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AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it has achieved the top spot on the VMware^® VMmark™ virtualization benchmark for x86 servers with the Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processor-based HP ProLiant DL585 G5. AMD now holds the top three spots on the 16-core VMmark benchmark. This latest result is further proof that Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors provide a high-performance virtualization solution that allows data center managers to make large-scale virtualization deployments and do so at an attractive price point.

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I had some problems compiling BLACS with OpenMPI and GCC on RHEL 5 / CentOS 5. So, here is how I got it to compile and pass the tests successfully:

OpenMPI: 1.2.5

GCC: 4.1.2

F77 = gfortran

F90 = gfortran

CC = gcc

CXX = g++

Bmake file used: BMAKES/Bmake.MPI-LINUX

Changes made to Bmake:

COMMLIB = MPI

#  ————————————-
#  Name and location of the MPI library.
#  ————————————-
MPIdir = /home/test/openmpi-install/
MPILIBdir =
MPIINCdir = $(MPIdir)/include
MPILIB =

SYSINC =

INTFACE = -DAdd_

TRANSCOMM = -DUseMpi2

WHATMPI =

SYSERRORS =

#=============================================================================
#=========================== SECTION 3: COMPILERS ============================
#=============================================================================
#  The following macros specify compilers, linker/loaders, the archiver,
#  and their options.  Some of the fortran files need to be compiled with no
#  optimization.  This is the F77NO_OPTFLAG.  The usage of the remaining
#  macros should be obvious from the names.
#=============================================================================
F77            = $(MPIdir)/bin/mpif77
F77NO_OPTFLAGS =
F77FLAGS       = $(F77NO_OPTFLAGS) -O3 -mtune=amdfam10 -march=amdfam10
F77LOADER      = $(F77)
F77LOADFLAGS   =
CC             = $(MPIdir)/bin/mpicc
CCFLAGS        = -O3 -mtune=amdfam10 -march=amdfam10
CCLOADER       = $(CC)
CCLOADFLAGS    =
Of special importance are the flags:

INTFACE = -DAdd_

TRANSCOMM = -DUseMpi2

If INTFACE is not set correctly, make tester will fail with following messages:

blacstest.o(.text+0x4c): In function `MAIN__':

: undefined reference to `blacs_pinfo_’

blacstest.o(.text+0×6e): In function `MAIN__’:

: undefined reference to `blacs_get_’

blacstest.o(.text+0×8b): In function `MAIN__’:

: undefined reference to `blacs_gridinit_’

blacstest.o(.text+0×94): In function `MAIN__’:

More such errors follow.

If TRANSCOMM is not set correctly, make tester will complete sucecssfully and you will be able to successfully execute C interface tests also. When executing FORTRAN interface tests, the following messages are seen:

BLACS WARNING ‘No need to set message ID range due to MPI communicator.

‘from {-1,-1}, pnum=1, Contxt=-1, on line 18 of file ‘blacs_set_.c’.
BLACS WARNING ‘No need to set message ID range due to MPI communicator.’
from {-1,-1}, pnum=3, Contxt=-1, on line 18 of file ‘blacs_set_.c’.
BLACS WARNING ‘No need to set message ID range due to MPI communicator.’
from {-1,-1}, pnum=0, Contxt=-1, on line 18 of file ‘blacs_set_.c’.
BLACS WARNING ‘No need to set message ID range due to MPI communicator.’
from {-1,-1}, pnum=2, Contxt=-1, on line 18 of file ‘blacs_set_.c’.
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30119] *** An error occurred in MPI_Comm_group
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30118] *** An error occurred in MPI_Comm_group
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30118] *** on communicator MPI_COMM_WORLD
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30118] *** MPI_ERR_COMM: invalid communicator
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30119] *** on communicator MPI_COMM_WORLD
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30119] *** MPI_ERR_COMM: invalid communicator
[comp-pvfs-0-7.local:30119] *** MPI_ERRORS_ARE_FATAL (goodbye) 

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In the previous post, we tried Hyper-V with only 16 cores as per the release notes. Now we addedd another 8 CPUS (16 cores AMD Opteron) to the same system. This was to test the x64 Windows Server 2008 on 32 cores than Hyper-V. We already did this for the x86 version here.

The system did boot up just fine. Here is a screen shot.

With that taken care of, we quickly browsed through the event logs to see if the Hyper-V service / hypervisor failed to start as per the release notes. There was no such message. The only way to test if the hypervisor has started or not is to fire up the Server Manager and try to boot up the virtual machines.

We were pleased to see that the hypervisor indeed started and there was no problem booting up the virtual machines. And here is a screenshot.

This opens up a wide range of usage cases. With appropriate capacity planning, the entire data center for a small company can be replaced with one 5U server and two for a highly available setup.

Cheers,

Kalyan

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After a successful install and test of x86 Windows Server 2008, it was time to put the x64 version through the same test.

We will talk about the x64 installation and experiences in another post.In this post, we will focus on the Hyper-V installation, configuration and experiences on our 16 core AMD Opteron server, A5808-32.

Hyper-V is the new Microsoft hypervisor technology included with certain SKUs of Windows Server 2008 x64 version. Hyper-V, included in the Windows Server 2008 RC1, is still in beta stages.

Installation:

Hyper-V is a new server role. This role has to be added after Windows Server 2008 installs and boots up. This installs the Hypervisor and reboots the server.

Now a new role shows up under “Roles” in the “Server Manager”. The new role is “Hyper-V” and has the new category “Microsoft Hyper-V Servers”. Your server will show up under this category. In the future, we may see other categories than just “Microsoft Hyper-V Servers”. This could be a place holder for the future management framework talked about here.

Creating a new VM is pretty straight forward. Select New->Virtual machine from the Server Manager and follow the wizard. Here is a screen shot of FedoraCore 6 x86_64 installation. Look, Ma … Linux on Windows!

Next up, Windows XP. Here is a screenshot of Windows XP install and FC6 & Windows XP VMs active on the Hyper-V server.

Over all experience:

It works well. We did not face any major issues with installation of Hyper-V or of VM’s. The management capabilities are polished. High Availability (HA) is implemented as a part of the Windows HA services.

There was no problem with mouse or keyboard inputs. No sticky mouse issues.

Certain Linux distros need noacpi flag to boot as VMs under Hyper-V.

Microsoft integration services CD ROM was not recognized by FC6. It logs “this disc does not contain any tracks I recognize.” Anyway, the integration services are suported only on Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows Server 2008.

Installation of both Windows XP and FC 6 was much longer than on VMWare or an actual system.

For a beta release, Hyper-V is suprisingly fully usable and comes fully integrated with Window Server 2008.

As per release notes, Hyper-V does not support more than 16 cores. So we configured our 32-core system with only 16 cores.

Future Work:

Test HA services

Capacity Planning

Quick Migration

Comments:

We used remote desktop connection to connect to the server and manage it. Once the mouse is captured inside the VM, there is no way to release it without going to the console of the Windows server and releasing it from there. Also the we could not use the mouse inside the FC6 from Remote Dektop. We could not find what the key sequence was to send Ctrl+Alt+<– to the remote machine using RemoteDekstop. Hopefully once a standalone application, like VI3, is released for Windows Hypervisor, it would be much easier to manage.

Edit:

If you are looking for detailed installation instructions, this post is useful.

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Windows Server 2008 hit RC1 milestone recently. Windows Server is a popular choice on our 8 socket Opteron server, A5808-32, for a number of customers. RC1 is a good time for small vendors to test the compatibility of the OS with their servers and storage.

Here is a screen shot of Windows Server 2008 RC1 with 32 cores - 8 sockets, quad core AMD Opteron. This is the x86 version with full install.

Notice in the screen shot a report from CPU-Z utility - 8 processors, 4 cores and processor model. Windows version is displayed in the winver dialog and on the extreme left is the list of processors from the windows device manager.

Installation experiences:

• First install hung at 60%. Cold restart
• No video driver. Standard VGA. Well, you wouldn’t want Aero interface on your server anyway. We did not try to install the Windows 2003 version of the driver as the display was very usable.
• All NIC’s successfully detected
• On-board SATA successfully detected
• 32-cores (8 sockets) successfully detected
• System was configured with only 16GB instead of the maximum 256GB. We do not see any issues for use with 256GB
• iSCSI initiator successfully mounted a remote volume
• Windows “System” control panel applet does not display processor or memory details.

Now to try the x64 and Hyper-V versions. Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Kalyan

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Trying VMotion was a natural next step after our success in initial tests with VMWare ESX on A5808-32. iSCSI services on HiPerStor provide for a very affordable shared storage for VMWare ESX. Well, lets jump right in. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, what a pleasant way to start the day!

After many successful tests yesterday (instal & test, iSCSI & NFS), I populated the system with 8 quad core AMD Opteron processors and left for the day hoping to come back and fire up ESX on 32 cores.

And here it is …. ESX working like a charm on 32 cores.

I hope to get those VMMark numbers out soon!

 Cheers,

Kalyan

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After we successfully installed and tested VMWare ESX server 3.5 with Linux and Windows machines, it was time to test HiPerStor with VMWare ESX server.

If you are not familiar with HiPerStor, it is a storage product from HPC Systems, Inc. featuring support for NFS, SMB/CIFS, iSCSI and Apple shares. read more about it here.

To start with, we would like to use the iSCSI target features of HiPerStor and add a new VMFS datastore to our ESX server. ESX comes with a builtin iSCSI initiator and hence there is no need for additional iSCSI hardware.

Since the HiPerStor has no default iSCSI volumes defined, the first step is to open up the web management GUI and add a new iSCSI volume. With that taken care of, ESX server has to be configured, as follows, to be able to access iSCSI volumes.

• Create VMKernel port group
• A corresponding Service Console port group on the same subnet as the VMKernel port group
• Enable ESX software iSCSI initiator
• Discover new LUNs after configuring appropriate security settings
• Utilize the new storage device as VMFS datastore

None of the above steps posed any serious challenges. Discovering the iSCSI volumes was a breeze. However, we need to manually initate a “rescan” on the software iSCSI initator before the LUNs show up in a reasonable time. ESX was also happy to extend an already “hybrid” VMFS datastore we created earlier (SCSI partition on LSI controller + raw SATA disk on on-board controller). Well, thats nice.

But for now, I chose to create a separate datastore from the iSCSI volume so it will show up in the following screenshot.

You can also notice in the screenshot that there is also an NFS datastore created from an NFS share on HiPerStor. There cannot be a better testament to the versatility of HiPerStor than this screenshot. You should also know that the same HiPerStor system is concurrently serving up a bunch of CIFS shares as well. On the background you can catch a glimpse of the HiPerStor management GUI.

Now, to install a VM on the iSCSI datastore and boot it up. For this time, lets try it with SLES 10. And here is a screenshot of SLES 10 up & running successfully from the iSCSI datastore provided by our own HiPerStor.

You can notice in the background, the datastore information for this VM (SLES 10) and other key parameters. 

Next up: time measurements of booting up a VM from local disk and VM from an iSCSI disk, if I can figure out a way to measure the time accurately.

EDIT: I had to login to the ESX server and execute the commands to enable iSCSI before I could see the LUNs from the storage server.

Cheers,

Kalyan

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A slight deviation from the benchmarking exercise - VMWare

We started testing VMWare ESX 3.5 on our A5808-32 8 socket AMD Opteron server. To start with, we populated the system with only 4 socket instead of all 8 and 8 GB RAM. We are using the LSI Logic PCI-Express SCSI adapter instead of the on-board SATA controller. The installation succeeded without any issues.

We decided to use the local SCSI disk to hold all the VMs. When the system booted, we had a surprise in store. ESX also detected the on-board SATA controllers. We promptly shut down the system, added a few SATA drives to the on-board controller and as expected, ESX was happy to use the SATA drives as VMFS data stores. This was a pleasant surprise. However, we are yet to test if ESX will be happy to install ESX on to a SATA drive.

Please note that using SATA drives for your VMFS data store is really a bad idea. Only because SATA drives cannot provide the reliability of a SAS or SCSI drive. Performance also will be an issue when using SATA drives for creating your VMFS data stores.

We did face a small problem after initial boot up. ESX partitioned the SCSI drive in to the standard layout it needs:

/boot

/var/log

vmfs

vmkcore

But after bootup, VI client refused to see the local vmfs partition as a valid data store. A little search on the internet and this thread helped us fix that issue.

To test the SATA drive, we extended the vmfs3 partition (data store) on the SCSI drive with the SATA drive and it worked like a charm. Now we have a VMFS data store that is spanned across a partition on the SCSI drive and a full SATA drive connected to a totally different controller.

Well, we know it boots up fine. Time to install a VM. We quickly created a VM to install CentOS 5.0 64-bit ans fired up the VM. Here is a screen shot of the install.

And here is a screen shot of the virtual machine booted up. You can also see the firefox window open in the background.

The obvious next step was to try Windows. Here is a screen shot of Windows 2003 Standard Edition 64-bit installation.

Windows Server 2003 R2 up & running.

In a nutshell, VMWare ESX 3.5 installed and working successfully on A5808-32.

What is next?

• Use HiPerStor as datastore

• VMWare VMMark test results

• More workloads with VMWare on A5808-32

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Kalyan

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In the continuing posts regarding our benchmarking exercise, we now share the memory latencies on AMD Opteron 2354.

 The setup is essentially same as described in the previous posts. I will refrain from detailing the same for brevity.

LMBench 3.0 Alpha 8 was used to measure the memory latencies.

Here are the numbers:

L1 cache: 1.366 ns

L2 cache: 5.99 ns

Main Memory: 89.1

Random Memory: 184.0

The latencies look good so far.  The main memory latency is little bit higher than the latency from AMD Opteron 22xx series. However, Opteron 23xx series has an additional shared L3 cache of 2 MB. From other reviews on the web, it look slike this additional L3 cache is adding the latency.

Its the first cut … More numbers too come soon.

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