AMD to Power TELUS' New Virtual Private Cloud

[Cristian_25H]

AMD today announced that TELUS, a leading Canadian telecommunications company, has chosen AMD Opteron processors to power its latest offering, the TELUS AgilIT Virtual Private Cloud. The TELUS AgilIT Virtual Private Cloud, announced today, offers AMDs' immense processing capabilities at outstanding power/performance per-dollar.

TELUS chose AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors as well as the new AMD Opteron 6200 Series processors, which are based on the high-throughput core formerly codenamed "Bulldozer," to power its cloud. AMD's high-performance server processors are ideal to help TELUS deliver computing resources on-demand across three world-class data centers located in Canada.



"In a data center, performance per-watt per-dollar is the most important metric used to calculate the true cost of a processor," said Tony Krueck, vice president of Business Products and Services, TELUS. "In our evaluation, our AMD-based servers use less power than comparable x86 solutions for the same workload, and are dramatically less expensive. And of course less power requires less cooling, adding even more savings to the equation. AMD was an obvious and easy choice."

"AMD Opteron processors are helping TELUS deliver a high performance, energy-efficient cloud solution," said Vladimir Rozanovich, vice president, North America Commercial Business, AMD. "AMD server solutions continue to be recognized by leading cloud providers, including TELUS, as a superior and efficient choice to deliver the services their customers demand in a cost effective way."

The TELUS AgilIT Virtual Private Cloud service allows businesses of all sizes access to on-demand computing resources, with a powerful, full-featured portal providing 24x7 remote access to their cloud, and a centralized view of cloud-based activity.

[ChristTheGreat]

And what about the Electrical consumption? If the first 2 years, AMD cost less, but after 4, with the electrical consumption AMD cost more....

Anyway, that is a good news for AMD. Happy to hear that

[repman244]

TELUS chose AMD Opteron 6100 Series processors

I wonder why

[Dos101]

Cool! Good to hear some companies are still choosing AMD. Now if Telus could finally push the Mediaroom 2.1 update to my STB that would make my day.

[AlienIsGOD]

Telus FTW my wife uses a Telus fone

[seronx]

Originally Posted by repman244

I wonder why

It says it uses 6200s as well. LTR.

[Zubasa]

Servers are about the only thing that the Bulldozer / Interlagos is good for.

Originally Posted by repman244

I wonder why

L2Read maybe?

[Thefumigator]

What's wrong with the optys? Apart from anandtech review which is wrong in my opinion.

Also, HE versions are really power efficient. They are perfect for a cloud.

[suraswami]

Bulldozer is best suited for multi-threaded apps and hence servers and virtuals suits best.

[arakan94]

Originally Posted by ChristTheGreat

And what about the Electrical consumption? If the first 2 years, AMD cost less, but after 4, with the electrical consumption AMD cost more....

Anyway, that is a good news for AMD. Happy to hear that

"In our evaluation, our AMD-based servers use less power than comparable x86 solutions for the same workload, and are dramatically less expensive. And of course less power requires less cooling, adding even more savings to the equation. AMD was an obvious and easy choice."

They don't agree with you...

[ChristTheGreat]

Originally Posted by arakan94

"In our evaluation, our AMD-based servers use less power than comparable x86 solutions for the same workload, and are dramatically less expensive. And of course less power requires less cooling, adding even more savings to the equation. AMD was an obvious and easy choice."

They don't agree with you...

well, maybe it's different from the desktop CPU... as actually an AMD CPU at same performance vs intel consume more power. And I just saw that I miss that line hahaha.

But I find it very strange that AMD CPU consume less than Intel CPU on the server market as for desktop it's way different. But maybe it's where bulldozer is fast, on the server market. so at less speed, less power consumption, good performance, small price..

[arakan94]

Originally Posted by ChristTheGreat

well, maybe it's different from the desktop CPU... as actually an AMD CPU at same performance vs intel consume more power. And I just saw that I miss that line hahaha.

But I find it very strange that AMD CPU consume less than Intel CPU on the server market as for desktop it's way different. But maybe it's where bulldozer is fast, on the server market. so at less speed, less power consumption, good performance, small price..

well...
Bulldozer is server architecture...
They really improved troughput, which is, especially in cloud and virtualization, very important...

[Inceptor]

Originally Posted by ChristTheGreat

well, maybe it's different from the desktop CPU... as actually an AMD CPU at same performance vs intel consume more power. And I just saw that I miss that line hahaha.

But I find it very strange that AMD CPU consume less than Intel CPU on the server market as for desktop it's way different. But maybe it's where bulldozer is fast, on the server market. so at less speed, less power consumption, good performance, small price..

Don't forget that Opterons have lower clocks than the consumer versions; reducing voltage and clock speed drastically reduces power consumption.

[repman244]

Originally Posted by seronx

It says it uses 6200s as well. LTR

I know and I read it all, but you would expect them to buy the newest stuff on the market...you clearly didn't get what I was trying to say so..LTR

[ChristTheGreat]

Originally Posted by Inceptor

Don't forget that Opterons have lower clocks than the consumer versions; reducing voltage and clock speed drastically reduces power consumption.

But, Xeon server also, no? I would like to compare in real usage these two

[repman244]

Originally Posted by ChristTheGreat

But, Xeon server also, no? I would like to compare in real usage these two

Here are some comparisons :
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553/t...ge-for-servers
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5058/a...nterlagos-6200
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5279/t...-a-closer-look

[Super XP]

Originally Posted by ChristTheGreat

And what about the Electrical consumption? If the first 2 years, AMD cost less, but after 4, with the electrical consumption AMD cost more....

Anyway, that is a good news for AMD. Happy to hear that

They don't plan on Overclocking, on idle Bulldozer does just fine...

Originally Posted by repman244

Here are some comparisons :
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553/t...ge-for-servers
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5058/a...nterlagos-6200
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5279/t...-a-closer-look

Anandtech? They are way Pro Intel regardless. The same can be said about CPU Magazine.

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Super XP

Anandtech? They are way Pro Intel regardless. The same can be said about CPU Magazine.

Can you point out what exactly is pro Intel in those comparisons?

[Thefumigator]

Originally Posted by repman244

Can you point out what exactly is pro Intel in those comparisons?

-The use of dual socket configs instead of quad socket config where oterons would stomp everything. Yeah its not so cheap but the 64 cores are there and its possible to build it without breaking the bank.

-Comparing power consumption when 2 different psu were used in each system (the intel system runs a 80plus platinum PSU!)

-The use of a set of benchmarks for everything except cloud computing. While virtualization benchs is useful, its still not cloud computing.

-No linux tests.

-Of course intel is a great product. It just doesn't shine when they face a quad socket AMD opteron 6200 system. That's the important point, in my opinion.

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Thefumigator

-The use of dual socket configs instead of quad socket config where oterons would stomp everything. Yeah its not so cheap but the 64 cores are there and its possible to build it without breaking the bank.

-Comparing power consumption when 2 different psu were used in each system (the intel system runs a 80plus platinum PSU!)

-The use of a set of benchmarks for everything except cloud computing. While virtualization benchs is useful, its still not cloud computing.

-No linux tests.

-Of course intel is a great product. It just doesn't shine when they face a quad socket AMD opteron 6200 system. That's the important point, in my opinion.

- Quad socket Opteron would go head to head with E7/E5 Xeons (10 core/20 thread CPU's: http://ark.intel.com/products/53580/...-GTs-Intel-QPI), and also Xeon E5-4600 series), yes the cost of those Xeons (E7) is huge but it would be interesting to see the performance you get and the power consumption compared to quad BD setup
- The PSU is a valid point, but AFAIK all enterprise PSU's are in 90% efficiency +- few %, and I doubt there is a huge difference (even magny-cours Opterons are sometimes more power efficient), although I could be wrong
- You could think of many more benchmarks that haven't been used...no cloud computing makes them pro Intel?
- Does no Linux test make them pro Intel? I do understand why they should include linux tests but it would probably take even longer to tweak each system and get everything optimized (just me guessing)

BD offers very good performance for the price (and a lot of cores), but it's weakness is the performance per watt, which is very important when it comes to servers (most of the time it's more important then the initial cost of the system).

Also don't take my posts the wrong way, I'm not bashing BD Opterons or anything, I'm just comparing and discussing here

[Thefumigator]

Originally Posted by repman244

BD offers very good performance for the price (and a lot of cores), but it's weakness is the performance per watt, which is very important when it comes to servers (most of the time it's more important then the initial cost of the system).

yeah I agree that power consumption is important, but if you see the difference, is somewhat small. We are talking about a mere 1 to 10 watts (no more) in multitasking in favour of intel against a 6200. And on idle is even less specially thinking that those servers could be on idle a huge amount of hours. Who knows... They even didn't tested the HE versions.

Its a tradeoff really. In some cases one would be better than the other, and viceversa.

I finally think that if you are a medium computing enterprise, you should have both kind of servers.

What I don't like of anandtech review is like it feels rushed in. Of course is important to have a good preliminary review but if you are running a small office or small software company, or small medium cloud computing company, most likely you will go for the most cheap thing available. And quad socket from AMD is possible even for mere mortals like us, there's no quad socket mobo from intel in newegg, as far as I know.

So why intel is charging so much for the high end server parts? well, in a dataserver data itself could cost several millions so its a smart policy from intel to charge whatever they want, it will sell it anyway.

But in the end, these guys from TELUS choose AMD and I believe they had to have some good reasons to do so. I can Imagine they are not running dual socket, most likely quad socket. I see no other reason.

Agreed to add coolness to discussions, it wouldn't be so fun to discuss if not.

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Thefumigator

yeah I agree that power consumption is important, but if you see the difference, is somewhat small. We are talking about a mere 1 to 10 watts (no more) in multitasking in favour of intel against a 6200. And on idle is even less specially thinking that those servers could be on idle a huge amount of hours. Who knows... They even didn't tested the HE versions.

Its a tradeoff really. In some cases one would be better than the other, and viceversa.

I finally think that if you are a medium computing enterprise, you should have both kind of servers.

What I don't like of anandtech review is like it feels rushed in. Of course is important to have a good preliminary review but if you are running a small office or small software company, or small medium cloud computing company, most likely you will go for the most cheap thing available. And quad socket from AMD is possible even for mere mortals like us, there's no quad socket mobo from intel in newegg, as far as I know.

So why intel is charging so much for the high end server parts? well, in a dataserver data itself could cost several millions so its a smart policy from intel to charge whatever they want, it will sell it anyway.

But in the end, these guys from TELUS choose AMD and I believe they had to have some good reasons to do so. I can Imagine they are not running dual socket, most likely quad socket. I see no other reason.

Agreed to add coolness to discussions, it wouldn't be so fun to discuss if not.

Hmm now that I look at it more closely the difference in power consumption isn't big.
I had some experience with a 6 core HE version of Opteron (45nm) and I can tell you that those things run very very cool and the power consumption is just amazing, but didn't have a chance to play with the low power Xeons yet (L series Xeons).

Agree, that for smaller scale servers the initial cost becomes an important factor, but when it comes to larger scale (for example rendering farms) Intel, like you said, can charger whatever they want because those companies don't care so much for the initial cost as they care for the high performance.

Maybe with Piledriver Opterons AMD can further optimize the design (adding quad channel RAM, increasing IPC/clocks, and even adding more cores perhaps) and lowering the power consumption even further they could have a really good server CPU. BD is almost there but to me it just feels a bit unrefined (let's say a Phenom to Phenom II transition).

[Thefumigator]

Originally Posted by repman244

Maybe with Piledriver Opterons AMD can further optimize the design (adding quad channel RAM, increasing IPC/clocks, and even adding more cores perhaps) and lowering the power consumption even further they could have a really good server CPU. BD is almost there but to me it just feels a bit unrefined (let's say a Phenom to Phenom II transition).

Yeah everyone is waiting for piledriver actually
Most likely it needs to mature more.
Opterons don't run already on quad channel on socket G34?

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Thefumigator

Opterons don't run already on quad channel on socket G34?

I'm not sure about this one but I think they use double dual channel, I'll look into it more...

[arakan94]

Originally Posted by repman244

I'm not sure about this one but I think they use double dual channel, I'll look into it more...

They are using quad channel...