Reinventing Storage for Social Networks with Intel® Xeon® Gold CPUs, Intel® Optane™ persistent memory, Intel® SSDs, and the Intel® PAC with Intel® Arria® 10 GX FPGA
Social networking is hugely data intensive. Consequently, data storage consumes a significant part of the budget for VK, Russia’s largest social network. In 2019, VK had 97 million monthly active users. 1 Every day, users view 9 billion posts and 650 million videos, and they exchange 10 billion messages. 2 They tap the “like” button a billion times a day. 1 Over the course of a year, VK users upload hundreds of petabytes of new data, including photos and videos. 2 VK has modernized its tiered storage using Intel® Xeon® Gold CPUs, Intel® Optane™ persistent memory, Intel® Optane™ SSDs, Intel® SSDs with non-volatile memory express (NVMe), and Intel® FPGA Programmable Acceleration Cards (Intel® PACs) with Intel® Arria® 10 GX FPGAs. As a result, VK expects to realize significant financial savings while improving performance. More specifically: Upgrading the server processor from the Intel Xeon Gold 6230 processor to the Intel Xeon Gold 6238R processor cut the compute cost by 40 percent and improved performance per watt by 72 percent 2 , according to VK. VK introduced Intel Optane persistent memory for the rating counter servers that support the newsfeed, migrating data away from more expensive DRAM. VK upgraded the storage for frequently accessed data in its content delivery network (CDN) to Intel SSDs with 3D NAND technology, and moved the most frequently used data to Intel Optane SSDs. VK is deploying Intel PACs with Intel Arria 10 GX FPGAs to reduce storage requirements and provide faster image conversion using the FPGA-based, high-performance CTAccel image-processing accelerator to convert images on-the-fly from a stored, high-resolution master as they are requested by users. VK’s image storage strategy eliminates the need to store multiple versions of the same image at different resolutions and saves storage space. VK reported that it was able to consolidate servers at a ratio of 2:1 using the new storage solution while supporting the continued data growth with storage of up to 0.408 PB in 1U servers and reducing power and cooling costs. 2 A new, detailed case study with ample technical details titled “Reinventing Storage for Social Networks with Intel® Technology“ is now available for download on the Intel Web site. Click on the link to review this new case study and to download the PDF. Intel’s silicon and software portfolio empowers our customers’ intelligent services from the cloud to the edge. Notices & Disclaimers 1 Data from https://vk.com/about 2 These results were reported to Intel by VK based on configurations that included the listed Intel components. Tests carried out by VK April-November 2019. Configurations: OLD CDN servers: 2 x Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2670 v2 or 2 x Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2680 v4, SATA SSDs, DRAM, 2 x 10 Gb/s Ethernet cards NEW CDN servers: 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 6238R processors or 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 6230, Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P4800X SSDs, 6 x Intel® SSD D5-P4320, DRAM, SATA SSD, 2 x 25 Gb/s Intel® Ethernet Adapter XXV710-DA2. Software: cache_api, nginx, Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME). OLD rating counters servers: 2 x Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2680 v4, SATA SSD (boot device), DRAM, 2 x 10 Gb/s Ethernet cards NEW rating counters servers: 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 6238R processors or 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 6230, 12 x Intel® Optane™ persistent memory, DRAM, SATA SSDs (boot device), 2 x 25 Gb/s Intel® Ethernet Adapter XXV710-DA2. Software: customized version of Memcached. Microcode for Intel® Xeon® Gold 6230: 0x500002c Microcode for Intel® Xeon® Gold 6238R: 0x0500002f 2 Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No product or component can be absolutely secure. Check with your system manufacturer or retailer or learn more at www.intel.com. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more complete information visit www.intel.com/benchmarks. Performance results may not reflect all publicly available security updates. No product or component can be absolutely secure. Optimization Notice: Intel’s compilers may or may not optimize to the same degree for non-Intel microprocessors for optimizations that are not unique to Intel microprocessors. These optimizations include SSE2, SSE3, and SSSE3 instruction sets and other optimizations. Intel does not guarantee the availability, functionality, or effectiveness of any optimization on microprocessors not manufactured by Intel. Microprocessor-dependent optimizations in this product are intended for use with Intel microprocessors. Certain optimizations not specific to Intel microarchitecture are reserved for Intel microprocessors. Please refer to the applicable product User and Reference Guides for more information regarding the specific instruction sets covered by this notice. Notice Revision #20110804. Intel does not control or audit third-party data. You should consult other sources to evaluate accuracy. Your costs and results may vary. Intel disclaims all express and implied warranties, including without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, as well as any warranty arising from course of performance, course of dealing, or usage in trade. © Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.SIGMOD/DaMoN 2020 Workshop on Data Management on New Hardware Keynote to Focus on Database Acceleration Through Coherent Attachment to Servers
José Roberto Alvarez, Senior Director and leader of the Technology and Innovation CTO Office at the Intel Programmable Solutions Group, will be giving the keynote speech at the 16th International Workshop on Data Management on New Hardware (DaMoN 2020) on Monday, June 15, 2020. His keynote title is “A Vision for Expandable Data Management Infrastructure and Acceleration with Heterogenous Configurable Systems.” Alvarez will discuss the ways that FPGAs can provide faster look-aside and inline acceleration for CPU/storage, CPU/memory, CPU/network, and network/storage paths through coherent attachment to server CPUs. Heterogenous compute systems centered around FPGAs can help data center architects meet TCO, performance, and power density goals. He will also discuss specific FPGA features including the Intel UPI and open CXL coherent interconnect protocols that expand and accelerate server access to DDR SDRAM, Intel® Optane™ persistent memory and persistent storage, and high-speed networks through Intel FPGAs. In addition to these device and platform features, Alvarez will discuss how software developers can use such platforms using Intel® OneAPI toolkits. The DaMoN Workshop is part of the SIGMOD/PODS conference. Registration for the DaMoN workshop is through the SIGMOD/PODS 2020 conference registration site. The event is virtual this year. For more information about the DaMoN Workshop, click here. To register, click here. Intel’s silicon and software portfolio empowers our customers’ intelligent services from the cloud to the edge. Notices and Disclaimers Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more complete information visit www.intel.com/benchmarks. Performance results are based on testing as of dates shown in configurations and may not reflect all publicly available updates. See backup for configuration details. No product or component can be absolutely secure. Your costs and results may vary. Intel technologies may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. © Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.