How can a data center be built “fast, well, and cost-effectively”?
In the context of increasingly complex data applications, digital industrialization and industrial digitization are rapidly advancing. Businesses generally begin to move to the "cloud", and IT equipment that was originally used as auxiliary support has transformed into a core production tool. At the same time, with the transformation from "computing" to "intelligent computing", the computing needs of the entire society are growing exponentially, and data centers are developing towards intensification and scale. How to build a data center to be more efficient? In fact, users of ultra-large-scale data centers at home and abroad have already written their answers.
How to build a data center - heroes think alike
In the early days, the construction of Internet data centers consisted of a single server node. However, with the explosive growth of business volume and the increasing demand for computing power, the number of server deployments is increasing day by day. At the same time, there are more demands for cabling, heat dissipation, etc. , which also makes operation and maintenance more difficult. Faced with the same situation, ultra-large-scale data center users on both sides of the ocean handed over a similar answer.
Just around 2010, overseas social media giants and China's three ultra-large-scale cloud service providers BAT unanimously focused on the whole cabinet server, a product form that was completely different from the past. This disruptive architectural design has brought 38% energy efficiency improvement and 24% operating cost savings to overseas social media giants. It has also set a delivery record for Baidu of tens of thousands of nodes in eight hours. The opportunity for overseas social media giants to launch a full-rack server project lies in the first self-built ultra-large-scale data center. They hope to build the world's most energy-efficient data center with unprecedented scalability and ultimate economy. So a small team of engineers spent two years designing and building the system from scratch: software, servers, cabinets, power supply and cooling. Open Rack, the most well-known whole cabinet server form in the industry, evolved step by step during this process.
The opportunity for BAT, China's three ultra-large-scale cloud service providers, to focus on full-rack servers also stems from the construction of self-built data centers, the reduction of procurement costs, the in-depth optimization of operating costs, and the challenges of future mass delivery. According to the then It takes a whole year to deliver a data center deploying 100,000 servers. Faced with the sudden and concentrated demand on the Internet - at this speed, "the day lily is cold", "fast" is the first thing that comes up. A demand.
With "fast" as the starting point, Inspur Information's path to complete cabinet products
Rapid delivery is not only an urgent need for customer data center construction, but also the starting point for R&D and innovation of complete cabinet server products. At that time, domestic informatization had just started, and the Internet business was far from being able to maintain a customized team with complete functions. Therefore, the road to innovation and practice of whole cabinet server products with "fast" as the starting point requires a team with rich product development experience and the courage to make breakthroughs step by step - in this context, Inspur Information Server Product Team Face difficulties and continue to explore shining needs and innovative possibilities in endless customer demand scenarios.
With the spirit of continuous expansion and exploration, the team finally proposed to break the shackles of general product form, extend the exploration to the scope of infrastructure, and completely subvert the traditional delivery, operation and maintenance, and application by building a "pooled" product. model. The inspiration for modular design, factory prefabricated production, and integrated delivery in the form of a complete cabinet gradually became clear through countless discussions and collisions, and the complete cabinet product was born. The whole cabinet product adopts high-density and integrated design, which saves deployment space and speeds up service delivery. Through centralized management, it simplifies operation and maintenance and easily realizes automatic service deployment. Make data center construction “faster, better and more economical”.
- Fast, using the L11 delivery model, the delivery efficiency is increased by more than 10 times. The complete cabinet product uses the cabinet to complete the assembly of PDU and other cabinet accessories in the factory, completes the rack installation of servers and switches, and completes the wiring in the cabinet and other assembly activities that originally need to be performed at the data center deployment site, in the form of complete cabinet particles. Transportation and final delivery reduce the difficulty of data center deployment and greatly shorten the time for equipment to be put on the shelves. At the same time, the benefits of L11 complete cabinet-level delivery are not only reflected in the reduction of time and labor costs, but also the shortening of the delivery time window and the significant reduction in the number of on-site delivery personnel, which are also of great benefit to ensuring the safe operation and data security of the data center. We can imagine that during the peak delivery period, in order to ensure the delivery efficiency of the traditional delivery model, it is necessary to maintain an implementation team of nearly a hundred people busy in the data center carrying the company's core business for nearly half a year. Key business applications and important data face the challenges The risks are self-evident. The delivery form of L11 complete cabinet can greatly reduce the impact on data center security caused by the long-term presence of a large number of implementation personnel.
- Well, a variety of node types can be deployed on demand, and the density of a single cabinet is increased by 100%. In order to meet the various application scenarios of users in different industries, the whole cabinet product provides high-density computing nodes for high-frequency computing scenarios, computing and storage balance nodes for big data applications, and liquid cooling nodes for better PUE income. Various nodes can be "selected and combined as needed" like building building blocks according to different business types. Moreover, the conventional 1U rack deployment of a single node is limited by the heat dissipation and board technology of the whole machine. It needs to be deployed at intervals, and the deployment density is limited. Through structural optimization, the whole cabinet server can be delivered in a high-density integrated manner, and the deployment density is increased by 100%. The construction cost of each cabinet is reduced by 80%.
- Save money, save effort in operation and maintenance, and save money in operating costs. Operation and maintenance has always been a major problem in data centers. The entire cabinet product adopts a front-node maintenance design. There are no cables at the rear of the cabinet. All operation and maintenance work can be performed in the cold aisle, and there are specially customized cable troughs on the inside of the cabinet. , advanced wiring design greatly reduces the difficulty of system operation and maintenance. Faced with the problem of data center operating costs arising from power consumption, Inspur Information's complete cabinet products use centralized power supply technology to pool the originally discrete power supplies. The original redundancy requirement for discrete power supply of general servers is 1+1. Taking 20 nodes as an example, 40 PSUs are required for power supply, and load balancing cannot be achieved between PSUs. When the server load is low, the power conversion efficiency is at a low level. . When the power supply is pooled in the form of a whole cabinet, the 20 nodes of the whole machine can adopt N+1 or N+2 (N+M) redundancy mode, significantly reducing the total number of PSUs. At the same time, load balancing can be achieved between the pooled PSUs. Combined with dynamic PSU energy-saving adjustment technology, when the load of the entire cabinet is low, redundant PSUs are shut down, always keeping the PSUs under high conversion rate loads and with higher efficiency. Therefore, centralized power supply technology can reduce the power cost of the entire cabinet in the TCO of the entire data center operation, and can also improve delivery efficiency. After calculation, the power supply efficiency can be increased by about 4%-5%, which greatly reduces power consumption, reduces data center operating costs, and helps achieve low-carbon goals.
With the accelerated integration of more general industries and digital technologies, the IT equipment of large enterprises such as banks and energy continues to increase. The area, power consumption and operation and maintenance difficulty of data centers are also increasing. The types of application systems are becoming more abundant. Inspur Information Machine Cabinet servers provide many industry users with IT solutions that have higher deployment density, lower power consumption, and easier operation and maintenance. The rich nodes can well meet the various application needs of industry users for data center transformation and upgrading. As the complete cabinet server with the highest market share in the industry, Inspur Information’s current total cabinet server shipments have exceeded 100,000 nodes, with a market share of more than 70%. In addition to being widely used in Internet companies at home and abroad, it has been used in finance, transportation, Energy and other industries have achieved large-scale deployment.