Supermicro's Advanced GPU Systems for Generative AI Applications with Dual 5th Gen Intel Xeon Processors Will Take Advantage of the Increased Number of Cores, Performance, and Performance Per Watt in The Same Power Envelope

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Intel Innovation 2023 -- Supermicro, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing future support for the upcoming 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors. In addition, Supermicro will soon offer early shipping and free remote early access testing of the new Systems via its JumpStart Programfor qualified customers. To learn more, go to http://www.supermicro.com/x13for details. The Supermicro 8x GPU optimized servers, the SuperBlade servers, and the Hyper Series will soon be ready for customers to test their workloads on the new CPU.

"Supermicro's range of Generative High-Performance AI systems, including recently launched GPUs, continues to lead the industry in AI offerings with its broad range of X13 family of servers designed for various workloads, from the edge to the cloud," said Charles Liang, president, and CEO, Supermicro. "Our support for the upcoming 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors, with more cores, an increased performance per watt, and the latest DDR5-5600MHz memory, will allow our customers to realize even greater application performance and power efficiency for AI, Cloud, 5G Edge, and Enterprise workloads. These new features will help customers accelerate their business and maximize their competitive advantage."

Watch the Supermicro TechTALK about how Supermicro is working with Intel to bring to market new X13 servers with the 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors.

Supermicro X13 systems will be able to take advantage of the new processors' built-in workload accelerators, enhanced security features, and increased performance within the same power envelope as the previous generation of 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors. Using PCIe 5.0, the latest peripheral devices using CXL 1.1, NVMe storage, and the latest GPU accelerators deliver reduced application execution times. Customers will soon be able to leverage the new 5th Gen Intel Xeonprocessors in the tried-and-tested Supermicro X13 servers, with no software redesign or architectural changes required, reducing the lead times associated with completely new platforms and CPU designs, resulting in a faster time to productivity.

"5th Gen Intel Xeon processors build on the success of the Xeon platform, which has been leading the way in data center compute for several generations," said Lisa Spelman, CVP and GM Xeon Products & Solutions at Intel. "Our strong partnership with Supermicro will help deliver the benefits of 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors to customers soon and on platforms already proven in the data center."

The Supermicro portfolio of X13 systems is performance optimized, energy efficient, incorporates improved manageability and security, supports open industry standards, and is rack-scale optimized.

Performance Optimized

Energy Efficient - Reduces Datacenter OPEX

Improved Security and Manageability

Support for Open Industry Standards

Supermicro will offer early access availability of X13 systems powered by 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors to qualified customers through its remote JumpStart and Early Ship programs. The Supermicro JumpStart program allows qualified customers to perform workload validation with the new Supermicro systems. Go to supermicro.com/x13 for details.

The Supermicro X13 Portfolio Includes the following:

SuperBlade Supermicro's high-performance, density-optimized, and energy-efficient multi-node platform optimized for AI, Data Analytics, HPC, Cloud, and Enterprise workloads.

GPU Servers with PCIe GPUs Systems supporting advanced accelerators to deliver dramatic performance gains and cost savings. These systems are designed for HPC, AI/ML, rendering, and VDI workloads.

Universal GPU Servers Open, modular, standards-based servers that provide superior performance and serviceability with GPU options, including the latest PCIe, OAM, and NVIDIA SXM technologies.

Petascale Storage Industry-leading storage density and performance with EDSFF E1.S and E3.S drives, allowing unprecedented capacity and performance in a single 1U or 2U chassis.

Hyper Flagship performance rackmount servers are built to take on the most demanding workloads along with the storage & I/O flexibility that provides a custom fit for a wide range of application needs.

Hyper-E Delivers the power and flexibility of our flagship Hyper family optimized for deployment in edge environments. Edge-friendly features include a short-depth chassis and front I/O, making Hyper-E suitable for edge data centers and telco cabinets.

BigTwin 2U 2-Node or 2U 4-Node platform providing superior density, performance, and serviceability with dual processors per node and hot-swappable tool-less design. These systems are ideal for cloud, storage and media workloads.

GrandTwin Purpose-built for single-processor performance and memory density, featuring front (cold aisle) hot-swappable nodes and front or rear I/O for easier serviceability.

FatTwin Advanced, high density multi-node 4U twin architecture with 8 or 4 single-processor nodes optimized for data center compute or storage density.

Edge Servers High-density processing power in compact form factors optimized for telco cabinet and Edge data center installation. Optional DC power configurations and enhanced operating temperatures up to 55 C (131 F).

CloudDC All-in-one platform for cloud data centers, with flexible I/O and storage configurations and dual AIOM slots (PCIe 5.0; OCP 3.0 compliant) for maximum data throughput.

WIO Offers a wide range of I/O options to deliver truly optimized systems for specific enterprise requirements.

Mainstream- Cost-effective dual processor platforms for everyday enterprise workloads

Enterprise Storage Optimized for large-scale object storage workloads, utilizing 3.5" spinning media for high density and exceptional TCO. Front and front/rear loading configurations provide easy access to drives, while tool-less brackets simplify maintenance.

Workstations Delivering data center performance in portable, under-desk form factors, Supermicro X13 workstations are ideal for AI, 3D design, and media & entertainment workloads in offices, research labs, and field offices.

For more information about Supermicro's X13 family of servers, please visit Supermicro.com/X13

About Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Supermicro (NASDAQ: SMCI) is a global leader in Application-Optimized Total IT Solutions. Founded and operating in San Jose, California, Supermicro is committed to delivering first-to-market innovation for Enterprise, Cloud, AI, and 5G Telco/Edge IT Infrastructure. We are transforming into a Total IT Solutions provider with server, AI, storage, IoT, and switch systems, software, and services while delivering advanced high-volume motherboard, power, and chassis products. The products are designed and manufactured in-house (in the US, Taiwan, and the Netherlands), leveraging global operations for scale and efficiency and optimized to improve TCO and reduce environmental impact (Green Computing). The award-winning portfolio of Server Building Block Solutions allows customers to optimize for their exact workload and application by selecting from a broad family of systems built from our flexible and reusable building blocks that support a comprehensive set of form factors, processors, memory, GPUs, storage, networking, power, and cooling solutions (air-conditioned, free air cooling or liquid cooling).

Supermicro, Server Building Block Solutions, and We Keep IT Green are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.

All other brands, names, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE Super Micro Computer, Inc.

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Supermicro Announces Future Support and Upcoming Early Access ... - PR Newswire

A fleet of green data centers and a well-advanced plan to stop using fossil-fuel powered vehicles are among the key steps driving Intermaxs mission to be the most sustainable cloud services provider in the Netherlands.

Ludo Baauw founder, corporate social responsibility lead and CEO of Intermax Group, sees firsthand the direct impact that sustainability initiatives have on the environment and biodiversity. Its a perspective that shaped his goals for Intermax, and which can be seen in small things and big efforts.

Intermax, which provides managed cloud services, infrastructure-as-a-service, a broad array of application services, and robust security offerings among them Security Information and Event Management services and a complete Security Operations Center solution has big sustainability ambitions.

It aims to become carbon neutral in 2027 and carbon negative by 2030. Notably, all five of the companys data centers are already 100% powered by Dutch solar and wind sources. The company also just deployed its most advanced, most environmentally friendly, data center.

Our newest data center reflects our decision to fully commit to sustainability, while ensuring a seamless transition without any disruption or inconvenience for our customers, says Baauw. That move required months of meticulous planning, but was made much easier with our VMware-driven clouds, which are entirely 2N, fully redundant systems mirrored across two regional DCs. It was a significant task for our technical team, and we are still evaluating the outcome, but we estimate that the new center is saving 30% on cooling power and delivering significant improvements in power usage effectiveness.

Intermax is also now initiating a proof-of-concept to repurpose the residual heat from the new data centers servers through immersion cooling with the aim of reintroducing that heat into the local districts network.

The company began its sustainability journey more than a decade ago.

We founded the company in 1994 and in 2009 made the commitment to become the most secure cloud service provider in the country with the highest degree of certification, Baauw says. We achieved that goal within a few years and in 2013 we committed to phasing out all of our fossil-fuel powered vehicles, an effort we are on the brink of achieving as we prepare to retire the older ones in our fleet. Now we are raising the bar and aiming to become the most sustainable cloud provider.

It is a goal Baauw sees customers embracing as well. Intermaxs customers, which include leading organizations across industries, are increasingly concerned with their own environmental impact.

We have a lot of customers in government and healthcare, among them many hospitals, he adds. They ask us specifically if we can help them reach their goal of becoming carbon neutral. We can of course do so while empowering them with IT services that draw on the inherent capabilities of the cloud and enable them to focus more on their mission while working smarter and more efficiently. To do that though, our cloud services must be as sustainable as possible.

Baauw believes actions in his own life have helped to drive his companys sustainability mission.

My colleagues and I drink a lot of coffee together at the office and the grounds used to go to the bin, says Baauw. Now we take that home for composting in our gardens. I use it in my meadows, where it ultimately helps to sustain my beehives, which provide the honey I often bring back to the office for our tea. Thats about as circular as you can get, and while but a small effort, is consistent with the mindset that has led us to take on some very big challenges in our drive to make Intermax a company that makes a difference for the environment.

Baauw also stresses that making sustainability gains in any organization is an effort that is inherently collaborative. Spreading the word is essential.

Achieving carbon neutrality is a goal that requires the collective support of vendors and customers, he says. At Intermax, we are deeply committed to becoming a CO2-negative organization as swiftly as possible. We are also very appreciative that VMware shares our passion and commitment to address the issue of climate change, and are honored to join the VMware Zero Carbon Committed initiative. Our industry can make a great difference when we all work together.

Not surprisingly, Baauw is optimistic. He believes great gains are right around the corner.

Cloud computing has the potential to significantly improve power usage efficiency, reduce e-waste and employ new technologies like immersion cooling on a vast scale all while enabling many of the technological solutions that will help us collectively address climate change, adds Baauw. Sustainability and opportunity are intertwined and should be pursued simultaneously. Fine details matter for example, we eliminated plastic and single-use giveaways to promote more sustainable corporate events and we also provide each employee with complimentary public transport and a leased bike. Most importantly though, you have to act and remember that every little bit helps.

Learn more about Intermax and its partnership with VMware here.

Learn more about Intermax and its CSR program in Dutch at https://www.intermax.nl/over-intermax/mvo/

Originally posted here:
Inside Intermaxs ambitious journey to be a sustainable cloud leader - CIO

As load shedding continues to challenge businesses and individuals alike, there emerges a beacon of hope and efficiency: cloud computing. This revolutionary solution is not just the future; its the present, ensuring that load shedding is but a minor glitch in our digital lives.

Load shedding has posed significant challenges to businesses, particularly in South Africa where, according to a 2019 study by the South African Department of Energy, it cost the economy approximately R59 billion, hindering economic growth, says Graeme Millar, managing director of SevenC Computing.

Millar adds, Beyond the immediate loss of productivity due to power outages, businesses also suffer from disrupted communication channels, potential data losses, compromised security systems, and a general decrease in consumer confidence. This sporadic power supply not only stalls daily operations but erodes the competitive edge of South African businesses in the global market.

Millar continues to say that while load shedding may challenge operations, with the power of cloud computing, businesses can transform these hurdles into mere inconveniences, ensuring data remains accessible and protected in the grand digital scheme of things.

At its core, cloud computing is about storing and accessing data and applications over the internet, rather than relying on a local server or personal computer. This internet-based computing method offers a variety of services including storage, management, and processing of data.

What gives the cloud its edge, especially in combatting load shedding, is its decentralised nature. Instead of data being stored in a single location, cloud services use a network of remote servers hosted on the internet.

This means that even if one server in one location faces power issues, the others can take the load, ensuring continuous data access.

While the uninterrupted access provided by cloud services is a significant advantage during load shedding, the benefits of cloud computing dont end there:

Power interruptions dont just cut off access; they can cause data corruption or loss. Cloud storage offers a safeguard against such losses. With real-time data backup, the cloud ensures that data remains intact and uncompromised even during sudden power outages.

The cloud reduces the need for businesses to invest in expensive infrastructure. Instead of maintaining their own servers (which are susceptible to local power issues), companies can leverage the power of robust cloud servers.

Cloud solutions can easily be scaled up or down based on the needs of a business. This dynamic adjustability ensures businesses only pay for what they use and can adapt swiftly to changing demands.

While cloud computing offers a solution for the present, its potential for the future is limitless.

As technology continues to evolve, the capabilities of the cloud will expand, offering even more robust solutions against challenges like load shedding. Its not just about having a backup plan; its about adopting a system that offers efficiency, protection, and scalability.

while load shedding might be a hurdle, its not insurmountable. With cloud power on our side, businesses and individuals can look forward to a future where operations remain unhindered, where data is continuously accessible and protected, and where load shedding is merely a minor inconvenience in the grand digital scheme of things.

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Loadshedding Cannot Win Against the Cloud - IT News Africa

Observability before fragility, this is how to build secure clouds.

Building contemporary software applications is a complex process. Despite the rise of low-code/no-code platforms and a whole firmament of software application development and data analytics automation channels, we still exist in a world where systems are created with instabilities, fragilities and incompatibilities.

With ERP systems very typically supporting mission-critical use cases which in some scenarios straddle and support life-critical software deployments the need to assess where the pressure and pain points are in the modern IT stack has never been more pressing.

But where do we start? Is it a question of the surface-level interactions at the presentation layer and the way we manage what users are capable of doing inside their chosen applications user interface? Is it the middle-tier networking layer and all the application programming interface (API) connections that now form neural joins between data, services, operating systems and applications themselves? Could it be the lower substrate base of our technology infrastructures and the way these are now engineered to perform in essentially cloud-native environments? Or, inevitably, is it perhaps all of these tiers and all the internal connection points within them?

Spoiler alert! No prizes for guessing that its obviously everywhere. Code fragility manifests itself in a seemingly infinite variety of forms and functional formulations from syntax structures to higher-level system semantics. Given the Sisyphean challenge ahead then, shall we at least start at the foundation level with infrastructure?

We need to build enterprise technologies based upon infrastructures that work as dynamically orchestrated entities Sumedh Thakar, Qualys

Qualys CEO Sumedh Thakar says he has looked at the use case models being showcased across his firms customer base and beyond. As an IT, security and compliance solutions company, Qualys has advocated a concerted move to Infrastructure-as-Code (or IaC) as a core capability for secured operations.

Thakar has described the need to now build enterprise technologies based uponinfrastructures that work as dynamically orchestrated entities with fine-grained engineering controls

As it sounds, IaC is a SaaS cloud method that delivers a descriptive model to define and subsequently provision a cloud infrastructure layer. Just as a physical infrastructure would include data storage capabilities, server capacities and properties, lower system level relationships and network management control tools such as load balancer an IaC layer does the same, but is defined by code, for the cloud.

Among the technologies on offer here is Qualys CloudView, an IaC-level management product designed to enable firms to assess what is now being called their level of cloud security posture management (CSPM). CEO Thakar points to his firms ability to shift left (i.e. start earlier) an enterprises approach to cloud security via a combination of integrated application services designed to insert security automation into the entire application lifecycle. Qualys says this ensures visibility into both pre-deployment application build-time and post-deployment live operational runtime environments to check for misconfiguration and more, all via a single unified dashboard.

But why does so much misconfiguration happen and can we do more to stop it? Largely, it appears to be a natural byproduct of diversity in both cloud-native and terrestrial enterprise software platform environments that may eventually migrate to cloud.

Misconfigurations happen for a range of reasons, the most blatant being insecure-by-default settings, where security or hardening is an added control rather than a default state, says Martin Jartelius, CSO at Outpost24. The next challenge is that configurations are often evaluated in test environments where insecure configurations may occur, such as use of invalid certificates or ignoring signatures and validations at the point of testing. This means that once a transition to production is made, insecurities remain just as they were tested.

Years ago, the silver bullet was called gold builds for workstations and servers today its the Infrastructure-as-Code Martin Jartelius, Outpost24

Further, notes Jartelius, new functionality is added over time and unless organizations are attentive, this may introduce new and once again default insecure options. He agrees that an IaC approach offers the benefits of reusing trusted and well-audited templates and thereby reduces the room for human errors. It does not address the root causes of misconfigurations, but it does allow consistency.

Without consistency, maintenance and keeping up to date become even harder, and keeps getting harder over time, clarifies Jartelius.

Years ago, the silver bullet was called gold builds for workstations and servers today its the Infrastructure-as-Code. It will not solve all issues, but it will provide a remedy to a degree and most importantly it will allow those proactive who utilize its full power to reap its benefits.

For those who are not versed in what they are doing, it however creates the opportunity to do a low-quality job faster, so at the end of the day just as any other tool its usefulness depends entirely on whose hands it is put.

With so many differences in syntax, format, structure, code dependencies and other delineating factors across every development environment, every application toolset and indeed every cloud platform, misconfiguration is an inevitability throughout the modern IT stack all the way to the presentation layer. But that said, we can dive into cloud security more specifically to understand whats happening here.

Misconfigurations in the cloud can cause data breaches James Hastings, eSentire

Because of the complexities described thus far, the overarching issue many organizations see when working with live cloud environments is a lack of visibility. This manifests in multiple ways such as complications when more than one cloud account or platform is leveraged, issues where the chosen technology necessitates new tooling for security monitoring purposes, or a lack of understanding of what is deployed or how its configured. This is the opinion of James Hastings in his position as senior product manager at eSentire, a cloud software and security specialist focused on managed detection and response.

Misconfigurations in the cloud, which occur due to improper settings being used when architecting and deploying to cloud platforms, can cause data breaches that have a business-wide impact. According to a recent Cyber Security Hub study on the future of cloud security, almost half of the respondents (44 percent) said their primary challenge with cloud security was a reduced ability to detect and prevent cloud misconfigurations.

This lack of visibility usually stems from improper tooling that either cant pull the needed data from a cloud account or workload, or where the tool isnt designed to scale in cloud environments, said Hastings.

These issues impact both ends of the cloud adoption model; users early in their cloud journey struggle from a lack of knowledge and experience, while cloud-native customers tend to run into issues establishing visibility and monitoring for services like serverless functions and other shared or ephemeral technologies. Outside of visibility, the eSentire team reports that cloud customers experience some common security pain points like alert fatigue and fear of (or the inability to detect) unknown threats.

Looking at the way cloud-centric IT departments are run today, can we ask whether IT security teams and developers really collaborate with each other effectively even in the so-called age of DevOps, when it should arguably be taken as a given? Or is there still a need to improve this aspect of operations?

It really depends on the teams in question, but in my experience, yes, some do and its becoming easier than ever, says Hastings. Newer cloud security tools take a more holistic approach to security. These solutions usually feature multiple modules that are all intertwined to offer native multi-signal correlation out of the box and are increasingly targeting the shift of security into the development process.

Tooling such as code analysis focuses on hardening application code before its deployed to server-based or serverless workloads; the hardening of this code reduces the attack surface of the eventual workload and also cuts down on the patching, investigation and response that might otherwise be necessary.

The previously noted CSPM-style checks found in IaC are helpful when it comes to evaluating cloud infrastructure for misconfigurations but, notes the eSentire engineering team, this process happens as a fundamental part of the automation template. So this enables organizations to create secure infrastructure from the get-go and spend less time on remediating platform misconfigurations.

The last tool that we see making a significant impact on this collaboration is the idea of integrating vulnerability assessment into a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline, explains Hastings. Here, before any code or a container can be published, it must have a vulnerability assessment run against it. Organizations are able to set their own bar for security compliance and even go as far as blocking a build that doesnt meet their security standards.

All said and done then, doesnt where we stand now in cloud security (and system robustness as a whole) beg a wider question? Are modern IT approaches built to be secure by design, or are we missing out on embedding security into these processes from the start? It comes back to a comment and sentiment spoken many times when customers move to the cloud cloud is more secure. While the statement is true in broad terms, it really needs qualification; perhaps we should instead say cloud can be more secure, but its up to each and every organization to lock it down and make it so.

The problem with cloud security and perhaps system security in general is, its all too often bolted on and implemented as an afterthought. Hastings speaks from a position of experience and reminds us that most cloud practitioners (and certainly all cloud-native practitioners) realize this inconvenient truth.

This has ultimately spawned the idea of shifting security left i.e. starting it earlier and/or pushing a more embedded approach to security into engineering and DevOps practices, says Hastings. Doing so embeds security throughout the organizations operational fabric and means that code is written and infrastructure is created to a secure and locked-down narrative. It reduces the number of times that teams need to circle back to change code, implement patches or make other changes that likely have change control and approval processes in place.

The combination of security and development streamlines both processes, reduces the organizations risk, and enables velocity.

Cloud computings evolution has been nothing if not flaky from the start. We know that AWS CEO Adam Selipsky talks of the very early stages of cloud as having been a somewhat embryonic phase, when the virtualization planets were still aligning. Its for sure that we have spent the last decade and more shoring up security, consolidating cloud tool sprawl and looking for key avenues through which we can automate many of the management tasks that can lead to cloud fragility in the first place.

If we had the chance to do cloud all over again, we might use a different and more considered approach, but perhaps we wouldnt. This might just be a hefty symptomatic nuance of the way new technology platforms rapidly escalate and eventually germinate, oscillate, occasionally fluctuate and finally become part of our operational substrate.

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Solid air: building secure clouds - Software applications - ERP Today