Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

The development of computer hardware technology is entering a new stage. in order to comply with the development trend of cloud computing, the focus of technological innovation of hardware manufacturers has shifted from desktop devices to server devices. Around the requirements of CAX software for hardware devices, we can briefly sort out the changes of current hardware devices:

Angular CPU central processing unit

At present, CPU technology is obviously divided into two directions: high performance and low power consumption, and it can also be divided into server side and client side according to the difference of application devices.

Server-side CPU still takes X86 architecture as the mainstream. Taking Intel as an example, E5 V3 series CPU is gradually becoming the best choice for enterprise computing center construction. A single CPU can easily break through 8 cores and support virtualization technology.

The CPU of the client is divided into high performance type and economic type. Take Intel as an example, the high-performance client CPU mainly includes core i7, i5 and other models, while the economic model is dominated by Ling Atom. As we all know, Atom is strongly influenced by ARM on the mobile side.

What makes people look forward to is that domestic CPU R & D manufacturers advance in the face of difficulties, Godson and Shenwei step by step, but so far they have not yet entered the enterprise server market.

IBM has vigorously promoted the OpenPower alliance in China and won a number of allies, but because of the particularity of CAX software ecology, it is difficult to migrate to OpenPower infrastructure in the future.

Starting from the application practice of CAX software, we still recommend that we choose the Intel brand as the main adaptation CPU, E7 and E5 series as the main server side, extensible CPU now, and i7 and i5 series as the desktop side.

Z. RAM memory

The development of memory technology is relatively stable, which can be divided into high-end server memory and ordinary PC memory. Server memory uses some unique technologies, such as ECC, ChipKill, hot plug technology, etc., with high stability and error correction performance.

For CAX software application scenarios, it is recommended to use memory above ECC DDR4 specification. If the data processing load is heavy, it is recommended that the memory configuration be as large as possible, or you can follow the simple rule of RAM / CPU Core > 8 to choose.

Angular DISK hard disk

Hard drives include solid state drives (SSD, new hard drives), mechanical hard drives (HDD traditional hard drives), and hybrid hard drives (HHD, a new hard disk based on traditional mechanical hard drives). SSD uses flash memory particles to store, HDD uses magnetic disk to store, hybrid hard disk (HHD: Hybrid Hard Disk) is a kind of hard disk that integrates magnetic hard disk and flash memory.

SSD hard disk can significantly improve the efficiency of CAX applications, but it has not been applied on a large scale due to the problems of capacity and cost. But it is worth noting that SanDisk bought Fusion-IO for $1.1 billion in 2014, and domestic manufacturer Huawei also began to launch enterprise-grade PCI-E solid-state drives. It is believed that in the near future, enterprise users will configure more solid state drives as CAX business computing resources, and many high-performance computing has adopted all-flash memory.

^ GPU GPU

Graphics processor (Graphics Processing Unit, abbreviation: GPU) is a kind of microprocessor that specializes in image operation. The main manufacturers are NVIDIA, INTEL and AMD.

At present, GPU has two important application directions, one is cloud computing, the other is accelerated computing. The application of GPU in cloud computing is mainly reflected in the suitability of virtualization architecture, such as NVIDIA's Grid K1/K2 and Tesla M6par M60, while GPU has made more achievements in accelerated computing. NVIDIA's P4max P40max P100gamV100 and so on have repeatedly made outstanding achievements in the competition to build a supercomputing center.

If CAX application scenarios need to develop cloud computing model or high-performance computing, we must consider the choice of GPU technology and products.

Z. Server server

The server market is treacherous. IBM has sold the whole global business of X86 servers to Lenovo. HP China has injected server, storage and technical services into Xinhua III and worked with Ziguang to build domestic brands. Only Dell and Cisco are still holding on to foreign service brands.

Domestic server brands take Lenovo, Huawei, Huasan, Chaozhou, dawning and so on as leaders, bringing more technological innovation and product integration to domestic users.

CAX application scenarios have stringent requirements on the performance and stability of the server, so enterprise users need to choose brand service providers carefully.

Angular Storage storage

Under the wave of cloud computing and big data technological change, the development of storage technology is changing with each passing day. There are three common storage methods: DAS, NAS and SAN, but many storage manufacturers have made a series of innovations in internal architecture, file format and so on.

Take Huawei's OceanStor 9000 as an example, which aggregates multiple storage nodes to form an overall NAS. Each node is not only a storage that provides capacity, but also a head that supports access. The performance of a single storage node is not necessarily excellent, but when the number of nodes reaches a certain number, its capacity and performance exceed the high-end traditional NAS. We call this architecture Scale-Out cluster. The internal file format is WushanFS and supports NAS access protocols such as NFS,CIFS,FTP. Through project practice, we find that distributed NAS devices are suitable for the management requirements of a large number of unstructured data generated by CAX applications, and will be widely used in advanced manufacturing industries in the future.

In addition, in the traditional parallel storage system, IBM's GPFS and DELLEMC's Islion still have strong market vitality and are suitable for CAE parallel computing scenarios in pursuit of performance.

A high-speed network

The high-speed network technology of server-side interconnection is developing rapidly, and the 10-gigabit network is usually used in the computing center. In the CAE parallel solution scenario in pursuit of MPI efficiency, Infiniband technology has become the mainstream. At present, the most cost-effective choice is 56Gb FDR Infiniband interconnected devices. 100Gb Infiniband devices are also coming into commercial use.

Considering the development trends of the above hardware devices, it is not difficult to find that the focus of the development of hardware devices has been completely inclined to the server side, which creates objective and convenient conditions for the centralization of CAX computing resources.

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