-
The servers are in the racks and the final configuration of them is being completed and will be ready for use once the EEC comes back online July 20th. The IBM folks have been great to work with and we appreciate their support.
If your company is interested in validating/benchmarking Windows HPC Server 2008 or your applications that run on the platform, please let us know.
Josh Adams,
Program Manager, EEC
-
Our friends from IBM are getting ready to rack the new Nehalem servers in Enterprise Customer Lab (ECL) #7, which is our HPC focused lab. We are excited to have them come online so they can start being used by the HPC team, their customers and ISV partners to validate the applications that will help the enterprise and public sector learn to best utilize the platform.
Here’s a picture of them unboxed and ready to be installed. These will end up using two and a half racks in ECL 7.
Josh Adams
Program Manager - EEC
-
Earlier this year, Rob Simpson, Exchange Program Manager completed some testing while at the EEC to document the power savings that are possible when you virtualize your Exchange environment. What he found was that you can have a 50% power savings with 75% less hardware when you virtualize an Exchange environment.
To learn about his test architecture, the hardware used, methodology and the results, please check our Rob’s white paper on TechNet.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd901773.aspx
You can also find more information about virtualizing your environment at the Exchange Team Blog article Should You Virtualize Your Exchange 2007 SP1 Environment?
Kevin Engman
Product Manager - EEC
-
With the new Intel Nehalem based processors coming out some questions that our EEC OEM Partners get are around the memory configurations based on the new architecture. I have gone out and found some articles for you to review if you are interested.
Hope this helps you.
Josh Adams
Program Manager - EEC
-
The HPC team has been utilizing the EEC for the past 6 months or so to perform benchmarking tests. These tests have enabled them to provide quality data to customers interested in utilizing the Windows HPC Server solution to handle their computing needs. This program has been extremely successful and the HPC team will be releasing some information shortly on the work they have been doing.
As we move into FY10, the HPC team has joined forces with IBM, Mellanox, other leading IHV’s and the EEC to increase their HPC benchmarking environment. Part of that new environment has just arrived at the EEC and is awaiting the finalization of our remodel so it can be racked and stacked (see the picture below of the boxes). The systems are all based on Latest Intel Nehalem Xeon 5500 series.
More information on the systems:
· 64 IBM iDataPlex DX360 M2 compute nodes and one IBM System x3650 M2 head node. 24GB DDR3 RAM per node. Total 512 cores.
· 6 36-port QDR InfiniBand switches, 72 QDR InfiniBand Adapters, copper and optical cables for a fully connected non-blocking QDR IB fabric.
· IBM GPFS on 4 IBM System x3650 M2 storage nodes w/ QDR InfiniBand and IBM/etc storage
Picture of the boxes waiting to be unpacked
The EEC and the HPC team will be working together to help our customers and partners utilize these systems later in CY09.
Josh Adams
Program Manager - EEC
-
This past Wednesday, the Office Communications Server team announced via the OCS Team Blog, that they are now supporting server virtualization in Office Communications Server 2007 R2. This is a major step for the OCS team and great news for their customers.
This testing was completed at the EEC and is the second OCS engagement that we have hosted for them. The first was centered on conferencing tools. We look forward to working with the entire UC team and their customers again soon.
To learn more about this announcement, please check out this Network World article http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/051309-tech-ed-microsoft-ocs-virtualization.html?hpg1=bn.
Kevin Engman
Product Manager - EEC
-
There was some good news about the EEC and our current remodel the other day. One of the projects during the remodel was to upgrade to our infrastructure so we could provide more performance and environmental data to our product teams, customers and partners. To help us meet this need, we selected Raritran’s remote access and control solutions. To learn more about this, please check out their press release here.
Kevin Engman
Product Manager - EEC
-
Dell Global Infrastructure Consulting, led by Terry Storey, Senior Global Architect for the Dell Microsoft Practice, has been collaborating with the Windows Server and Client product groups since April 2008 on validating the release of Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Windows® 7. As part of the validation, Terry has worked with some of Dell’s customers that are part of the Windows TAP program to design implementations that use Windows Server 2008 R2. As you know the upcoming release of the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system offers features that organizations can use to improve power management, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.
During the past year, Dell has visited the EEC several times with its customers to do in-depth testing of the new features of Hyper-V™, Live Migration, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2. As a result of this testing and that which occurred onsite at customer locations, Dell and Microsoft have created an excellent case study on the benefits that Windows Server 2008 R2 bring to an organization through reduced power consumption, extended hardware life and reduced software spending.
To read the case study, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000004143
For more information on Windows Server 2008 R2, go to:
www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2008R2
To learn more about Dell Global Infrastructure Consulting, go to:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/adi/adi_service?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
Kevin Engman
Product Manager, EEC
-
Earlier this year the EEC hosted our Partner, Brocade, and the SharePoint product team for a product engagement. The goal of the engagement was to create a new White Paper that provides the reference architecture and procedures for deploying Brocade ServerIron with MS Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). It was a very successful engagement and the first of its type at the EEC for Brocade.
We are very pleased to let you know that the fruits of that collaboration has resulted in a new White Paper, ‘Deploying the Brocade ServerIron with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007’, and it can be found on the Brocade website here. (http://www.foundrynet.com/pdf/dg-sharepoint-153-00.pdf).
Kevin Engman
Product Manager - EEC
-
There is some good news today from EMC as they’ve issued a press release touting the completion of the first ever 100,000 concurrent user benchmark for content management. The benchmarking work was competed here at the Microsoft Engineering Enterprise Center.
We are pleased to have been able to host EMC, HP and our Product Groups during their benchmarking and validation work and look forward to the next opportunity.
To download the study results and listen to EMC’s engineers explain what it took to achieve this remarkable benchmark, please visit https://community.emc.com/community/edn/documentum
Press Release:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EMC-Documentum-Reaches-New-prnews-14972882.html?.v=1
Kevin Engman
Product Manager, EEC
-
Some good news came out last week while I was on vacation. On Thursday, Rittal sent out a release announcing the new Strategic Partnership they have entered into with us. We are very excited to use their new Liquid Cooling and Enclosure System in our new main Data Center and incorporate its benefits into our processes.
You can read the release on Rittal’s press site or over at the Data Center Journal. Hopefully we’ll have some articles written. If we do we’ll point you to them.
Kevin Engman
Product Manager, EEC
-
It’s been a few weeks since our last major update. Phase 1 is done, and we’re in the middle of Phase 2 now. This is the big part, the reconstruction of the main Data Center.
Structural upgrades are required to support the weight of the additional hardware we’ll be putting in, so the construction crews have brought in steel beams to reinforce the floor. The beams were brought up the freight elevator in sections, and then welded together onsite. They’re bolted to the support columns and are up off the floor by less than an inch, so no weight sits on the old floor anymore. All the cabling will be routed among and through holes in the steel, on custom-fit cable trays.
It still smells a bit like welding in the place and the noise is grinding on, but we’re getting there! Keep an eye on us for more updates as things progress.
Check out the photos below; one from before the new steel and the other after.
Before:
After:
-Jeremy & The EEC Team
-
The EEC just received its first Surface today! We will be showcasing a couple of Surface units in the new facility for customers and visitors to check out, and one of our PMs, Dustin, will be developing cool and fun apps for it very soon. But today is about unpacking it and lighting it up for the first time.
EEC customers will one day soon be able to use the Surfaces in our Data Center Lounge to pull up interactive displays of their testing environment and see live metrics of their tests in real time. They will be able to use the Surface to connect into our new data center telemetry system and highlight the server racks they’re using with dramatic ambient light changes and rack spotlights. We are working on more cool scenarios using Surface, so if you have any ideas we can try, please let us know!
Here are a couple of pix:
-Jeremy & The EEC Team
-
Hi all,
Work on our facility keeps on keepin’ on. We’re starting to see some finishing touches on the Phase 1 work areas, with the new Technical Briefing Center and most of the ECLs (Enterprise Customer Labs) getting new drywall, paint, carpeting, and new work area furniture. Lots of ceiling tiles are still missing, but they appear to be done with installing all the new Cat5e and fiber optic cables.
Next week is when Phase 2 is scheduled to begin; we’ll be moving equipment out of the primary Data Center in preparation for its demolition. We’ll definitely post pictures of that damage!
ECLs 1 and 2 with new furniture and LCD TVs!:
ECLs 5 and 6 with new furniture:
ECL 7, the newest lab, with a new 6-rack server closet:
Stay tuned!
-Jeremy Collins, Project Coordinator
Microsoft EEC
-
Hello,
We’re starting to wrap up the first phase of the EEC reconstruction project. Most of the new network wiring has been run and new HVAC equipment has been installed. The rooms affected by Phase 1 are now looking like real rooms, with new drywall/paint and carpeting, which were done over this past weekend. It was great to come into the office on Monday morning and smell “that new lab smell!” There is still some fit & finish to be done, such as furniture and AV equipment installations, but the new spaces are starting to feel like real rooms again.
Phase 1 will conclude in the next week or two, and Phase 2 will begin. Phase 2 includes that major upgrade to our main Data Center I mentioned in last weeks’ post; not only are we doubling the space, but we’re retrofitting the floor to support to additional weight. This retrofit will involve bringing in some large I-beams to be affixed to the building support columns, and that means cranes and rooftop sections and/or exterior walls being removed. We’ll get photos of that carnage as soon as it happens!
Meanwhile check out these latest pictures, which include some of the newly-painted rooms.
Technical Briefing Center - view from front lounge area.
Technical Briefing Center - main room
Enterprise Customer Labs 1 & 2
Stay tuned!
Jeremy Collins, Project Coordinator
Microsoft EEC
