Feb 25, 2020 17:00:00

Cloudflare follows the wave of adoption of AMD's second generation `` EPYC '', next-generation server eliminates Intel CPU

AMD's second-generation server CPU, EPYC, is gradually changing the server market that has been dominated by Intel, such

as being used in Google's cloud services . Cloudflare , a provider of content delivery networks, has adopted the second generation 'EPYC' in its next-generation server.

Cloudflare's Gen X: Servers for an Accelerated Future
https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-gen-x-servers-for-an-accelerated-future/

Cloudflare's servers are extremely expensive, and CPUs are often the

bottleneck . According to Cloudflare's blog post, Cloudflare's software group was known to improve performance by adding CPU cores, so when considering CPUs to be used in next-generation servers, cores rather than clocks were considered. The company emphasized efficiency in terms of number and power.

Investigations have shown that AMD's second-generation EPYC can handle customer workloads most efficiently, and Cloudflare uses the 48-core / 96-thread AMD EPYC 7642 for its next-generation server Gen X . For the first time, Cloudflare servers have eliminated Intel CPUs. Also, considering the impact of Intel on the server industry, Gen X does not use Intel products for parts other than CPU, such as memory and NIC . This contrasts with the current generation of servers that used custom Intel CPUs.

Gen X offers 36% more access processing power than the current generation of servers and a 50% improvement in the 99th percentile delay for

NGINX . In terms of power consumption, the total CPU TDP has been reduced from 300W to 225W. The adoption of the AMD EPYC 7742 with 64 cores / 128 threads was also considered, but it was determined that it was not suitable for Cloudflare's software group.

Cloudflare, who values server computing power, is also interested in platforms other than x86 . For example, when Qualcomm announced an ARM architecture server SoC from 2017, Cloudflare was also considering introducing an ARM architecture, but it was reported that Qualcomm was preparing to withdraw from the server SoC Finally, the introduction of the ARM architecture has vanished. However, Cloudflare states that it hopes to eventually implement a mixed x86 and ARM server configuration. In addition, Gen X has been built with PCIe slots in mind to provide room for improving computational efficiency with other platforms such as GPUs, FPGAs , and ASICs .

'Gen X' has many changes from the current generation server besides CPU. The memory capacity is fixed from 256GB, but the number of clocks is updated to 2933MHz. The storage capacity is still 3TB, and the connection method has been changed from SATA method to PCIe method using NVMe . The motherboard has returned from a multi-node configuration to a simple 1U configuration, aiming to reduce errors that occur during data center operation, and adding multiple new ODM partners to diversify parts supply. thing.

'A new generation of servers gives us the flexibility to build our network closer to every user on the planet,' commented Cloudflare.