Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster

Published on 2022-12-22

As digital transformation accelerates, industries such as finance, telecommunications, energy, and government are experiencing explosive growth in data volumes. Extracting value from these massive datasets has become a critical focus of digital initiatives. At the same time, the sheer scale of data places heavy performance demands on processing, driving the need for continuous innovation in database technology.

GBase 8a MPP Cluster is developed by Tianjin General Data Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "General Data Technology" or "GBASE") to support structured big data processing. With its unique flat architecture, high availability, and dynamic scalability, GBase 8a MPP Cluster provides a cost-effective, large-scale distributed parallel database management solution for managing ultra-large data environments.

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster leverages Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, Intel® SSD D3-S4510 Series, and Intel® Ethernet Adapter X710-DA2 to significantly boost the performance of GBase 8a MPP Cluster, fully addressing the big data analytics needs of data-intensive industries.

GBase 8a MPP Cluster Provides a Robust Foundation for Industry Big Data

In the era of big data, organizations across sectors have accumulated vast amounts of structured data through long-term business operations, and this data continues to grow rapidly. Typical structured data includes banking and telecommunications transaction records, traditional data center transactions, management data, financial data, master data, as well as data from emerging IoT and internet applications. For databases experiencing such explosive growth, improving processing performance is crucial for sustaining critical business operations and unlocking data value.

When it comes to structured data processing, GBase 8a MPP Cluster offers significant performance advantages over traditional databases. It supports datasets ranging from terabytes to tens of petabytes, enables concurrent access for over 300 users, reduces I/O wait times to as little as 10% of those in traditional databases, and accelerates data analysis speeds by more than 10 times compared to conventional databases. In terms of scalability, each server in GBase 8a MPP Cluster utilizes local resources and, based on a node-peer flat architecture, delivers excellent horizontal scaling capabilities. Cluster computing performance and storage capacity increase nearly linearly as the cluster expands, and users do not need to interrupt business operations during cluster expansion.

GBase 8a MPP Cluster also incorporates multiple advanced big data processing technologies and features, including a state-of-the-art columnar storage engine, an extremely high data compression ratio, and maintenance-free coarse-grained indexes. Combined with the efficient MPP distributed computing model and a cost-based distributed intelligent optimizer, GBase 8a MPP Cluster can support petabyte-scale structured data analytics applications. Additionally, via intra-cluster replica synchronization, active-active clustering, cross-domain cluster data transfer and synchronization, and virtual cluster technology, the database ensures high availability in big data environments and multi-cluster support, enabling deployments across multiple data centers.

GBase 8a MPP Cluster is designed to meet the structured data processing requirements of data-intensive industries such as finance, telecommunications, energy, government, and IoT. It supports data querying, statistics, analytics, mining, and backup tasks, and can serve as the underlying database for data warehouse systems, BI systems, and decision support systems.

Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster helps data-intensive organizations boost data analytics performance while significantly shortening application response times. This solution harnesses the power of Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, Intel® SSD D3-S4510 Series, and Intel® Ethernet Adapter X710-DA2 to deliver a high-performance, highly scalable, and highly available database solution. Specifically, the solution offers the following features:

● By configuring select Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, the performance potential of GBase 8a MPP Cluster is fully unleashed, with outstanding total cost of ownership (TCO). Organizations can build GBase 8a MPP Cluster deployments using validated and tested Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors;

● The solution spans both hardware and software, and has undergone thorough compatibility and stability validation, helping organizations significantly reduce upfront proof-of-concept and testing costs and achieve rapid system rollout;

● For enterprises needing to enhance the flexibility of their large-scale distributed database systems, the solution provides a detailed reference architecture. Even if a cluster includes hardware from multiple vendors or needs to switch hardware vendors during future expansion, customers can still freely scale and choose based on this configuration architecture.

What Is an Intel® Select Solution?

Intel® Select Solutions are verified hardware and software stacks optimized for specific software workloads across compute, storage, and network. These solutions are developed through deep collaboration between Intel and industry solution providers, as well as extensive cooperation with leading data center and service providers worldwide.

To qualify as an Intel® Select Solution, solution providers must:

1. Follow the software and hardware stack requirements defined by Intel

2. Meet or exceed Intel reference benchmark performance thresholds

3. Publish detailed implementation guides to help customers deploy

Solution providers may develop their own optimizations to add further value to the solution.

Hardware Selection

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster integrates Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, Intel® SSD D3-S4510 Series, and Intel® Ethernet Adapter X710-DA2. With these components, organizations can rapidly deploy a high-performance GBase 8a MPP Cluster distributed analytical database system.

● Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors: Featuring new capabilities such as Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512), these processors deliver workload-optimized performance for advanced analytics, high-performance computing (HPC) applications, and data compression, providing increased throughput. These breakthrough technologies bring cost-effective, high-capacity persistent memory capabilities to Intel's data-centric computing portfolio, significantly enhancing high-speed data processing for critical computing applications like databases and data warehousing.

● Intel® SSD D3-S4510 Series: Based on 64-layer Intel® 3D NAND TLC media, this SSD delivers significantly better performance than traditional mechanical disks. In GBase 8a MPP Cluster applications, it serves as a storage medium that meets user performance requirements while controlling costs. Additionally, flexible workload capabilities enable it to cover a wider range of workloads, offering flexible capacity, endurance, and energy efficiency.

● Intel® Ethernet Adapter X710-DA2: The Intel® Ethernet 700 Series accelerates the performance of the Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster. The 700 Series delivers professional 10/25GbE performance with single or dual 1/10/25GbE port connectivity, providing outstanding throughput in PCI Express v3.0 x8 slots, and supports advanced features such as Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) and Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV). Moreover, compared to 40G network adapters, the 700 Series meets bandwidth requirements while effectively reducing costs, highlighting its economic and practical advantages.

Performance Validated Through Benchmark Testing

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster offers two recommended hardware configurations, "Base" and "Plus," targeting customers who prioritize optimal cost and optimal performance respectively, while using consistent software recommendations (see Appendix 1 for configuration details). We recommend that users of the Intel® Select Solution adopt these recommended configurations or higher configurations.

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster has passed benchmark performance validation tests and achieved workload-optimized performance targets. In performance testing for this solution, the business intelligence benchmark Decision Analysis* and the decision support system benchmark Decision Support System* were used. The Decision Analysis* benchmark is widely used to evaluate the performance of decision support technology applications, comprehensively assessing the overall business computing capabilities of the system. The Decision Support System* benchmark measures the query response time under a single-user model, query throughput under a multi-user model, and data maintenance performance in more complex multi-user decision-making scenarios.

To compare the performance differences between the "Base" and "Plus" configurations of the Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster, the Decision Analysis* and Decision Support System* benchmarks were used to test query and load times (shorter is better). The test results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: "Base" vs. "Plus" Configuration Testing

Test results show that in the Decision Analysis* benchmark, the "Plus" configuration delivered over 200% performance improvement compared to the "Base" configuration, while in the Decision Support System* benchmark, the improvement exceeded 150%. The "Base" configuration provides the foundation for meeting the general performance requirements of the Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster, while the "Plus" configuration enables system integrators, solution providers, and industry users to achieve higher performance levels in GBase 8a MPP Cluster deployments. Organizations can choose the GBase 8a MPP Cluster configuration that best suits their business needs based on actual workloads and requirements.

Technology Choices in the Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster

Beyond the Intel hardware foundation used in the Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster, technologies integrated into Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors further enhance performance and reliability:

● Intel® Platform Trust Technology (Intel® PTT): This technology integrates the capabilities of a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) directly into the chipset to protect encryption keys. The new Intel® PTT functionality is offered as an option, not as a discrete chip, simplifying integration and activation.

● Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel® HT Technology): Enables more efficient use of processor resources by allowing each core to run multiple threads. This feature increases processor throughput and overall performance of threaded software, maintaining system responsiveness while running multiple demanding applications.

● Intel® Turbo Boost Technology: To handle peak demands, Intel® Turbo Boost Technology allows the processor to operate above its base frequency, accelerating processor and graphics performance to easily manage peak loads.

● Intel® Intelligent Power Technology: Allows the processor to rapidly select its optimal operating frequency and voltage for the best performance and power efficiency, without operating system intervention.

Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors:

● Deliver high scalability for enterprise data centers

● Provide higher performance for virtualized infrastructure compared to previous-generation processors

● Enable outstanding resource utilization efficiency and agility

● Enhance data and workload integrity for data center solutions and ensure regulatory compliance

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster uses Intel® Xeon® Gold processors.

Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster Meets the Massive Data Processing Needs of Industries

The Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster has been verified and optimized to achieve workload-optimized configurations for Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. When organizations need to deploy GBase 8a MPP Cluster solutions, they can avoid spending extensive time on tuning and performance optimization by leveraging the pre-tuned and pre-tested configurations provided by the Intel® Select Solution. This enables them to meet massive data storage and processing requirements, safeguard critical business operations, and lay a solid foundation for digital transformation.

Appendix 1: Intel® Select Solution for GBase 8a MPP Cluster: Recommended Configuration List

Configuration 1 - Base: Tested by Intel and GBase as of May 30, 2019. 4 nodes, dual Intel® Xeon® Gold 5118 processor, 12 cores, HT enabled, Turbo enabled, total memory 192 GB (12 slots/ 16GB/ 2400 MHz), 1x 480 GB Intel® SSD DC S4500, 12x 1TB SATA 10000RPM HDD, Microcode:0x200005e, CentOS 7.4, 3.10.0-957.12.2.el7.x86_64, GBase 8a MPP Cluster 8.6.2.

Configuration 2 - Plus: Tested by Intel and GBase as of May 30, 2019. 4 nodes, dual Intel® Xeon® Gold 6140 processor, 18 cores, HT enabled, Turbo enabled, total memory 192 GB (12 slots/ 16GB/ 2400 MHz), 1x 480 GB Intel® SSD DC S4500, 12x 960 GB Intel® SSD DC S4510, Microcode:0x200005e, CentOS 7.4, 3.10.0-957.12.2.el7.x86_64, GBase 8a MPP Cluster 8.6.2.

Performance tests of specific components were conducted on particular systems. Any difference in hardware, software, or configuration may affect actual performance. Consider other information sources when evaluating performance when making purchasing decisions. For more complete information about performance and benchmark results, visit http://www.intel.cn/content/www/cn/zh/benchmarks/benchmark.html.

Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests such as SYSmark* and MobileMark* are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations, and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information, go to http://www.intel.cn/content/www/cn/zh/benchmarks/benchmark.html.

Cost reduction scenarios described are intended as examples of how a given Intel- architecture product, in specified circumstances and configurations, may affect future costs and provide cost savings. Circumstances will vary. Intel does not guarantee any costs or cost savings.

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