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  #1  
Old 01-17-2014, 05:16 PM
StreamLight StreamLight is offline
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Default Calculating total no. Of server requirement for a datacenter?

HI
We are designing a datacenter for a client, and we are looking for a systematic and a scientific way to calculate the total number of servers required for the data center.
For this project we plan to use HP Blade Gen8 Servers. Is there a simulation tool that can estimate for us the total server requirements. I am not o fcourse taking into consideration memory or network constraints. The primary goal is to arrive at the total server population.
Typical input parameters:

No. of users : 100,000
No. of concurrent users: 20,000
Work Load:
20% transactional/database
50% : emails- internet activity -web services
Rest: Office type of apps

How do we estimate the number of servers required for this datacenter. Is it a rule of thumb or is there a more systematic way

regards

Steve Hans
Streamlight
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  #2  
Old 02-02-2014, 06:54 PM
StreamLight StreamLight is offline
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HI
I am somewhat surprised that there has been no input and no answer from any of the 20K+ members of this forum which is supposed to specialize in Data Center Matters.

One of the fundamental issues in DC Design is the initial Sizing of the DC. I would really like to throw this in the open and have some input from designers who have designed and crafted DCs from the start. I know that some of you may think that this type of information is confidential and not to be shared openly. The problem with this type of approach is that it does not really encourage open debate and that is fundamental to understanding and moving forward.
Let us start at the beginning of what was called a DC like in the 80s and at the beginning of the 90s. The DC was dominated by a monolithic structure, the Mainframe from the likes of IBM, Fujitsu, ICL , Bouroughs, Speery Univac which became Unisys.

Then came along DEC or Digital and said Hey we can build you a cheaper data center with our VAX Mini Computers, and this sprouted the likes of Pyramid Systems with their Multi Processor Mini Computers with the same bang as Big Blue at a fraction of the Price. So at the end of the 80s the data center was either Big Blue or Digital.

Then came along the Unix departmental Servers and the move from monolithic data centers. At the begining of the 90s people were talking about downsizing , decentralizing and having departmental servers. HP and Sun were the movers in that market. The data center in the 90s died a big death and more or less disappeared until the advent of the internet. I first heard of the internet in 1992, when I was told i got to have an email address and by the way use the internet.
The internet spawned a new wave of the move to server based data centers especially for Internet ISPs.

Now what we have is a shrinkage of the server to a 2U format and the Blade to a 1 U Format. We can pack a 42 U Rack with a lot of blades and alot of power 30 Kw.

The question is is the Departmental Server of the mid 90s or the Mini Computer of the 80s the same power and performance of today's so called 2U Servers. The answer is no, just based on clock speed , yes the CPU clock speed has gone up dramatically, but these old departmental servers had been designed as a balanced architecture to run as data base servers, application servers unix servers which can handle 100s of IO requests and terminal requests.
So we cant say that a 90s departmental Unix server which can handle 100s of users is matched by todays 2U Servers in terms of IO Interupt handling etc. After all a Server has two functions, CPU processes and IO Processes. Todays servers are more efficient at CPU utilization but they dont have the complex and balanced architecture of the older generation Unix departmental servers which were quiet complex.

So how many users and what type of users can we turn against todays 2U servers?
That is really fundamental to my original question of Sizing a DC.
It should not be difficult to write a simulation program that can simulate different scenarios of users , a mix of IO interrupts, disc access, data base search query, and basic IO for the different type of apps for different type of user profiles.

What seems to be the case today is really a less formal approach to sizing and a more what I call Quantum approach.

There seems to be three different categories of DCs and the designer does a quantum jump based on a gut feel and a rule of thumb rather then a formal process.

It is either gong to be a 1000 sq ft , 1000 Server DC which is called a Normal Size
or a 10,000 sq ft 10,000 Server DC which is called a Medium DC
or a Mega Google/facebook/Microsoft 50,000 Server + DC.

Anything below the 1000 Server normal DC is not even classified as a DC , just a server room.

For example I did a lot of research to find out this sub 1000 dc category, and I turned to hospitals for my source of information. What I found was an unbelievable divergence of sizes from a 10 server room to an 80 server room for a single hospital , and that is not even dependent on what apps the Hospital is using. It is a suck it and see aprroach or the more we have the more likely we will not run out of capacity.

It is about time that someone , perhaps at an institution such as MIT rights a formal simulation program that sizes modern data centers either using traditional 2U Servers plus linux or windows OSs , or Blade Servers and Cloud Architecture. It cant be difficult and if I have the time I may even attempt it myself. Any takers?

TIA
Streamlight
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  #3  
Old 02-03-2014, 07:21 AM
StreamLight StreamLight is offline
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Going back on the issue of Hospitals , I even came across a Hospital group that built a 1000 Server data Center, and I could not figure out why. Sure they had an 8 million medical record database, but that does not mean anything, pure disk space. It is the no. of concurrent users, and I would expect that out of these 8 m records, the no. of concurrent user queries or active patients is not going to be more then few percent at any one time.
As I said in my previous post, there was a wide divergence of small server rooms per hospital independent of the size of the hospital or no. of beds, anything from 10 servers to 80 and in some cases 100 servers per hospital. One gets the impression is that they are building far excess capacity because they have the $$ to build and not based on any formal sizing process.

Looking at facebook and google who have in excess of 1 billion queries per month, this gives google with its 990k plus servers an average of 86 seconds per user (query) per CPU. That means that google and also Facebook has put in far excess capacity at their data centers then current load requirements.

A true and a real simulation program to work has to look at a number of factors
Operating Systems Performance and Latency
Its multi tasking capability
CPU Performance Clock Speed
Multi Processor capability
IO Handling
Interrupt handling
Disk Performance
Disk Caching
Memory Caching
Network Performance
Core Architecture

It is quiet complicated and i would suggest putting an MS or a PhD student on this at some university . It would take a year to do all the requirement analysis and the research.

TIA
Streamlight
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Old 09-17-2016, 08:08 AM
SmithJaxon55 SmithJaxon55 is offline
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Default Calculating total no. Of server requirement for a datacenter?

The requirement of the total number of servers in a data center is completely dependent on the quality of data, stored in the data center. While designing a data center, people must take the assistance of any knowledgeable data center expert, who is well-aware of how many servers must be there in a data center. The services for designing a data center offered by this organization are quite notable. I took their services and really became highly satisfied with their services.
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