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| Looking inside a x3650 M5 server. |
Lenovo has introduced its M5 portfolio of x86 servers, the first fruits of Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s System x business. Lenovo announced it would acquire the x86 server business – all hardware families, skilled resources, 41 facilities, including manufacturing in China, as well as OEM partnerships – from IBM in January 2014.
The new servers combine high performance with built-in security, efficiency, and reliability, and range from rack and tower servers to dense systems, blades and integrated systems. Ivan Low, Country Manager, Lenovo Enterprise Business Group Singapore, noted that server customers have moved from server consolidation, data centre consolidation and server virtualisation to exploiting new trends.
“To embrace new possibilities, one’s IT team has to be more nimble than ever before. There are challenging realities they face on a daily basis that are driven by dramatic shifts in mobile, social and big data and analytics. As a result, data centres are no longer back-of-the-house repositories that businesses look to as a reactionary effort to changes in the market," said Low.
“In today’s environment of ever-growing workloads with limited budgets as well as increasing sophisticated attacks on their infrastructure, customers are demanding the highest levels of reliability, efficiency, security and automation. Our new M5 servers are designed with the long-standing heritage of IBM innovation to support these enterprises.”
The new System x M5 servers include:
“In today’s environment of ever-growing workloads with limited budgets as well as increasing sophisticated attacks on their infrastructure, customers are demanding the highest levels of reliability, efficiency, security and automation. Our new M5 servers are designed with the long-standing heritage of IBM innovation to support these enterprises.”
The new System x M5 servers include:
- System x3650 M5 – a 2U, two-socket rack server;
- System x3550 M5 – a 1U, two-socket rack server;
- System x3500 M5 – an all-in-one 5U, two-socket tower or rack server;
- Flex System x240 M5 – optimised for performance, mainstream virtualisation and enterprise applications;
- NeXtScale nx360 M5 – a half-wide, 1U compute server optimised for density, flexibility, and performance;
- NeXtScale System with Water Cool Technology – a direct water-cooled server optimised for energy-efficient performance at low cost.
In addition to System x innovations, the new servers come with Intel’s new Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors, and up to 1.5 terabytes of faster, energy-saving TruDDR4 memory. All these servers are scheduled to begin shipping to customers this year, except the x3500 M5, which is scheduled to begin shipping in the first quarter of 2015.
All the new M5 servers contain built-in security with Trusted Platform Assurance, an exclusive set of System x security features and practices designed to help safeguard the systems from low-level malware attacks*. All the new servers undergo a highly secure development process and a rigorous validation cycle with controlled updates. In addition, all firmware is designed to be securely built, digitally signed and verified, so that only authorised firmware can execute.
The M5 servers add hardware support for the latest version of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) to enable more encryption algorithms and Windows OS support. The new Secure Firmware Rollback feature prohibits unauthorised updates of previous firmware versions. The new servers also offer enterprise-class data protection with optional self-encrypting drives and centralised key management through IBM Security Key Lifecycle Management.
With built-in innovations in power and thermal management design such as extended operating temperature ranges, dual fan zones, and active/standby mode for power supplies, the M5 systems can deliver significant energy savings compared with many prior-generation x86 systems. For example, the NeXtScale System with Water Cooling technology delivers up to 40% more energy efficiency in the data centre than a comparable air-cooled solution**.
In addition, the M5 servers have demonstrated improved performance over the previous generation by up to 131%*** for a typical Java-based workload, up to 61%**** for a typical virtualisation workload, and up to 59%***** for a typical database application, for faster business outcomes. The new x3650 M5 achieved a two-processor world record on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution standard application benchmark******, with 66% performance improvement over the previous generation system*******.
Each of the new servers has exclusive, built-in proactive diagnostic tool for easy serviceability and reduced labour costs. For example, the new Next Generation Light Path Diagnostic panel delivers extensive status messages and error messages on an intuitive, menu-driven display for reduced downtime and labor costs. All the servers are equipped with built-in redundant, hot-swappable components for no single point of failure, and are backed with IBM world-class services and support.
To help clients move enterprise applications to the cloud and improve overall efficiency, reliability and performance, the Lenovo Enterprise Business Group also announced a series of enterprise solutions, including:
*Trusted Platform Assurance should be used in conjunction with industry-standard security practices.
**Based on comparisons between NeXtscale M5 Water Cooled system vs. NeXtScale M5 (air cooled) system
***Internal measurements as of June 2014 for representative Java workloads, Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 (18C, 2.3GHz, 145W) vs. Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C, 2.7GHz, 130W)
****Internal measurements as of July 2014 for representative virtualisation workloads, Intel Xeon E5-2697 v3 (14C, 2.6GHz, 145W) vs. Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C, 2.7GHz, 130W)
*****Internal measurements as of June 2014 for representative database workloads, Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 (18C, 2.3GHz, 145W) vs. Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C, 2.7GHz, 130W)
******This benchmark fully complies with the SAP Benchmark Council regulations and has been audited and certified by SAP AG (certification number 2014---). Details can be obtained from IBM and SAP. The benchmark was performed at IBM in Research Triangle Park, NC, US, by IBM engineers.
*******The claim of achieving 66% improvement in performance is based on results on the two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark achieved by the IBM System x3650 M5 (two processors / 24 cores / 48 threads) on the Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699, 2.7 GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and 256 KB L2 cache per core, 30 MB L3 cache per processor (certification number 2013022). The server achieved 96,15 SAP SD benchmark users; average dialogue response time: 0.93 seconds; 1,055,670 fully processed order line items per hour; 3,167,000 dialog steps per hour; 52,780 SAPS; average database request time (dialogue/update): 0.015 sec / 0.009 sec; CPU utilisation of central server: 99%. The server was running Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition; DB2 10; and SAP enhancement package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0.
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| A close-up of the Next Generation Light Path Diagnostic panel, which goes beyond monitoring the CPU, hard disks and memory to other components and measurements, making troubleshooting more efficient. |
All the new M5 servers contain built-in security with Trusted Platform Assurance, an exclusive set of System x security features and practices designed to help safeguard the systems from low-level malware attacks*. All the new servers undergo a highly secure development process and a rigorous validation cycle with controlled updates. In addition, all firmware is designed to be securely built, digitally signed and verified, so that only authorised firmware can execute.
The M5 servers add hardware support for the latest version of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) to enable more encryption algorithms and Windows OS support. The new Secure Firmware Rollback feature prohibits unauthorised updates of previous firmware versions. The new servers also offer enterprise-class data protection with optional self-encrypting drives and centralised key management through IBM Security Key Lifecycle Management.
With built-in innovations in power and thermal management design such as extended operating temperature ranges, dual fan zones, and active/standby mode for power supplies, the M5 systems can deliver significant energy savings compared with many prior-generation x86 systems. For example, the NeXtScale System with Water Cooling technology delivers up to 40% more energy efficiency in the data centre than a comparable air-cooled solution**.
In addition, the M5 servers have demonstrated improved performance over the previous generation by up to 131%*** for a typical Java-based workload, up to 61%**** for a typical virtualisation workload, and up to 59%***** for a typical database application, for faster business outcomes. The new x3650 M5 achieved a two-processor world record on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution standard application benchmark******, with 66% performance improvement over the previous generation system*******.
Each of the new servers has exclusive, built-in proactive diagnostic tool for easy serviceability and reduced labour costs. For example, the new Next Generation Light Path Diagnostic panel delivers extensive status messages and error messages on an intuitive, menu-driven display for reduced downtime and labor costs. All the servers are equipped with built-in redundant, hot-swappable components for no single point of failure, and are backed with IBM world-class services and support.
To help clients move enterprise applications to the cloud and improve overall efficiency, reliability and performance, the Lenovo Enterprise Business Group also announced a series of enterprise solutions, including:
- The System x Solution for VMware VSAN, a software-defined storage solution that enables the new System x M5 servers and VMware Virtual SAN to simplify VM storage management.
- The System x Solution for Microsoft Fast Track DW for SQL Server 2014, a solution that builds on cost-effective M5 technologies for data warehouse workloads using SQL Server 2014.
- SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure with Atlantis Computing ILIO, a solution designed to help reduce storage costs and enhance the user experience for desktop virtualisation, built on Citrix XenDesktop or VMware Horizon View;
- Flex System Solution for Microsoft Hyper-V, a solution for cloud infrastructure based on IBM Flex System, Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, Hyper-V virtualisation and System Center 2012 R2.
*Trusted Platform Assurance should be used in conjunction with industry-standard security practices.
**Based on comparisons between NeXtscale M5 Water Cooled system vs. NeXtScale M5 (air cooled) system
***Internal measurements as of June 2014 for representative Java workloads, Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 (18C, 2.3GHz, 145W) vs. Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C, 2.7GHz, 130W)
****Internal measurements as of July 2014 for representative virtualisation workloads, Intel Xeon E5-2697 v3 (14C, 2.6GHz, 145W) vs. Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C, 2.7GHz, 130W)
*****Internal measurements as of June 2014 for representative database workloads, Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 (18C, 2.3GHz, 145W) vs. Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12C, 2.7GHz, 130W)
******This benchmark fully complies with the SAP Benchmark Council regulations and has been audited and certified by SAP AG (certification number 2014---). Details can be obtained from IBM and SAP. The benchmark was performed at IBM in Research Triangle Park, NC, US, by IBM engineers.
*******The claim of achieving 66% improvement in performance is based on results on the two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark achieved by the IBM System x3650 M5 (two processors / 24 cores / 48 threads) on the Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699, 2.7 GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and 256 KB L2 cache per core, 30 MB L3 cache per processor (certification number 2013022). The server achieved 96,15 SAP SD benchmark users; average dialogue response time: 0.93 seconds; 1,055,670 fully processed order line items per hour; 3,167,000 dialog steps per hour; 52,780 SAPS; average database request time (dialogue/update): 0.015 sec / 0.009 sec; CPU utilisation of central server: 99%. The server was running Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition; DB2 10; and SAP enhancement package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0.
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