NFC S4 Mini #083 - Safety Orange

[BirdofPrey]

Come now, we're geeks, we love to talk tech.

Anyways, I meant more what you are using the network to move rather than operating details. Usually you see 40G networks in places like datacenters that are serving thousands of requests every minute or places that do video moving raw image/video files and renders.

Regardless, a build your own router thing sounds neat.

lol



But seriously, I don't mind this kind of thing. I think it's cool to see people with deep technical expertise in things like that. It's especially neat to see how SFF contributes to your otherwise unrelated field.

Meh, routers with only a few ports aren't all that big, never were, but they are usually either nondescript or ugly, which won't be a problem with this case.

 

[rokabeka]

Just be sure to brief the people at the demos of the hardware inside, many people not deep into hardware still think a PC's size is more or less equal to its performance.

that's the whole trick. it is a performance demo and the audience has the knowledge about the usual performance they used to have from a regular servers. With our new generation of software we're showing a comparable performance in such a tiny box.

Come now, we're geeks, we love to talk tech.

Anyways, I meant more what you are using the network to move rather than operating details. Usually you see 40G networks in places like datacenters that are serving thousands of requests every minute or places that do video moving raw image/video files and renders.

there are two main areas we are offering this platform for:
software based routing with subscriber services (it means e.g. terminating mobile subscribers or private networks, etc)
and we offer a service to the providers that they can run anything they want and what they usually run on big badass servers (e.g. deep packet inspection or charging or as you mentioned any sort of caching).
we are scaling up and down really well and efficiently and in many cases it is much more simplier and cheaper to install a tiny box than routing whole traffic to an already installed server somewhere else not to mention the latency.

Meh, routers with only a few ports aren't all that big, never were, but they are usually either nondescript or ugly, which won't be a problem with this case.

very true. I wanted to bring it up as a point in my answer to Phuncz but finally did not.

 

[Phuncz]

that's the whole trick. it is a performance demo and the audience has the knowledge about the usual performance they used to have from a regular servers. With our new generation of software we're showing a comparable performance in such a tiny box.

Excellent, be sure to let us know how it goes ! There's nothing like holding something small in your hand people don't recognize and say: "this little box replaces -all of that-".

 

[BirdofPrey]

I'd love to put together a server with a few quadros or fire pros, set it up as a VM server and run several virtual gaming machines in the space one usually takes up and bring it to a LAN party.

Speaking of virtual machines. I see a lot of cheap Dells in offices and schools, and while they are fairly small and low power, for running Word and Excell or other office software, they could probably get by hooking a bunch of things clients to a central server of moderate power.

 

[EdZ]

I'd love to put together a server with a few quadros or fire pros, set it up as a VM server and run several virtual gaming machines in the space one usually takes up and bring it to a LAN party.

Speaking of virtual machines. I see a lot of cheap Dells in offices and schools, and while they are fairly small and low power, for running Word and Excell or other office software, they could probably get by hooking a bunch of things clients to a central server of moderate power.

That's pretty much what Linus Tech Tips' 8 gamers 1 CPU build is.

 

[BirdofPrey]

I actually meant to mention it, then forgot to.
I think he used desktop hardware rather than server/workstation stuff, though.

 

[jeshikat]

It's a mix of server/workstation hardware and ethusiast/gaming stuff: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/519293-7-gamers-1-cpu-ultimate-virtualized-gaming-build-log/

ECC RAM, dual Intel Xeon E5 2697 V3, and ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS board on the server/ws half and 7x Nano's, CaseLabs S8, EVGA T2 1600W, water cooling stuff on the gaming half.

 

[Phuncz]

I would guess the FirePro or Quadro are bad choices for gaming unless they are hardware identical to a consumer card and can be installed as such by the guest VM. AMD Radeon cards can be passed-through a VM without issue, Nvidia Geforce cards have restrictions for this.

 

[EdZ]

It's a mix of server/workstation hardware and ethusiast/gaming stuff: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/519293-7-gamers-1-cpu-ultimate-virtualized-gaming-build-log/

ECC RAM, dual Intel Xeon E5 2697 V3, and ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS board on the server/ws half and 7x Nano's, CaseLabs S8, EVGA T2 1600W, water cooling stuff on the gaming half.

The second build (8/10 Gamers 1 CPU) used a Supermicro 4028GR-TRT case & board, dual Xeon E5-2699 V4, and 8x 980Tis and 2x Titan X's. Unlike the first build, instead of direct connection to the motherboard USB ports and video card outputs, clients were remote boxes (NUC-like Zotac boxes) with video streamed over a network.

 

[iFreilicht]

Speaking of virtual machines. I see a lot of cheap Dells in offices and schools, and while they are fairly small and low power, for running Word and Excell or other office software, they could probably get by hooking a bunch of things clients to a central server of moderate power.

My school did that for our computer science classes. Turns out the CS teachers were quite capable sysadmins as well.

The second build (8/10 Gamers 1 CPU) used a Supermicro 4028GR-TRT case & board, dual Xeon E5-2699 V4, and 8x 980Tis and 2x Titan X's. Unlike the first build, instead of direct connection to the motherboard USB ports and video card outputs, clients were remote boxes (NUC-like Zotac boxes) with video streamed over a network.

Neat, I liked the one with the R9 Nanos but this is pretty cool as well.

EDIT: Why the hell where they using open-air coolers? Blowers are the only correct choice in a setup like this!

there are two main areas we are offering this platform for:
software based routing with subscriber services (it means e.g. terminating mobile subscribers or private networks, etc)
and we offer a service to the providers that they can run anything they want and what they usually run on big badass servers (e.g. deep packet inspection or charging or as you mentioned any sort of caching).
we are scaling up and down really well and efficiently and in many cases it is much more simplier and cheaper to install a tiny box than routing whole traffic to an already installed server somewhere else not to mention the latency.

That's what I was searching for. I read your technical post and asked myself "what the hell would someone use that for?", but caching alone seems like a very good use for a machine like this.

 

[rokabeka]

That's what I was searching for. I read your technical post and asked myself "what the hell would someone use that for?", but caching alone seems like a very good use for a machine like this.

this machine is intended to work close to the edge routers, so two interfaces can be enough because the aggregated traffic is already there. caching is an example to understand how this machine can be used but actually this one will not have serious storage for that. but the same way you can have an aggregated traffic and centralizing caching there you also can have e.g. charging if you make all the subscriber session handling there. so the actual routing is done by dedicated routing hardware (cisco/juniper/ericsson/etc) but the fancy and flexible features running on this box. but the same framework can be used in quad socket servers where you add e.g. 12 2x40G cards and that setup can work as a real router.

 

[Phuncz]

EDIT: Why the hell where they using open-air coolers? Blowers are the only correct choice in a setup like this!

The GPUs (and "Thin Clients") were sponsored by ZOTAC, so they didn't have a choice I'd reckon. The company probably didn't have any reference cooler cards left.

For rackmounted systems like this, you don't want/need any fans on your GPUs, the 80/92mm Delta ones in the front of the case are redundant, hot-swapable (should be) and very powerful. On the GPUs you'd just want as large heatsinks as possible:

Xeon Phi - Passive version (cooler by other fans)

Nvidia GRID K2

 

[rokabeka]

During the tests I have something similar on the CPU, too.

 

[iFreilicht]

For rackmounted systems like this, you don't want/need any fans on your GPUs, the 80/92mm Delta ones in the front of the case are redundant, hot-swapable (should be) and very powerful. On the GPUs you'd just want as large heatsinks as possible:

Yeah that's the way to go. I guess part of the sponsorship was the agreement that the Zotac branding would be visible on the cards in the video.
He even said that there was thermal throttling.

 

[rokabeka]

temporary housing with high level of mess

 

[jeshikat]

temporary housing with high level of mess

If that's a "high level of mess" then my typical build must be a natural disaster taking place in an active warzone.

 

[rokabeka]

If that's a "high level of mess" then my typical build must be a natural disaster taking place in an active warzone.

there is no power yet in the case so I can get closer to your typical builds then after a while

 

[rokabeka]

I should have done a video like this before.
just seen it linked in the DAN A4 Linustech topic.
I was so proud of my choice of components but apparenty everebody comes to the very same conclusion

edit: makes sense. the number of available components is much smaller. on narrow ILM even smaller. finally no other heatsink is designed for 135W here. there are only two motherboards with socket 2011-3. so as of now this is rather a standard than a wise choice.

 

[Phuncz]

If that's a "high level of mess" then my typical build must be a natural disaster taking place in an active warzone.

For shame Aiboh, for shame ! I'm so OCD about cabling, people can spot cases I've done (at work, friends/family) just by cabling, but I blame OCD every single time they see me having fun.

 

[jeshikat]

For shame Aiboh, for shame !

I know, I know. Good thing SilverStone's SFF units come with short and flexible cables now or all those pics of the Cerberus prototype would look much worse