Case study: Intel Xeon Gold dedicated servers for single threaded applications

Enhancing performance with custom Intel Xeon Gold dedicated servers

A customer approached us needing high-frequency CPUs capable of running at 3.5GHz or higher for their single-threaded applications. They previously utilized the E3-1275v6 processor but found its four cores increasingly insufficient. To meet the growing demands, we recommended a robust solution: servers equipped with dual Intel Xeon Gold 6244 processors, each boasting 8 cores, manufactured by Supermicro for unparalleled reliability and performance.

Compared to the Xeon E3-1275v6, these servers provide four times the number of CPU cores per physical server at a speed similar to the Intel E3-1275v6 processor.

Single threaded application

Some applications are not designed to take advantage of many CPU cores, as some applications are designed to use just one CPU core per execution. An example of this is PHP and WordPress. Many CPU cores can handle many hits to a WordPress based website, but each hit can use only one CPU core. If each CPU core is slow, then page responsiveness is affected.

Tailoring a powerful solution

Our proposed dedicated servers, based on the Intel Xeon Gold, features the Intel Xeon Gold 6244 processor, offers a total of 16 cores per dedicated server (two CPUs, at 8 cores each), each at 3.6Ghz. This provides the high-frequency performance essential for their computational needs. The Supermicro brand server assures quality and durability, while the dual Intel Xeon Gold processors promises to significantly enhance operational capabilities.

Optimizing with Kubernetes and advanced storage

Utilizing Kubernetes, the customer efficiently spread their single threaded applications across all available cores, maximizing the servers' high computational power. We also integrated several 3.84TB NVMe drives in a RAID configuration, utilizing Avago LSI MegaRAID devices, providing the fast and reliable storage necessary for their high-performance requirements.

Enhanced network capacity

Each server was equipped with dual 40Gbps network connectivity, offering a total of 80Gbps of bandwidth capacity on a private network. This setup ensured that the customer's distributed applications had the necessary bandwidth to handle communications from server to server.

Delivering a fleet of custom dedicated servers

In response to the customer's specific needs, we built and deployed 12 of these custom dedicated servers at a price of one third what it would have cost at Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Compute or Microsoft's Azure. Each was fitted with dual Intel Xeon Gold 6244 processors and desired NVMe RAID storage. These were deployed at our Las Vegas, Nevada facility.

High frequency virtual servers

We also offer high frequency virtual servers running on Intel Xeon Gold processors if you wish something smaller, but still being able to quickly handle hits to a single threaded application.

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