The technology research company Gartner recently released its worldwide server market report for 2019. According to the report, Huawei ranks No. 1 in 4-socket (4S) rack server shipments in both the global and China markets, thanks to the continued success of its FusionServer Pro series.
The Huawei FusionServer Pro V5 series servers comprise the 2488 V5, 2488H V5, and 5885H V5 4-socket servers, which all run on the Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor platform as well as Huawei’s leading reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features and Fault Diagnosis System (FDM). Each model is designed to answer the pain points of different application scenarios, but all provide accurate and immediate response to fault alarms. FusionServer Pro V5 delivers industry-leading availability, serviceability, and reliability, making it a smart choice for those running large databases, ERP, CRM, big data analysis, high-performance computing, or virtualization applications.
HuaweiHuawei ranks No. 1 in x86 4-socket server shipments in the global market (2019)
HuaweiHuawei ranks No. 1 in x86 4-socket server revenue in the global market (2019)
The news that Huawei ranks No.1 for global shipments of 4-socket servers is no accident, but instead the result of long-term investments in high-quality technologies, architectures, and solutions. This has propelled Huawei to become an industry leader, providing its global customer base with a mission-critical computing platform featuring high reliability, high performance, and simplicity.
Huawei focuses on the evolution of servers from entry-level to high-end, from single-socket to multi-socket, and now to mission-critical servers. By gradually expanding and enriching its product lines, the 4-socket server is the latest in a star-studded lineup. The popularity of the 4-socket server will likely see more servers used in mission-critical service scenarios. For server vendors, there is greater competition than ever to produce high-performance, stable 4-socket servers that can be used in mission-critical service.
When it comes to mission-critical servers, it’s necessary to talk about RAS. RAS is more important than ever because it is closely related with performance and price, and because these features determine the reliability of mission-critical services. In the event a fault occurs on mission-critical services, the loss is inestimable and can impact the operation and even reputation of an enterprise.
RAS comprises the end-to-end details in server design, such as heat dissipation, processors, and disk arrays, as well as those for the system, CPU, memory, I/O devices, and more.
Huawei offers industry-leading levels of reliability in the design of every product—from chips to firmware—to ensure high reliability. The iBMC and BIOS developed by Huawei can detect and rectify faults before the operating system by using the firmware priority mode. These technologies can also shield 60% of faults that may cause the operating system to break down. In the storage control chip, Huawei uses the self-developed read/write wear leveling algorithm to ensure high reliability of service data and to effectively prevent problems such as early service life expiration of storage devices and data loss caused by unbalanced read/write operations of the storage chips.
Huawei 4-socket servers support 65 RAS features. By comparison, common 2-socket servers are equipped with fewer than 30 RAS features. Huawei's long-term strategy will see a steady, continuous investment in BIOS, iBMC management chip, and SSD control chip innovations, with the goal to provide better reliability, serviceability, maintainability, and assurance.
Huawei Purley platform servers feature proprietary and patented BIOS products that run on the Insyde codebase to offer RAS fault tolerance. The servers support storm suppression from the source of fault interruption to mitigate the impact of massive faults within a short time on services, improving the system reliability. In terms of availability, the system detects CPU, core, UPI, or memory faults during startup, and then accurately locates and isolates the faults. The system can be started after fault isolation so that maintenance time can be scheduled for replacement. In terms of maintainability, a fault re-examination mechanism is supported before memory module replacement in the case of threshold crossing upon a memory fault. This is to precisely locate the faulty memory module and prevent premature memory module replacement.
With the rapid demand for faster, “greener,” and more reliable SSD storage, Huawei developed SSD controller chips to fully utilize the performance of flash memory. In addition to I/O improvement, the SSD service life is also improved by using unique algorithms such as wear leveling, LDPC, dynamic RAID, and data inspection.
The Huawei iBMC function is embedded in the FDM fault management system, which changes maintenance from passive to active. iBMC allows you to perform a series of comprehensive functions such as pre-fault management, and monitoring of servers, CPU core temperature and voltage, fan speed, PSU faults, and bus faults. It can save the last information displayed on the screen before the server breaks down for fault locating, and also supports real-time screen snapshots. You can set a scheduled or periodic screen snapshot without manually checking the server, cutting the time and effort that maintenance personnel spend on daily operations.
Huawei understands the need for high-quality RAS, and will continue to invest in R&D. Looking forward, Huawei is focused on improving server quality and making computing intelligent.
According to the ITIC 2018 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report, the Huawei servers meet enterprise requirements by delivering 99.99% uptime and 99.999% availability.
HuaweiSource: ITIC 2018 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report
Over the past 18 years, Huawei has continuously innovated in server technologies, and its products set a benchmark in terms of ultimate performance and solid reliability. To help with customers' digital transformation, Huawei servers help protect initial investments and reduce O&M costs thanks to future-oriented technology, meeting diversified service requirements of today and tomorrow.
Learn more about Huawei FusionServer Pro.