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Lenovo ThinkAgile VX V3 Systems Enhanced with New AMD and VMware Technologies

Solution Brief

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Lenovo Solution

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX635 V3 (1U 1P), VX645 V3 (1U, 2P), VX655 V3 (2U, 1P) and VX665 V3 (2U, 2P) hyperconverged systems are featured with 4th generation AMD EPYC™ processors and VMware vSAN™ 8 to address these customer trends and lower operations management. The new AMD EPYC 9004 family of processors offer up to 96 cores, up to 3.6 GHz clock speed, up to 6TB memory, and support PCIe 5.0 and NVMe drives.

ThinkAgile VX V3 systems support VMware’s new Extended Storage Architecture (ESA) with NVMe memory in addition to OSA (Original Storage Architecture) with all-flash or hybrid configurations.

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX V3 with AMD EPYC 9004 systems based on VMware vSAN provide the ideal cloud-ready foundation for critical applications like Database, Big Data and AI/ML solutions and provide greater consolidation for many workloads. They drive superior performance through support for higher cores, AVX-512 instruction set to accelerate performance and new virtualization features.

Highlights

  • Realize up to 100% better performance on workloads with the 50% greater number of cores in Lenovo servers equipped with AMD EPYC 9004 processors than on similar servers equipped with AMD’s previous generation processors.
  • Improve performance of critical applications, Big Data and AI/ML solutions with higher cores, embedded accelerators, GPU, DPU, DDR5 and PCIe Gen 5 components
  • Achieve 4x higher performance, reduce TCO by up to 40% and reduce the storage footprint by half with new vSAN Express Storage Architecture in VMware vSAN 8

ThinkAgile VX V3 Systems

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series V3 servers powered by AMD EPYC 9004 processors provide increased performance, bandwidth and speed than ThinkAgile V2 with AMD EPYC 9003 processors. The 4th Gen processors are modernized to support more cores and performance and accelerators. ThinkAgile VX systems support 1U 1 socket, 1U 2 socket, 2U 1 socket, and 2U 2 socket form factors for flexible and scalable deployment for small and medium enterprise requirements.

Applications where the servers would excel include:

  • Mission Critical applications
  • ERP
  • CRM
  • Business Intelligence (BI)
  • Databases and Data Warehouse
  • Analytics
  • Virtual Desktops
  • High Performance Computing (HPC)
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Server Consolidation
  • Virtualization

 


ThinkAgile VX645 V3


ThinkAgile VX655 V3

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX V3 servers are available as Integrated Systems and Certified Nodes. Both are factory integrated, pre-configured systems with Lenovo hardware, VMware software, and deployment services. Integrated systems provide a quick and convenient path to implement a hyperconverged solution powered by VMware vSAN and a single point of contact provided by Lenovo for purchasing, deploying, and supporting the solution. VX Certified Nodes come with optional VMware software and services.

ThinkAgile VX integrated systems can also be up and running quickly with a web-based deployment wizard. The installer can install and configure VMware ESXi, vCenter Server and Lenovo XClarity Integrator and either create or join a cluster.

ThinkAgile VX V3 with 4th Gen AMD EPYC Processors

All ThinkAgile VX V3 models support vSAN All Flash and Hybrid deployment and VMware vSAN Original Storage Architecture and Express Storage Architecture. vSAN ESA is with a single storage tier and no cache drive or disk groups are required.

Table 1. ThinkAgile VX V3 Models with AMD EPYC 9004 Processors
Model VX635 V3 VX645 V3 VX655 V3 VX665 V3
Form Factor 1U 1S 1U 2S 2U 1S 2U 2S
Memory TruDDR5
12 DIMMs
(1.5 TB Max)
TruDDR5
24 DIMMs
(6 TB Max)
TruDDR5
12 DIMMs
(1.5 TB Max)
TruDDR5
24 DIMMs
(6 TB Max)
GPU 3xSW 75W 2xSW 75W 8xSW 75W
6xSW 150W
3xDW 300W
8xSW 75W
6xSW 150W
3xDW 300W
Drives
NVMe/SAS/SATA
12x2.5" 12x2.5" 32x2.5"
20x3.5"
32x2.5"
20x3.5"
PCIe 5.0 3 Slots
1/10/25/100
GbE
3 Slots
1/10/25/100/
GbE
3 Slots
1/10/25/100
GbE
3 Slots
1/10/25/100
GbE
OCP 3.0 1 1 1 1
VX Integrated System 7D9VCTO1WW 7D9KCTO1WW 7D9WCTO1WW 7D9LCTO1WW
VX Certified Node 7D9VCTO2WW 7D9KCTO2WW 7D9WCTO2WW 7D9LCTO2WW
vSAN AF / Hybrid AF / Hybrid AF / Hybrid AF / Hybrid
Disk Groups 4 4 5 5

4th Gen AMD EPYC Processors

AMD EPYC 9004 processors:

  • Support up to 96 cores per processor, core speeds of up to 4.1 GHz, and TDP ratings of up to 360W.
  • 1 Socket systems support up to 12 TruDDR5 memory DIMMs and 2 Socket systems support up to 24 TruDDR5 memory DIMMs with two processors. Each processor has 12 memory channels and 1 DIMM per channel. With 1 DIMM installed per channel (12 DIMMs total per processor), memory operates at 4800 MHz.
  • Supports 12x NVMe drives without oversubscription of PCIe lanes
Table 2. 4th Generation AMD EPYC Processors
TDP 16-48 Cores 64-96 Cores
<=250W EPYC 9124 16C 200W 3.0GHz
EPYC 9224 24C 200W 2.5GHz
EPYC 9254 24C 200W 2.9GHz
EPYC 9334 32C 210W 2.7GHz
 
251-300W EPYC 9354 32C 280W 3.25GHz
EPYC 9354P 32C 280W 3.25GHz
EPYC 9374F 32C 320W 3.85GHz
EPYC 9454 48C 290W 2.75GHz
EPYC 9454P 48C 290W 2.75GHz
EPYC 9534 64C 280W 2.45GHz
EPYC 9634 84C 290W 2.25GHz
>300W EPYC 9174F 16C 320W 4.1GHz
EPYC 9274F 24C 320W 4.05GHz
EPYC 9474F 48C 360W 3.6GHz
EPYC 9554 64C 360W 3.1GHz
EPYC 9554P 64C 360W 3.1GHz
EPYC 9654 96C 360W 2.4GHz
EPYC 9654P 96C 360W 2.4GHz

Performance Gain from 3rd Gen AMD EPYC Processors

AMD EPYC 9004 processors support more cores, DDR5 and enhanced features for virtualization and acceleration and provide better performance than AMD EPYC 9003 processors. Here is the comparison between AMD EPYC 7763 64C vs. AMD EPYC 9654 96C.

  • Up to 15% increase in performance per watt efficiency
  • Up to 85% increase in middle tier application transaction throughput performance
  • Up to 60% increase in high performance compute workload (GFLOPS)
  • Up to 90% increase in integer and floating point operations
  • Up to 100% increase in memory bandwidth performance

Virtual Desktop Performance with VMware Horizon and vSAN ESA

Lenovo and AMD teams performed the Login Enterprise benchmark for the knowledge worker profile on ThinkAgile VX665 V3 with AMD EPYC 4th Generation processors. The benchmark details are given below.

Login Enterprise VDI Benchmark

  • Knowledge worker 3 VCPU, 2GB Memory and 60 GB disk
  • Persistent desktops, Roaming profile
  • Horizon Instant Clones
  • VMware ESXi, 8.0.1, 21495797
  • Horizon 8.9.0 version 2303
  • Windows 10 Office 2007
Table 3. LoginEnterprise Test Results with 4th Generation AMD EPYC Processors
950 users test on 3 Node ThinkAgile VX 665 V3 Cluster 1800 user test on 4 Node ThinkAgile VX 665 V3 Cluster
2 x AMD EPYC 9354 32-Core 3.25 GHz
24 x 32GB DDR5 4800 MHz
8 x 3.20TB NVMe SSD
ThinkSystem Broadcom 57504 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter
VMware vSAN 8 Express Storage Architecture (ESA), RDMA Disabled
Login Enterprise 5.1.2
2 x AMD EPYC 9474F 48-Core 3.6 GHz
24 x 64GB DDR5 4800 MHz
6 x 3.20TB NVMe SSD
ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx 100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
VMware vSAN 8 Express Storage Architecture (ESA), RDMA Enabled
Login Enterprise 5.7.2
VSIMax = 876 (292 per node) VSIMax = 1761 (440 per node)

Results

Figures 1 and 2 shows Login Enterprise VSIMax and EUX score for the knowledge worker tests.

  • The test with AMD EPYC 9354 32C achieved VSIMax of 292 per node at 100% CPU utilization. On average, 220 virtual desktops can be hosted per node considering headroom for growth and failover scenarios.
  • The test with AMD EPYC 9474F 48C achieved VSIMax of 440 per node and we can size to 330 virtual desktops per host with 75-80% CPU utilization.
  • vSAN ESA supports up to 500 virtual machines per host and using 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors with high core count allows you to achieve more density. Based on the test results, VDI density can be increased either by scaling up with high core processors or by scaling out with more nodes per cluster.
  • The EUX score is above 8 at the beginning of the test and it shows 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors provides lower latency for VDI applications and improves end user experience. The application response is gradually decreasing after 75% CPU utilization and EUX score is above 6 even at 100% CPU utilization which proves 4th Gen AMD EPYC Processors can deliver application with lower latency during peak load scenarios.
  • AMD EPYC 4th Generation processors with higher number of cores can provide up to 2x-4x more density than the previous generation processors.
  • ThinkAgile VX V3 systems with AMD EPYC 9004 processors and vSAN ESA can provide linear scaling for many virtual desktop profiles.
  • Enabling RDMA can result ~5% more virtual desktops and it requires 25GbE/100GbE network.


Figure 1. VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop Performance with AMD EPYC 9354 32C vSAN ESA Cluster

 


Figure 2. VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop Performance with AMD EPYC 9474F 48C vSAN ESA Cluster

VMware vSAN Express Storage Architecture Configuration

vSAN ESA is single tier storage solution composed of NVMe drives to provide better performance.

  • Minimum 1 drive is needed and supported up to 36 drives.
  • Minimum 10GbE connectivity is required and the cards should support RDMA (RoCE v2) to leverage RDMA. It is recommended to use 25GbE/100GbE to achieve lower latency and end user experience.
  • RAID-5 is default and recommended configuration for vSAN ESA. It supports RAID-1(mirroring) and RAID-6 which are enabled through storage policies.
  • The limits may vary for different vSphere versions and ThinkAgile VX platforms, so refer appropriate product guides.

The table below shows the list of RDMA supported NIC cards recommended for ESA solution.

Table 4. Network Interface Cards (NICs) supported with the ESA Solution
Part Number Description
4C57A14177 ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 HDR100/100GbE QSFP56 1-port PCIe VPI Adapter
4C57A14178 ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 HDR100/100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe VPI Adapter
4XC7A08248 ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx 100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
4XC7A08237 ThinkSystem Broadcom 57414 10/25GbE SFP28 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
4XC7A62580 ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx 10/25GbE SFP28 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
4XC7A80566 ThinkSystem Broadcom 57504 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter

VMware vSAN Data Persistence Platform

VMware vSAN DPp supports adding third party Kubernetes operators, storage classes and vCenter services to provide object storage for containers and integrate with VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware Tanzu. It enables running stateful services and is supported on both vSAN Shared Nothing Architecture (SNA) and vSAN Direct configurations. The complete lifecycle management and maintenance operations are integrated and it provides a seamless experience to run third party Kubernetes services.

Software Support

ThinkAgile VX V3 systems come with an option to buy the following software from Lenovo:

  • VMware vSAN: Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus, ROBO or Desktop
  • VMware vCenter Server: Foundation or Standard
  • VMware vSphere: Standard, Enterprise Plus or ROBO
  • HCI Kit: Essentials, Standard, Advanced, Enterprise or ROBO
  • VMware Horizon: Standard, Advanced or Enterprise
  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF): Basic, Standard, Advanced, Enterprise or for VDI
  • VMware Tanzu Basic
  • VMware NSX-T

Bill of Material

Table 5. Bill of Materials
Part number
Feature code
Product Description Qty
7D9WCTO2WW Server : Lenovo ThinkAgile VX665 V3 Certified Node 1
BRY9 ThinkAgile VX V3 2U 24x2.5" Chassis 1
BVGL Data Center Environment 30 Degree Celsius / 86 Degree Fahrenheit 1
B0W3 XClarity Pro 1
BN8K ThinkAgile VX Remote Deployment 1
BPVJ ThinkSystem AMD EPYC 9554 64C 360W 3.1GHz Processor 1
BQ3D ThinkSystem 64GB TruDDR5 4800MHz (2Rx4) 10x4 RDIMM-A 12
5977 Select Storage devices - no configured RAID required 1
BC4V Non RAID NVMe 1
BT2G vSAN ESA 1
BNF5 ThinkSystem 2.5" U.3 7450 PRO 3.84TB Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 HS SSD 4
BS7Y ThinkSystem V3 2U 8x2.5" NVMe Gen5 Backplane 1
B8P9 ThinkSystem M.2 NVMe 2-Bay RAID Enablement Kit 1
BTTY M.2 NVMe 1
BKSR ThinkSystem M.2 7450 PRO 960GB Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 NHS SSD 2
BQS8 VMware ESXi 8.0 U1 (Factory Installed) 1
BPPW ThinkSystem Broadcom 57504 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter 1
BLKM ThinkSystem V3 2U x16/x16/E PCIe Gen4 Riser1 or 2 1
BPK9 ThinkSystem 1800W 230V Titanium Hot-Swap Gen2 Power Supply 2
B8LA ThinkSystem Toolless Slide Rail Kit v2 1
BQQ3 ThinkSystem 2U V3 EIA Latch with VGA Port 1
BLL6 ThinkSystem 2U V3 Performance Fan Module 6
BPKR TPM 2.0 1
BQ80 ThinkSystem SR655 V3 MB 1
BS6Y ThinkSystem 2U V3 M.2 Signal & Power Cable, SLx4 with 2X10/1X6 Sideband, 330/267/267mm 1
BSHZ PCIe MB-BP Cable MCIO 1 2(MB) 12x3.5/8x2.5" 430mm to 8x2.5 1
BSJ2 PCIe MB-BP Cable MCIO 3 4(MB) 12x3.5/8x2.5" 340/390mm to 8x2.5 1
BMPF ThinkSystem V3 2U Power Cable from MB to Front 2.5" BP v2 1
BQ12 G4 x16/x16/E PCIe Riser BLKM for Riser 1 Placement 1
B8MM ThinkSystem 2U MS 3FH Riser Filler 1
BTS5 ThinkAgile SR650 V3 Service Label - WW 1
BSWK ThinkAgile SR650 V3 Agency Label - No CCC 1
BP46 ThinkSystem 2U Main Air Duct 1
B8MM ThinkSystem 2U MS 3FH Riser Filler 1
AVEN ThinkSystem 1x1 2.5" HDD Filler 4
BSR6 ThinkSystem SR635 V3/SR655 V3 RoT Module LV-RoW 1
BQ81 ThinkSystem SR655 V3 Main Airduct 1
BTT4 ThinkAgile SR655 V3 Service Label - WW 1
AWF9 ThinkSystem Response time Service Label LI 1
BTSW ThinkAgile SR655 V3 Agency Label - No CCC 1
B986 ThinkSystem HV 2U WW General PKG BOM 1
BXGY Right EIA with FIO assembly 1
BQQ6 ThinkSystem 2U V3 EIA right with FIO 1
AVEQ ThinkSystem 8x1 2.5" HDD Filler 2
AUTQ ThinkSystem small Lenovo Label for 24x2.5"/12x3.5"/10x2.5" 1
BQF9 ThinkSystem SR655 V3 2U High Performance Heatsink 1
B265 ThinkAgile VX Pubkit 1
BQ31 ThinkSystem MS 2U common Airductr Filler 1
5641PX3 XClarity Pro, Per Endpoint w/3 Yr SW S&S 1
1340 Lenovo XClarity Pro, Per Managed Endpoint w/3 Yr SW S&S 1
5PS7B12166 Premier Essential ThinkAgile CN - 3Yr 24x7 4Hr Resp + YDYD VX655 V3 1
5AS7B12280 Hardware Installation (Business Hours) for VX655 V3 1
5MS7A87711 ThinkAgile VX Remote Deployment (up to 4 node cluster) 1
7S0XCTO5WW XClarity Controller 1
SBCV Lenovo XClarity XCC2 Platinum Upgrade (FOD) 1

Conclusion

ThinkAgile VX V3 Integrated systems and certified nodes with VMware vSAN 8 and 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors provide superior performance, scalability and higher consolidation for different workloads. ThinkAgile VX systems are prevalidated and factory installed with VMware vSphere and VMware vSAN. VX systems simplify deployment and enable applications to address latency and security issues seamlessly. These next generation engineered hardware and software solutions from Lenovo and AMD are a one-stop scalable solution for modern application development and hybrid cloud scenarios with reduced TCO.

Why Lenovo

Lenovo is a US$70 billion revenue Fortune Global 500 company serving customers in 180 markets around the world. Focused on a bold vision to deliver smarter technology for all, we are developing world-changing technologies that power (through devices and infrastructure) and empower (through solutions, services and software) millions of customers every day.

For More Information

To learn more about Lenovo workload solutions on ThinkAgile VX635 V3, VX645 V3, VX655 V3 and VX665 V3 servers, contact your Lenovo Business Partner or visit: https://www.lenovo.com/systems/solutions

References:

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX635 V3 1U Integrated System and Certified Node: https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1689

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX645 V3 1U Integrated System and Certified Node: https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1648

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX655 V3 2U Integrated System and Certified Node: https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1690

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX665 V3 2U Integrated System and Certified Node: https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp1641

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Trademarks

Lenovo and the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both. A current list of Lenovo trademarks is available on the Web at https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/legal/copytrade/.

The following terms are trademarks of Lenovo in the United States, other countries, or both:
Lenovo®
ThinkAgile®
ThinkSystem®
XClarity®

The following terms are trademarks of other companies:

AMD and AMD EPYC™ are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Windows® is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.