Synergy vs C7K

LCM Team

C2 General
 What Synergy Offers over C7K 1/2
• The New Cascade lake refresh processor offers 56 cores for computing power, earlier
we had 40 cores.
• We have new reference architecture which can support 33 GBps per blade for Data
core.
• The Synergy enclosure with a new backplane can provide:
– 50Gbps NIC, compared to the 20Gbps NIC available on C7000
– Storage Interfaces of up to 32GB rather than 8GB
– Switch module with higher throughput and faster uplinks (100Gbps vs 40Gbps for
Ethernet and 32Gbps vs 8Gbps for Fiber Channel)

• Synergy is capable to provide more electrical power to each blade using more
capable power supply, so each blade can host CPU  with higher power demand. The
Synergy blades are capable to host CPU up to 28 cores with TDP of 205W
• Synergy offers NUMA aligned/resilient capabilities.

2 Wednesday, February 2, 2022

C2 General
 What Synergy Offers over C7K 2/2
• Leverages New generation high performance Mellanox / intel network cards.
• High performance NIC cards are future proof and offer better performance with
NSX-T
• Synergy provides a central management point (Composer) that can support up to 21
enclosures.  New enclosures are automatically discovered when they are connected to
the management network providing ease of installation. C7000 leverage the OneView
software and all the configuration and discovery process are a manual task

3 Wednesday, February 2, 2022

C2 General
 Summary

Criterion Synergy C7k

40 Cores, 2.2 Ghz Clock

CPU  56 cores, 2.7 ghz Clock Speed ~ Speed

Memory  576 GB of RAM

Throughput  Upto 33 gbps for data
Enclosure capable of hosting
Power  powerful CPU (205 TDP)
High performance NIC
NIC Card  supported with Synergy Blade
Ease of Management with
Management  Composers
Enclosure Fabric  Latest Switches available
~ 384 GB of RAM
~ Upto 20 gbps for DATA
~ Lesser Power supported
High performance NIC card
~ not supported
~ Composers are not available
~ Outdated fabric switches

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C2 General Wednesday, February 2, 2022
 Options to Reduce Cost 1/2
• Reduce the number of composers and deploying 21 enclosures with one pair of composers.
– Pros: Will reduce the cost by 4% for the enclosure.
– Cons: Operational impact: rewiring and reconfiguration required in Datacentre to fit the new enclosure in the mesh managed
by a pair of composers. This needs to be done each time a new enclosure is introduced.

• Going with Intel NICs instead of Mellanox.

– Pros: This will reduce 200 euros per blade.
– Cons: Deprecated NIC performance in terms of packet processing. Especially not recommended with NSX-T although both
NICs performance yet to be verified in LAB for more precise data.

• Going with Cascade lake blade instead for CLR where it makes sense (for data core)
– Analysis need to be done how much the blade count decreases with CLR and if the number is not much Cascade lake blade
can be chosen to save money.
– Pros: It saves 2000 euros per blade.
– Cons: only 40 cores per blade with less clock speed (i.e. 2.6 ghz)
– Cons: Lab testing will have to be repeated with the processor (3-6 months) & Impact on Certification lab hardware
investment.
– Cons: We shall have a problem of mixed hardware hence separate clusters will be required if CLR 6258R is also used. CLR
6258R still recommended for Signalling and Media VNFs.
C2 General
 Options to Reduce Cost 2/2
• Going with Master satellite model.(not recommended)
– Pros: Fabric switches shared among multiple enclosures which will reduce cost fabric switches in each enclosure. Each
enclosure will require a satellite switch which is quite cheaper than a fabric switch.
– Cons: Throughput per blade will decrease by quite a lot since fabric switches are shared.
– Cons: Satellite node become dependent on master, currently each node is independent.
– Cons: Operational impact.

• Going with less powerful cascade lake refresh CPU 6238R. 56 core and 2.2 ghz.
– Pros: Shall be cheaper than CLR 6258 R // Cost not yet available
– Cons: Less compute power
– Cons: Lab testing will have to be repeated with the processor (3-6 months) & Impact on Certification lab hardware
investment.
– Cons: We shall have a problem of mixed hardware and will result in inconsistent design if CLR 6258R is also implemented.

C2 General