you from 4 to 8 sockets, who knows.

Is doubling the server a good thing?

This means a 2 socket 56 core server, running bare-metal would deliver 112 threads or if you chose to disable hyperthreading due to the many security vulnerabilities, there would only be 56 threads. Thus, to achieve 112 threads, it would now require a 4 socket server with 112 cores … it’s easy now to see how the project costs could escalate because of these many limitations and restrictions. A 4-socket server with 112 cores and hyperthreading enabled delivers 224 threads, just a few more than the 24 core POWER9. Interesting it would take 112 Intel cores to offer slightly more threads than a 24 core system. Mind-boggling. Continuing on, an 8 socket server with 224 cores offers 448 threads, slightly more than half offered by 96 POWER9 cores. It is pretty clear, the loss of hyperthreading due to the seemingly neverending discovery of new security vulnerabilities with Intel processors appears it will get worse before it gets better.

Summary

As stated, these are just my observations of the two platforms. Other than the obvious per core performance differences, the intent of this article is to provide the reader with information allowing for responsible business decisions. Because who intentionally sets out to buy an underperforming, less reliable, more costly vehicle? As a consumer spending my own money I sure do not and when I am charged with spending my companies money, I also want to be responsible as if I were spending my own.

To learn how to get the most benefit from technology to support your enterprise workloads such as SAP HANA and about Clear Technologies, please visit Clear Technologies SAP Practice. To learn more about our 3 core businesses: Clear Technologies, Visual Storage Intelligence, and our AI practice; Clear Intelligence.

SAP HANA on … #ChooseRight

Window of Opportunity

IBM Power systems started late in the SAP HANA market, on standby if you will when IBM still had their System X business. Once they sold off their x86 business, it opened the door for IBM to work with SAP to offer clients a 2nd platform choice especially with many ECC shops coming from Enterprise platforms and now their only option is to deploy their most critical business application on Intel.

With thousands of clients running SAP ECC using Oracle or DB2 on AIX or running IBM I, there is a large and experienced install base. IBM’s move to support Linux little endian natively beginning with POWER8 eased any development concerns SAP may have had. IBM Power has been fastest adoption for a platform after the initial SAP Ramp-up Program.

Rapid Growth

After the initial Ramp-up program, SAP announced the first GA of HANA for IBM Power in 2015. Since then, it has been the fastest adopted platform by clients to run SAP HANA.

Whether deploying a Greenfield or Brownfield SAP HANA solution, what makes IBM Power such a better platform for SAP HANA over Intel based systems? It starts with its DNA. IBM Power was born an Enterprise system, in the data center running mission critical workloads. Read the Forrester Total Economic Impact of IBM Power Systems for SAP HANA study how they rate the platform.

Flexibility, Performance & Resiliency

• SAP Certified HANA Prod OLTP – 24 TB Scale-up
• SAP Certified HANA Prod OLAP – 24 TB Scale-up
• SAP Certified HANA Prod OLAP – 24 TB Scale-out
• SAP exceptions available upon request
• Up to 16 Production VM’s on E950 & E980
• POWER9 servers can scale up to 64 TB of Memory
• Highly resilient memory offering DDDC+1+1
• Memory sparing, spare chips, ChipKill
• HANA is always virtualized using the integrated IBM PowerVM hypervisor
• Live Partition Mobility
• Dynamically add / remove cores and memory
• Supports TDI 5 delivering greater SAPS per core, up to 2X+
• Offers Elastic Capacity on Demand activations of cores & memory
• Highest Reliability excluding Z for 11 years per ITIC
• Concurrent maintenance features for firmware, drives, PCIe adapters, fans and power supplies
• Concurrent maintenance for the I/O path from VM to SAN and network when using Dual Virtual I/O Servers
• Dynamic tuning & optimization
• Supports SAP Native Storage Extension and Fast Restart
• IBM Storwize storage is optimized for SAP HANA on POWER

Additional features to be announced any day (Nov 5, 2019 is todays timestamp).

• Persistent Memory at no additional cost
• Persistent Memory with no performance degradation
• Use of Shared Processor Pools for Production in addition to existing support for non-Prod
• RHEL 8

Clients will deploy fewer systems, while able to host more workloads per system, whether those are legacy SAP ECC, SolMan or non-SAP workloads such as legacy Oracle workloads or possibly new Cognitive workloads.

Bringing it ALL together

SAP HANA; whether Suite or BW on HANA or S/4HANA or BW/4HANA, businesses tend to focus on the application, discounting the infrastructure as commodity – it’s all the same. With SAP HANA, designed as a scale-up in-memory technology, IBM Power is the optimal platform to host it.

• Primary benefits such as fewer systems with greater utilization.

• Secondary benefits such as less infrastructure and data center services required, i.e. fewer network & SAN ports, fewer power plugs with lower electrical consumption requiring less to cool.

• Tertiary benefits, often more difficult to quantify such as the downtime the business did NOT have to take to perform a maintenance action such as updating firmware or adding an adapter for additional capacity.
• Other actions such as downstream activities impacting the I/O paths like a network switch service event can all be accommodated with a properly architected and deployed Power solution.

These foundational capabilities allow the business to remain on schedule, consultants continue to work and not be idle.

#ChooseRight

There are only two options for SAP HANA. One option is the platform forcing you to choose one feature for another making every decision a compromise. The other option is the platform offering complete flexibility, scalability and resiliency with no compromises as even IDC states in this whitepaper. No one wants to go back to their board asking for more money admitting they made a mistake, undersized or failed to anticipate something, so #ChooseRight!

HANA – Winning with IBM POWER

The Business Challenge: A $4B manufacturing company decided to migrate their AnyDB to Suite on HANA; but on which platform? 

The Competition: The client evaluated a TDI solution from an Intel based vendor + major storage vendor as part of a converged infrastructure solution as well as a TDI solution from IBM Power + IBM Storage. The SAP Basis Manager favored an Intel solution; either in the cloud or on-premises based on the perception is was the lowest cost, optimal platform for HANA with comparable features to the other choice.

The Evaluation: I was the Client Executive and Executive Architect for my team, leading the design and competitive effort. The clients initial objection to IBM Power stemmed from their view of the current platform running SAP ECC. Though it had done so, with virtually no issues for 20 years, they viewed it as expensive, inflexible and legacy. This was largely due to the fact they had not implemented all of the virtualization capabilities, having allowed the system to grow with dedicated resources. Also, due to some in-house mistakes with the current storage, their answer was to buy more hardware vs tightening up their own internal procedures plus key individuals taking ownership for the mistake which led to the problem.

The clients SAP team thought this would be a simple exercise. Get the Intel solution price and the IBM Power solution price, present to management for the rubber stamp to move off to the next phase, migration prep. Only there was a problem. the Intel solution costing was coming in higher than expected. The AnyDB size of 24 TB reduced down to ~4.1 TB, even to 3.6 TB with cleanup, per the SAP Quicksizer. True story – the Intel team proposed they start with 3 TB systems to get them on the floor, then wait and see if they truly needed more. Thankfully, the client didn’t accept this generous offer, requesting they quote 6 TB systems as that was the next increment. With IBM Power, you can configure DIMMs to more closely match the required capacity as the platform does not have the memory placement requirements (and limitations) as Intel platforms do. This client further required all environments be sized for the full HANA DB copy, which had grown from 4.1 TB to 5.1 TB (plus OS taking it to 5.3 TB). Good thing they didn’t go with those 3 TB Intel systems, eh?

The Intel solutions configured every HANA DB environment as bare-metal because the memory requirements didn’t support VMware for virtualization. It wasn’t an option due to the VMware maximum memory requirement was less than the client required. The memory sizing also pushed the Intel solution into larger servers with more sockets. The environments consisted of Sandbox, Dev, QA and Production. Each had a full memory sized HANA DB on bare-metal servers while they did use VMware to host the NetWeaver application servers; though again, they had multiple ones for each environment. I don’t know the exact numbers but believe they were north of 16 Intel servers with 10 of those configured as 6 TB bare-metal servers.

The IBM Power solution consisted of 3 x POWER9 servers. Yes, 3. Everything was fully virtualized, designed for maximum resiliency and serviceability. 2 smaller POWER9 servers for Production, each hosting 1 HANA DB + 2 NetWeaver VM’s for Production. DR hosted a server with 3X the capacity of the Production server. This single, highly performant and reliable server was configured for 17 VM’s. Sandbox, Dev and QA each had 1 VM for HANA DB and 2 VM’s for their NetWeaver App servers. Prod had 1 VM and 2 NetWeaver App servers for failover plus 2 VM’s for the Dual Virtual I/O Servers (VIOS). At each site, the servers were connected to an IBM flash storage solution using redundant IBM branded SAN switches.

The Decision: Management was presented with both options. Feedback was given to the SAP team. My team didn’t do anything but wait as the word was the Intel team was scrambling to “fix” their numbers. Updated pricing was presented to management and a decision was made. They chose the IBM Power solution running SUSE Linux with the IBM Storwize all flash storage for their Suite on HANA solution. Their justification was simple. The incredible reliability and performance record of the existing IBM Power spoke for itself – they had actual experience running SAP on it, albeit not HANA but who was I to split hairs. Secondly, and probably most important, the IBM Power solution was at least 35% less costly than the Intel solution. By the way, I had submitted a proposal for the migration services as well. Going up against a couple of big players. I won … beat them by 30% as well.

In Conclusion: though management didn’t know at the time, or at least couldn’t fully comprehend the benefits they would obtain with the virtualization capabilities which come with IBM Power servers that are #NoCompromise as this would play a key role during the 6 month migration window allowing their consultants and business leaders flexibility to provision, change, update, modify (you name it) and more the many requests which came up suddenly without downtime, added cost or delays.

I oversaw the implementation and migration effort, which started by ensuring the solution was properly designed with all of its pieces, ordered and the client environment prepared. Then, working closely with the migration team, ensuring we understood each others roles, not just our but the platforms capabilities as well as the current and future timelines. Took this all the way to the final Go-Live migration which went off like clockwork. Down at 10 pm Friday night. Migration done by 7 am Sunday morning. Clean-up and other details tended to to Go-Live by 4 pm Sunday afternoon. And they haven’t had to take an outage since … at least not for anything hardware related.

Reach out if you want to learn how my team designs world class systems, using world class assessment tools and migration techniques which allow our solutions to be optimized, faster, efficient and ultimately lower cost.

Get more for less with POWER9

Who doesn’t expect more from a new product, let alone if it is the next generation of that product. Whether it is the “All New 2019 Brand Model” Car/Truck/SUV or, being a Macbook fan, the latest Macbook Pro and IOS (just keep the magnetic power cord)?

We want and expect more.  IBM POWER8 delivered more.  More performance, built-in virtualization on the Enterprise systems, mobile capacity on Enterprise systems to share capacity between like servers, a more robust reliability and availability subsystem as well as improved serviceability features from the low-end to high-end.  Yes, all while dramatically improving performance over previous generations.

How do you improve upon something that is already really good – I’m purposefully avoiding using the word “great” as it’ll make me sound like a sycophant who would accept a rock with a Power badge and call it “great”.  No, I am talking about actual, verifiable features and capabilities delivering real value to businesses.

Since the POWER9 Enterprise systems have yet to be announced and I only know what I know through my secret sources, I’ll limit my statements to just the currently available POWER9 Scale-out systems.

• POWER8 Scale-out now include PowerVM Enterprise Edition licenses
• Workload Optimized Frequency now delivers frequencies up to 20% higher over the nominal or marketed clock frequency
• PCIe4 slots to support higher speed and bandwidth adapters
• From 2 to 4X greater memory capacity on most systems
• New “bootable” internal NVMe support
• Enhanced vTPM for improved Secure Boot & Trusted Remote Attestation
• SR-IOV improvements
• CAPI 2.0 and OpenCAPI capability – the latter, though I’m unaware of any supported features is exciting in what it is designed and capable of doing.
• Improved price points using IS memory

The servers also shed some legacy features that were getting long in the tooth.

• Internal DVD players – in lieu of USB drive support
• S924 with 18 drive backplane no longer includes add-on 8 x 1.8″ SSD slots

As consumers, we expect more from our next generation purchases, the same holds true with POWER9.  Get more capability, features and performance for less money.

Contact me if you would like a quote to upgrade to POWER9, running x86 workloads and would like to hear how you may be able to do far more with less as well as learn how my services team will ease any concerns or burdens you may have to remain on your aging and likely, higher cost servers by upgrading to POWER9.

 

 

Upgrade to POWER9 – Never been easier!

With an outstanding family of products in IBM’s POWER8 portfolio, it seemed impossible for IBM to deliver a successor with more features, increased performance, greater value, while at a lower price point.  On February 13th, IBM announced the POWER9 Scale-out products supporting AIX, IBM i and Linux while 1st POWER9 announcement occurred December 5, 2017 with the AC922, a HPC & AI beast.

These newly announced PowerVM-based systems consist of 1 & 2 sockets systems supporting up to 4 TB of DDR4 memory.  Starting with the robust 1-socket S914 then accelerating to the 2RU 2-socket S922 and the 4RU 2-socket S924 system. IBM announced sister systems to the S-models purpose-built for SAP HANA.  These systems are the H822 & H824 systems, identical to the S822 & S824. The H-models might also be considered hybrid systems as they come bundled with key software used with HANA while allowing a smaller AIX and IBM i footprint – sort of a hybrid between a S & L model system.  There is also a Linux only model, just as there was with POWER8.  Called the L922, it is a 2-socket though available in a 1-socket configuration.  Each of these systems support up to 4 TB of memory except the S914 which supports up to 1 TB.

Why should businesses consider upgrading to POWER9? If they are running on POWER7 and older systems, Clients will save significant cost by lowering hardware and software maintenance cost.  Moreover, with the increased performance, clients will be able to consolidate more VM’s than ever and reduce enterprise software product licensing as well as its exorbinant maintenance cost.

While Intel cancels Knights Landing and struggles to deliver innovation and performance on their 10nm and 7nm platforms, remaining in a perpetual state of treading water at 14nm, what they are delivering seems to most benefit ISV’s and not businesses.

The traditional workloads such as Oracle, DB2, Websphere, SAP (ECC & HANA), Oracle EBS, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Infor, EPIC and more all benefit.  For businesses looking to develop and deploy technologies developed in the 21st Century, these purpose built products deliver new innovations ideally suited for workloads geared toward Cognitive (analytics) and the web. NoSQL products, such as Redis Labs, Cassandra, neo4j or Scylla to open source relational databases products like PostgreSQL or MariaDB.

With the increased performance and higher efficiencies, all software boats will rise running on POWER9.

My team of Architects and Engineers at Ciber Global are prepared to help migrate workloads from your POWER5, POWER6, POWER7 and even POWER8 systems running AIX 5.3, 6.1, 7.1 and 7.1 as well as IBM i v6.1, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 to POWER9.

POWER9 supports AIX 6.1, 7.1 and 7.2.  For IBM i, it supports 7.2 & 7.3.  Client systems not at these levels will have our consultants available to guide them on the requirements and their upgrade options.  Whether using Live Partition Mobility, aka the Easy Button to move workloads from POWER6, POWER7 or POWER8 systems to POWER9 or using more traditional methods such as AIX NIM or IBM i Full System Save/Restore, there is likely an approach meeting the businesses needs.

Rest assured, if you have doubts or concerns reach out to my team at Ciber to discuss. And if you don’t already have the Easy Button, IBM is offering a 60-day trial key for clients to upgrade the PowerVM Standard Edition licenses to Enterprise Edition on their P6, P7 or P8 systems making the upgrade to POWER9 not only financially easy but also technically easy.

 

SAP HANA – could I have extra complexity please?

Just returned from IBM’s Systems Technical University conference held in Orlando having delivered presentations on 4 different topics.

1. Benefits of SAP HANA on POWER vs Intel
2. Why IBM POWER systems are datacenter leaders
3. Only platform that controls Software Licensing
4. Why DB2 beats Oracle on POWER (implied that it beats Intel).

With the SAP Sapphire conference last week in Orlando, there was a slew of announcements.  Quick reminder for the uninitiated with SAP HANA, that it is ONLY supported on Intel and POWER based systems running one OS; SUSE or RedHat Linux. With that, IBM POWER continues to deliver the best value.

What is the value offered with the POWER stack? Flexibility! It really is that simple.  If I had a mic on the plane as I write this, I would drop it. Conversely, what is the value offered going with an Intel stack? Compromise!

Some of the flexibility offered thru IBM POWER systems are: Scale-up, scale-out, complete virtualization, grow, shrink, move, perform concurrent maintenance, mix workloads: existing ECC workloads on AIX or IBM i with new HANA running Linux all on the same server.  All of this runs using the most resilient HANA platform available.

Why do I label Intel systems as “Compromise” solutions? It isn’t a competitive shot nor FUD.  Listen, as an Client Executive and Executive Architect for an Channel Reseller, I am able to offer my clients solutions from multiple vendors that include IBM POWER and Intel based systems manufacturers.  I’ve made the conscious decision though to promote IBM POWER over Intel.  Why? Because I not only believe in the capabilities of the platform but also having worked with some of the largest companies in the world, I regularly hear and see the impact running Enterprise workloads on Intel based servers has on the business.

If you read my previous blog, I mention a client who just recently moved their Oracle workloads from POWER to Intel.  Within months, they’ve had to buy over $5M in new licenses going from a simple standalone and a few 2-node clusters (all on the same servers) to an 8-node VMware based Oracle RAC cluster.  This environment is having daily stability issues significantly impacting their business.  Yes, their decision to standardize on a single platform has introduced complexity to the business costing them money, resources (exhausted & not having the proper skills to manage the complexity) that impacts their end-users.

The “Compromise” I mention to host SAP HANA on Intel is that everything has to be an asterisk by it – in other words a limitation or restriction – everything requires follow-up questions and research to ensure what the business wants to do, can be done. Here are some examples.
1) VMware vSphere 5.5 initially supported 1 VM per system which has now been increased to 4 VM’s, but with many qualifications.
a) Restricted to 2 & 4 socket Intel servers
1) VM’s are limited to a socket
2) 2 socket server ONLY supports 2 VM’s, 4 socket would be 4 x 1 sockets each
b) Only E5_v2, E5_v3, E7_v2 and E7_v3 chips are supported – NO Broadwell
c) Want to redeploy capacity for other? Appliances certified only for SoH or S4H
uses cannot be used for other purposes such as BW
d) Did I mention, those VM’s are also limited to 64 vCPU and 1 TB of memory each
e) If a VM needs more memory than what is attached to that socket? No problem, you have to add an additional socket and all of its memory – no sharing!
2) VMware vSphere 6.0 just recently went from 1 to 16 VM’s per system.
a) VM’s are still limited to a socket or 1/2 socket.
b) 1/2 socket isn’t as amazing as it sounds.  Since vSphere supports 2, 4 & 8 socket servers, there can be 16 x 1/2 socket VM’s.
c) What there cannot be, is any combination of VM’s >1 socket with 1/2 socket assigned. In other words, a VM cannot have 1.5 or 3.5 sockets. Any VM resource requirement above 1 socket requires the addition of an entire socket.  1.5 sockets would be 2 sockets.
d) Multi-node setups are NOT permitted …. at all!
e) VM’s larger than 2 sockets cannot use Ivy Bridge based systems, only Haswell or Broadwell chips – but ONLY on 4-socket servers.  Oh my gosh, this is making my head hurt!
f) If using an 8-socket system, it only supports a single production VM using Haswell ONLY processors.  NOT Ivy Bridge and NOT Broadwell!
g) VM’s are limited to 128 vCPU and 4 TB of memory
3) VMware vSphere 6.5 with SAP HANA SPS 12 only supports Intel Broadwell based systems. What if your HANA Appliance is based on Ivy-Bridge or Haswell processor technology? “Where is that Intel rep’s business card? Guess I’ll have to buy another one since I can’t upgrade these”
a) VM’s using >4 sockets are currently NOT supported with these Broadwell chips
b) Now, it gets better. I hope you are writing this down – For 2 OR 8 socket systems, the maximum VM size is 2 sockets.  Only a 4 socket system supports 1 VM with 4 sockets.
c) Same 1/2 socket restrictions as vSphere 6.0.
d) Servers with >8 sockets do NOT permit the use of VMware
e) If your VM requirements exceed 128 vCPU and 4 TB of memory, you must move it to a bare-metal system ….. Call me – I’ll put you on a POWER system where you can scale-up, scale-out without of this mess

Contrast all of these VMware + Intel limitations, restrictions, liabilities, qualification or simply said “Compromise” systems to the IBM Power System.

POWER8 servers run the POWER Hypervisor called PowerVM.  This Hypervisor and its suite of features deliver flexibility allowing all physical, all virtual and a combination of physical & virtual resource usage on each system. Even where there are VM limits such as 4 on the low-end system, that 4 could really be 423 VM’s.  I’m making a theoretical statement here to prove the point. Let’s use a 2 socket 24 core S824 server.  3 VM’s, each with 1 core (yes, I said core) for production usage and the 4th VM’s is really a Shared Processor Pool with 21 cores.  Those 21 cores support up to 20 VM’s per core or 420 VM’s. Any non-production use is permitted.

Each PowerVM VM supports up to 16 TB of memory and 144 cores.  VM size above 108 cores requires the use of SMT4 whereas <=108 cores permit SMT8.  Thus, 144 cores with SMT4 is 576 vCPU’s or 4.5X what Intel can do with 4X the memory footprint.  By the way, that 108 core VM would support 864 vCPU’s – just saying!  Note: I need to verify as the largest SMT8 VM may be 96 cores with only 768 vCPU.

Not only can we allocate physical cores to VM’s and NOT limited to 1/2 or full socket increments like Intel, but POWER systems granularity allows for adjustments at the vCPU level.

PowerVM supports scale-out and scale-up.  Then again, if you have heard or read about the Pfizer story for scale-out BW, you might rethink a literal scale-out approach. Read IBM’s Alfred Freudenberger’s blog on this subject at https://saponpower.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/update-sap-hana-support-for-vmware-ibm-power-systems-and-new-customer-testimonials/

While on the subject of BWoH/B4H, PowerVM supports 6 TB per VM whereas the vSphere 6.0 supports is 3 TB and the limitations increase from here.

Do you see why I choose to promote IBM Power vs Intel? When I walk into a client, the most valuable item I bring with me is my credibility.  HANA on Intel is a constant train wreck with constant changes & gotcha’s. Clients currently with HANA on Intel solutions or better yet, running ECC on Intel have options.  That option is to move to a HANA 2.0 environment using SUSE 12 or RedHat v7 Linux on POWER servers. Each server will host multiple VM’s with greater resiliency providing the business the flexibility desired from the critical business system that likely touches every part of the business.

Does your IT shop use a combination wrench?

More and more, IT shops seem inclined to consolidate and simplify their infrastructure to one platform. A mindset that all workloads can or should run on a single platform incorporated into ‘Software-defined this’ and ‘Software-defined that’.  It tantalizes the decision makers senses as vendors claim to reduce complexity and cost.

Technology has become Ford vs Chevy or John Deere vs Case International.  Whereas these four vendors each have some unique capabilities and offerings they are also leaders in innovation and reliability.  For IT shops, there is this perception that only Intel & VMware are viable infrastructure options to deploy every workload type.  Mission / Life critical workloads in healthcare, high-frequency financial transactions, HPC, Big Data, Analytics, emerging Cognitive & AI but also traditional ERP workloads that run entire businesses – SAP ECC, SAP HANA and Oracle EBS are probably the most common that I see as there are also some industry specific ones for Industrial and automotive companies – I’m thinking of Infor.

When a new project comes up, there is little thought given to the platform. either the business or maybe the ISV will state what and how many of server X should be ordered. The parts arrive, eventually getting deployed.  Little consideration is given to the total cost of ownership or the the impact to the business caused by the system complexity.

I’ve watched a client move their Oracle workloads to IBM POWER several years ago. This allowed them to reduce their software licensing and annual maintenance cost as well as to redeploy licensing to other projects – cost avoidance by not having to add net new licensing.  As it happens in business, people moved on, out and up. New people came in whose answer to everything was Intel + VMware.  Yes, a combination wrench.

If any of you have used a combination wrench,  you know there are a few times it is the proper tool. However, it can also strip or round over the head of a bolt or nut if too much pressure or torque is applied. Sometimes the proper tool is a SAE or Metric box wrench, possible a socket, even an impact wrench.  In this clients case, they have started to move their Oracle workloads from POWER to Intel.  Workloads currently running on standalone servers or at most using 2-node PowerHA clusters.  Moving these simple (little complexity) Oracle VM’s to 6-node VMware Oracle RAC clusters that have now grown to 8-nodes.  Because we all know that Oracle RAC scales really well (please tell me you picked up on the sarcasm).

I heard from the business earlier this year that they had to buy over $5M of net-new Oracle licensing for this new environment. Because of this unforeseen expense, they are moving other commercial products to open-source since we all know that open-source is “free” to offset the Oracle cost.

Oh, I forgot to mention.  That 8-node VMWare Oracle RAC cluster is crashing virtually every day.  I guess they are putting too much pressure on the combination wrench!

Oracle is a mess & customers pay the price!

Chaos that is Oracle

Clients are rapidly adopting open source technologies in support of purpose-built applications while also shifting portions of on-premises workloads to major Cloud providers like Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and IBM’s SoftLayer.  These changes are sending Oracle’s licensing revenue into the tank forcing them to re-tool … I’m being kind saying it this way.

What do we see  Oracle doing these days?

• Aggressively going after VMware environments who use Oracle Enterprise products for licensing infractions
• Pushing each of their clients toward Oracle’s public cloud
• Drastically changing how Oracle is licensed for Authorized Cloud Environments using Intel servers
• Latest evidence indicates they are set to abandon Solaris and SPARC technology
• On-going staff layoffs as they shift resources, priorities & funding from on-premises to cloud initiatives

VMware environments

I’ve previously discussed for running Oracle on Intel (vs IBM POWER), Intel & VMware have an Oracle problem. This was acknowledged by Chad Sakac, Dell EMC’s President Converged Division in his August 17, 2016 blog in what really amounted to an Open Letter to King Larry Ellison, himself. I doubt most businesses using Oracle with VMware & Intel servers fully understand the financial implications this has to their business.  Allow me to paraphrase the essence of the note “Larry, take your boot off the necks of our people”.

This is a very contentious topic so I’ll not take a position but will try to briefly explain both sides.  Oracle’s position is simple even though it is very complex.  Oracle does not recognize VMware as an approved partitioning (view it as soft partitioning) method to limit Oracle licensing. As such, clients running Oracle in a VMware environment, regardless of how little or much is used, must properly license it for every Intel server under that clients Enterprise (assume vSphere 6+).  They really do go beyond a rational argument IMHO. Since Oracle owns the software and authored the rules they use these subtleties to lean on clients extracting massive profits despite what the contract may say. An example that comes to mind is how Oracle suddenly changed licensing configurations for Oracle Standard Edition and Standard Edition One. They sunset both of these products as of December 31, 2015 replacing both with Standard Edition 2. What can only be described as screwing clients, they halved the number of sockets allowed on a server or in a RAC cluster, limited the number of cpu threads per DB instance while doubling the number of minimum Named User Plus (NUPs). On behalf of Larry, he apologizes to any 4 socket Oracle Standard Edition users but if you don’t convert to a 2 socket configuration (2 sockets for 1 server or 1 socket for 2 servers using RAC) then be prepared to license the server using the Oracle Enterprise Edition licensing model.

The Intel server vendors and VMware have a different interpretation on how Oracle should be licensed.  I’ll boil their position down to using host or cpu affinity rules.  House of Bricks published a paper that does a good job trying to defend Intel+VMware’s licensing position. In their effort, they do show how fragile of ground they sit on with its approach  highlighting the risks businesses take if they hitch their wagons to HoB, VMware & at least Dell’s recommenations.

This picture, which I believe House of Bricks gets the credit for creating captures the Oracle licensing model for Intel+VMware environments quite well. When you pull your car into a parking garage – you expect to pay for 1 spot yet Oracle says you must pay for every one as you could technically park in any of them. VMware asserts you should only pay for a single floor at most because your vehicle may not be a compact car, may not have the clearance for all levels, there are reserved & handicapped spots which you can’t use. You get the idea.

It simply a disaster for any business to run Oracle on Intel servers. Oracle wins if you do not virtualize, running each on standalone servers.  Oracle wins if you use VMware, regardless of how little or much you actually us.  Be prepared to pay or to litigate!

Oracle and the “Cloud”

This topic is more difficult to provide sources so I’ll just stick to anecdotal evidence. Take it or leave it. At contract renewal, adding products to contracts or new projects like migrating JD Edwards “World” to “Enterprise One” or a new Oracle EBS deployment would subject a business to an offer like this.  “Listen Bob, you can buy 1000 licenses of XYZ for $10M or you can buy 750 licenses of XYZ for $6M, buy 400 Cloud units for $3M and we will generously throw in 250 licenses …. you’ll still have to pay support of course. You won’t get a better deal Bob, act now!”.  Yes, Oracle is willing to take a hit for the on-premises license revenue while bolstering their cloud sales by simply shuffling the Titanic deck chairs. These clients, for the most part are not interested in the Oracle cloud and will never use it other than to get a better deal during negotiations. Oracle then reports to Wall Street they are having tremendous cloud growth. Just google “oracle cloud fake bookings” to read plenty of evidence to support this.

Licensing in the Cloud

Leave it to Oracle Marketing to find a way to get even deeper into clients wallets – congratulations they’ve found a new way in the “Cloud”.  Oracle charges at least 2X more with Oracle licenses on Intel servers that run in Authorized Cloud Environments (ACE). You do not license Oracle in the cloud using the on-premises licensing factor table.  The more VM’s running in a ACE,  the more you will pay vs an on-premises deployment. To properly license an on-premises Intel server (remember, it is always an underlying proof that Oracle on POWER servers is the best solution) regardless if virtualization is used, assuming a 40 core server, would equal 20 Oracle Licenses (Intel licensing factor for Intel servers is 0.5 per core). Assume 1 VMware server, ignoring it is probably part of a larger vSphere cluster.  Once licensed, clients using VMware could theorectially run Oracle as many VM’s as desired or supported by that server. Over-provision the hell out of it – doesn’t matter. That same workload in an ACE, you pay for what amounts to every core.  Remember, if the core resides on-premises it is 1 Oracle License for every 2 Intel cores but in a ACE it is 1 OL for 1 core.

AWS
Putting your Oracle workload in the cloud?  Oracle license rules stipulate if running in AWS, it labels as vCPU’s both the physical core and the hyperthread. Thus, 2 vCPU = 1 Oracle License (OL). Using the same 40 core Intel server mentioned above, with hyperthreading it would be 80 threads or 80 vCPU.  Using Oracle’s new Cloud licensing guidelines, that would be 40 OL.  If this same server was on-premises, those 40 physical cores (regardless of threads) would be 20 OL ….. do you see it?  The licensing is double!!!   If your AWS vCPU consumption is less vs the on-premises consumption you may be ok. As soon as your consumption goes above that point – well, break out your checkbook.  Let your imagination run wild thinking of the scenarios where you will pay for more licenses in the cloud vs on-prem.

Azure
Since Azure does not use hyperthreading, 1 vCPU = 1 core.  The licensing method for ACE’s for Azure or any other ACE if hyperthreading is not used, 1 vCPU = 1 OL.  If a workload requires 4 vCPU, it requires 4 OL vs the 2 OL if it was on-premises.

Three excellent references to review. The first is Oracle’s Cloud licensing document. The second link is an article by Silicon Angle giving their take of this change and the last link is for a blog by Tim Hall, a DBA and Oracle ACE Director sharing his concerns. Just search for this topic starting from January 2017 and read until you fall asleep.

Oracle
Oracle offers their own cloud and as you might imagine, they do everything they can to favor their own cloud thru licensing, contract negotiations and other means.   From SaaS, IaaS and PaaS their marketing machine says they are second to none whether the competition is SalesForce, Workday, AWS, Azure or any other.  Of course, analysts, media, the internet nor Oracle earnings reports show they are having any meaningful success – to the degree they claim.

Most recently, Oracle gained attention for updating how clients can license Oracle products in ACE’s as mentioned above.  As you might imagine, Oracle licenses its products slightly differently than in competitors clouds but they still penalize Intel and even SPARC clients, who they’ll try to migrate into the cloud running Intel (since it appears Oracle is abandoning SPARC).  The Oracle Cloud offers clients access to its products on a hourly or monthly in a metered and non-metered format on up to 4 different levels of software. Focusing on Oracle DB, the general tiers are Standard, Enterprise, High-Performance and Extreme-Performance Packages. Think of it like Oracle Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, EE+tools, EE+RAC+tools.  Oracle also defines the hardware tier as “Compute Shapes“. The three tiers are General Purpose, High-Memory or Dedicated compute

Comparing the cost of an on-premises perpetual license for Oracle Enterprise  vs a non-metered monthly license for the Enterprise Tier means they both use Oracle Enterprise Edition Database. Remember a perpetual license is a one-time purchase, $47,500 for EE DB list price plus 22% per year annual maintenance.  The Enterprise tier using a High-memory compute shape in the Oracle cloud is $2325 per month.  This compute shape consists of 1 OCPU (Oracle CPU) or 2 vCPU (2 threads / 1 core).  Yes, just like AWS and Azure, Intel licensing is at best 1.0 vs 0.5 for on-premises licensing per core. Depending how a server might be over-provisioned as well as the fact an on-premises server would be fully licensed with 1/2 of its installed cores there are a couple of ways clients will vastly overpay for Oracle products in any cloud.

The break-even point for a perpetual license + support vs a non-metered Enterprise using High-memory compute shape is 30 months.

• Perpetual license
  • 1 x Oracle EE DB license = $47,500
  • 22% annual maintenance = $10,450
  • 3 year cost: $78,850
• Oracle Cloud – non-metered Enterprise using High-Memory shape
  • 1 x OCPU for Enterprise Package for High-Compute = $2325/mo
  • 1 year cloud cost = $27,900
  • 36 month cost: $83,700
• Cross-over point is at 30 months
  • $79,050 is the 30 month cost in the Cloud
• An Oracle Cloud license becomes significantly more expensive after this.
  • year 4 for a perpetual license would be $10,470
  • 12 months in year 4 for the Cloud license would be $27,900
  • Annual cost increase for a single cloud license over the perpetual license = $17,430
• Please make your checks payable to “Larry Ellison”

Oracle revenue’s continue to decline as clients move to purpose-built NoSQL solutions such as MongoDB, RedisLabs, Neo4j, OrientDB, Couchbase as well as SQL based solutions from MariaDB, PostgreSQL (I like EnterpriseDB) even DB2 is a far better value.  Oracle’s idea isn’t to re-tool by innovating, listening to clients to move with the market. No, they get out their big stick – follow the classic mistake so many great clients have done before them which is not evolve while pushing clients until something breaks.   Yes, Boot Hill is full of dead technology companies who failed to innovate and adapt. This is why Oracle is in complete chaos.  Clients beware – you are on their radar!

 

 

C is for Performance!

“C” makes the E850 a BIG deal!

IBM delivered a modest upgrade to the entry level POWER8 Enterprise server going from the E850 to the E850C.  The new features are seen with the processors, memory, Capacity on Demand and with bundled software.

The most exciting features available with the new E850C, which by the way comes with a new MTM of 8408-44E, are with the processors.  You might think I’d say that but here is why the E850C is the new “sweet spot” server for AIX & Linux workloads that require a mix of performance, scalability and reliability features.

A few things that are the same on the E850C as it was the E850.

• Classified as a “small” tier server
• Available with a 3 year 24 x 7 warranty
• PVU for IBM software is 100 when using AIX
• PVU for IBM software is 70 when using Linux
• Supports IFL’s or Integrated Facility for Linux
• Offers CuOD, Trial, Utility and Elastic CoD
• Does NOT offer mobile cores or mobile memory (boo hiss)
• Does NOT support Enterprise Pools (boo hiss)

The original 8408-E8E aka E850 was available with 32 cores at 3.72, 40 cores at 3.35 and 48 cores at 3.02 GHz, initially support 2 TB of DDR3 memory and eventually up to 4 TB of DDR3 of memory.  Using up to 4 x 1400W power supplies, due to its dense packaging what it did not offer was the option to exploit EnergyScale allowing users to decrease or increase the processor clock speeds.  The clock speeds were capped at their nominal speeds of 3.72, 3.35 and 3.02 GHz not allowing users to select if one of several options from do nothing to lower or increase based on utilization or lower to a set point and more importantly, increase to the higher rate.  This is free performance – rPerf in the case of AIX.

Focusing on the processor increase, because who the hell wants to run their computers slower, the E850C has a modest increase ranging from 2.5% to 4.6%.  I say modest because the other POWER8 models range from 4% up to 11% <play Tim Allen “grunt” from Home Improvement>.  This modest increase doesn’t matter because the new C model delivers 32 cores at 4.22 nominal increasing to 4.32 GHz, 40 cores at 3.95 nominal increasing to 4.12 GHz and 48 cores at 3.65 nominal increasing to 3.82 GHz.  These speeds are at the high end for every Scale-out server and consistent with on part with the E870C/E880C models.

Putting these performance increases into perspective; comparing nominal rPerf values for the E850 vs E850C show this: 32 core E850C with an increase of 59 rPerf. 40 core E850C with an increase of 88 rPerf and the 48 core E850C delivering a rPerf increase of 113.  By doing nothing but increasing the clock speed, the 48 core E850C is delivering an rPerf increase equivalent to a POWER6 570 with 16 cores.

It hasn’t been mentioned yet but the E850 & E850C uses a 4U chassis. Looking at the 48 core E850C just mentioned, it delivers an rPerf level of 859. Compare this to the 16U POWER7+ 770 (9117-MMD) with 64 cores that delivers only 729 rPerf or going back to the initial 770 model 9117-MMB with 48 cores in a 16U footprint delivering 464 rPerf. Using the MMD values, this is a 4:1 footprint reduction, an 18% increase in rPerf with a 25% reduction in cores – why does that matter? Greater core strength means fewer OS & virtualization licenses & SWMA but more importantly – less enterprise software licensing such as Oracle Enterprise DB.

IBM achieved this a couple of ways. Not being an IBMer, I do not have all of the techniques but by increasing the chip efficiency, increasing the power supplies to 2000W each and moving to DDR4 memory which uses less power.

What else?

Besides the improvement in clock speeds and bumping memory to DDR4, the E850C reduces the number of minimum active cores. Every E850C must have a minimum of 2 processor books; 2×8, 2×10 or 2×12 core  while only requiring 8, 10 or 12 cores being active depending on the model of processor book used.  The E850 required all cores in the first 2 processor books to be active. This change in the E850C is another benefit to clients to get into the “sweet spot” server with a lower entry price.  Same memory activations of 50% of the installed memory or 128 GB whichever is more.

A couple of nice upgrades from the E850 that are now standard. Active Memory Mirroring and PowerVM Enterprise Edition are now standard while still offering a 3 year 24 x 7 warranty (except Japan).

The E850C does not support IBM i, but it does support AIX 6.1, 7.1 and 7.2 (research specific versions at System Software Maps) and the usual Linux distro’s.

Software bundle enhancements over the E850 are:

• Starter pack for SoftLayer
• IBM Cloud HMC apps
• IBM Power to Cloud Rewards
• PowerVM Enterprise Edition

Even though it isn’t bundled in, consider using IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager, which is included with the AIX Enterprise Edition bundle or à la carte with AIX Standard Edition or any Linux distro.

In summary

The E850C is a power-packed compact package. With up to 48 cores and 4 TB Ram in a 4U footprint, it is denser than 2 x 2U S822’s with 20 cores / 1 TB RAM or the 1 x 4U S824 with 24 cores / 2 TB RAM.  Yes the E870C with 40 cores or the E880C with 48 cores, both with 8 TB of RAM in a single node still require 7U to start with.  If clients require the greatest scalability, performance, flexibility and reliability they should look at the E870C or E880C but for a lower entry price that delivers high performance in a compact solution the E850C delivers the complete package.

 

Not on the Dell/EMC Bandwagon. More of the same. OpenPOWER changes the game!

Reading articles about the two companies consummation on 9/7/16 around social media yesterday, one would think the marriage included a new product or solution which was revolutionizing the industry.  I haven’t heard of any but  I do know that both companies have continued to shed employee’s and sell off assets not core to the go-forward business to capture critical capital to fund the massive $63B deal.  They will also continue to evaluate products from both Dell & EMC’s traditional product portfolios to phase out, merge, sell or kill due to redundancies and other reasons.  It just happens. For them to say otherwise is misleading at best.  Frankly, it hurts their credibility when they deny this as there are examples already of this occurring.

Going forward I do not see how the combined products of Dell, which at its core sell commodity Intel servers that are not even best of breed, but rather the low-cost leader paired with the high-end products from EMC, which had high development cost will be any different on 9/8/16 than it was on 9/6/16.  EMC’s problem of customers moving away from the high margin high-end storage systems to the highly competitive, lower margin All Flash Array products will not be any better for the newly combined company.  This AFA space has many good competitors who offer “Good Enough” features that can offer clients 1) Lower cost 2) Comparable or better features 3) Not a tier-1 player who some customers resist due to feeling they overpay for the privilege to work with them.

About 2 years ago, EMC absorbed VCE with its Converged infrastructure called vBlock, a term I argue it is not but instead is a Integrated Infrastructure built on VMware, Cisco UCS and EMC Storage.  VMware & EMC storage offer nothing unique. UCS is unique in the Intel space but with the messy split from the VCE tri-union and now VCE who is placing a lot of emphasis on their own hyper-converged offerings as well as products from Dell due to this new found marriage.  It only makes sense to de-emphasize Cisco from a VCE solution and start promoting Dell products.  This goes from using the leader in Intel blade solutions to the “me-too” Dell products which is average in a field of “Good Enough” technology whose most notable feature is its low cost.

As I listen to the IBM announcement today that include 3 new OpenPOWER servers I can’t help but wonder how much longer Dell’s low cost advantage will remain.  Not sure what they will use for SAP HANA workloads requiring > 4 socket Intel servers since HPE just bought SGI, primarily for its 32 socket Intel server/technology.  I guess they could partner with Lenovo on their x3950 or with Cisco on their C880 which I believe they actually OEM from Hitachi. Dell servers are woefully inadequate with regard to RAS features; not just against POWER servers but even against other Intel competitors like Lenovo (thanks to their IBM purchase of xSeries), Hitachi and Fujitsu who all have stronger offerings relative to what Dell offers.   RAS features simply cost more which is why you didn’t see IBM with its xSeries, Hitachi or Fujitsu be volume leaders. This is also why you are seeing more software defined solutions built to mask hardware deficiencies. This in itself has its own problems.

Here is a quick review of today’s announcements. The first server is a 2 socket 2U server built for Big Data hosting 12 internal front facing drive slots.  The next server is a 2 socket 1U server offering almost 7K threads in a 42U rack.  It provides tremendous performance for clients looking for data-rich and dense computing.  The 3rd server is a 2 socket 2U server that is the first commercial system to offer NVIDIA‘s NVLink technology connecting 2 or 4 GPU’s directly to each other as well as to the CPU’s.  Every connection is 160 GB/s bi-directional which is roughly 5X what is available on Intel servers using GPU’s connected to PCIe3 adapter slots.

These OpenPOWER systems allow clients to build their own solution or as part of a integrated product with storage and management stack built on OpenStack.  Ideal for Big Data, Analytics, HPC, Cloud, DevOps and open source workloads like SugarCRM, NoSQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL (I like EnterpriseDB for support) or even IBM’s vast software portfolio such as DB2 v11.1.

Pricing for the 3 new OpenPOWER models as well as the first 2 announced earlier in the year is available at Scale-out Linux on page. I recently did a pricing comparison for a customer with several 2 socket Dell servers vs a comparable 2 socket S822LC.  Both the list and web price for the Dell solution were more expensive than OpenPOWER.  The Dell list price was approximately 35% more and the web list price was 10% more and I was using the price as shown on the IBM OpenPOWER page provided in the link in this same paragraph.  Clients looking to deploy large clusters, compute farms or simply want to start lowering infrastructure cost should take a hard look at OpenPOWER.  If you can install Linux on an Intel server,  you have the skills to manage a OpenPOWER server.  Rocket Scientist need not apply!

If you have questions, encourage you to contact your local or favorite business partner.  If you do not have one, I would be happy to work with you.