New ESX Host - Sun Fire X4600 M2 Server

[RogerAli]

Hey all,

We currently have 6 Dell 2950's with 16 GB of memory used for our current ESX 3.0.2 environment. We've got about 58 VM's spread across these hosts and I'm pleasantly happy with performance (we can get more out of these, just waiting on the ok to P2V more).

Today my director approached me and is interested in a migration or second Datastore hosted on SUN Fire x6400 M2 servers. While these are way more beefy than the current Dell 2950's I have, he is willing to jump to this platform and would like some detail info, which I can't get since I don't have these boxes to play with.

My question is, since the hardware in the SUN boxes is basically x86, would we benefit any from choosing SUN over say IBM, HP, or Dell boxes that can be configured in the following manner:

-4 Sockets - Dual or Quad Core (based on budget restrictions)

-64 GB of Memory

-4x GB NICs

Regardless of the host hardware chosen, the actual VMDK's are hosted on the SAN. My director is basically looking for some comparison like:

SUN hardware - 35 VM's per host

IBM hardware - 30 VM's per host

etc.

(Phew...this is getting long) I know HP has a sizing web page/tool on their site but I don't know if such a resource exists for IBM, Dell, or SUN so I can accurately make this comparison (if such a tool would provide an accurate guess is beyond me).

Thanks,

Roger

[mreferre]

Roger,

I am not sure a sizing guide will help you here. The fact is that the # of vm's you can support is very much dependent on their usage patterns and the differences that might exist among the various hw vendors are certainly not enough to overcome that.

You are right that since these are all x86 standard architectures so the differences are a bit limited. For the most part the differences you would find among these vendors are around the memory slots available, the I/O slots available and the management tools.

The only two differences I am aware of in terms of performance are:

\- on the 4-way Intel boxes we (IBM) has historically provided our own EXA chipset (Vs the standard Intel chipset) which has proven to be able to crunch more numbers than standard Intel based boxes. How much more depends on the actual processors being used, Intel chipset revision etc etc (i.e. typically during the life span of a CPU family generation Intel usually catches up ... but at day 0 of a given CPU architecture we usually have the lead).

\- on the 4-way AMD boxes we implement a particularly memory hard-wire that allows the bus to run at full DDR speed (667MHz) even when all memory slots are populated (while standard AMD boxes would have to turn to 533MHz when they all are).

Didn't want to play the role of the IBM sales here but I thought it was in line with the question posted here.

It must be noticed that I have never heard of an un-satisfied SUN, HP or Dell customer from a performance perspective so with either one of the 4 vendors mentioned you couldn't go wrong.

There are of course many other value items to investigate other than performance (relationship with the vendor etc etc).

Massimo.

[Ken_Cline]

I agree with Massimo (less the IBM sales pitch, of course )...

Mind if I ask why you're considering a move away from Dell? The move to a different HW vendor is going to require some retooling within your datacenter, with the associated costs (retraining of staff, possibly multiple licenses for the same type of tool, etc.). Unless you're unhappy with the service you're getting today from Dell (or IBM, or Sun, or Siemens, or HP, or whoever you're currently using in your datacenter), you will typically need to have a compelling financial justification to make the change worthwhile.

So...my recommendation - look at the WHOLE picture before making a change.

[mreferre]

Ken,

that was not a sales pitch ... it was a technical analysis ......

When I saw ...

>SUN hardware - 35 VM's per host

>IBM hardware - 30 VM's per host

.... I couldn't stand that ....

Joking aside I agree ...... As I have tried to stress usually the perf delta is not enough to off-set other attributes ... such as those that you pointed out.

Massimo.