Interview: We had the opportunity to discuss storage servers with Supermicro and find out how it designs and customizes them for its customers, and how interfaces are changing. Wendell Wenjen, director of Storage Market Development, answered our questions.
Blocks & Files: How does Supermicro design a storage server, other than stuffing either SSDs or HDDs in a standard 24-slot chassis?
Wendell Wenjen: Supermicro designs a very wide array of servers ranging from enterprise, embedded, multi-node, GPU servers to cloud optimized servers. While many of these servers are used for storage applications, we have a dedicated product management and development team focused on servers specifically designed for storage applications.
The key features of these servers are capacity of SSD, HDD, or both, use of EDSFF SSD form-factors, mainly E3.S and E1lS but also including U.2, and validation of these systems with leading storage ISV software. We also make specialized storage servers which are unique for storage including SBB-type two-node high-availability systems, JBODs, JBOFs and, most recently, a 1U 16-bay storage server using the Nvidia Grace CPU Superchip, specifically designed for scale-out storage applications.
Blocks & Files: Does Supermicro customize its storage servers for particular customers, such as hyperscalers? How does this process work?
Wendell Wenjen: While Supermicro has many of the capabilities of an ODM such as custom design and manufacturing, we’re not really an ODM. Instead of making a custom design for hyperscalers, for example, we use a unique Building Block design strategy which provides many options to combine chassis, motherboards, and I/O expansion panels to create semi-customized designs for large scale customers. This provides all of the benefits of a unique design but is faster to market and is without the added cost of custom-designed boards and tooling.
Supermicro also provides all of the compatibility testing, ISV and OS certification, and support services that OEMs provide. Because of this customization capability through the Building Block strategy, Supermicro differentiates itself both from ODMs and traditional OEMs.
Blocks & Files: What channels exist for Supermicro’s storage servers, such as OEM, distribution, retail or direct sales, and what proportion of business goes through each?
Wendell Wenjen: Supermicro has different sales models for storage servers and our datacenter products, which include all of these channels. We do not disclose sales by channel but will note that we have substantial direct business, channel business and OEM fulfillment.
For customers with an appliance delivery model, we will OEM our storage and server products and provide integration services. We sell in the US and internationally through a network of distributors and value-added resellers. We also operate a direct-to-consumer web sales business (eStore) and sell through retailers. We have a direct sales force which is focused on CSPs, OEM business and selling to large enterprises internationally.
Blocks & Files: What’s Supermicro’s view of the needs for NVMe, Fibre Channel, and SAS infrastructure in its products?
Wendell Wenjen: NVMe-over-Fabric and the variations including RDMA, RoCE, and GPUDirect storage are increasingly becoming important as storage system performance and media access performance increases. We support these protocols through both compatible NICs and through ISV software and work with key technology providers such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and many ISVs to plan, validate, and deliver these technologies. As a systems and solutions provider, Supermicro takes the responsibility for testing, integrating and supporting these technologies.
Fibre Channel as a storage network has been declining for some years due to high cost, specialized administrative expertise and has been largely replaced with Ethernet except in certain legacy environments. We do support Fibre Channel HBAs, but it is not a large part of our network business.
SAS continues to be the most popular interface for disks and JBODs which we see continuing in the future with the STA roadmap. We continue to support SAS in our disk-based products through on-board or add-in card controllers and resell HDDs and some SSDs with SAS interfaces from leading suppliers.
Blocks & Files: Does Supermicro supply storage server software as well as hardware?
Wendell Wenjen: Supermicro has reseller relationships with many storage software partners including but not limited to WEKA, VAST, DDN, Hammerspace, Cloudian, Quantum, Qumulo, OSNexus, GRAID, Xinnor, Scality, Minio. In addition, we resell OS and other software from Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, Oracle, Cloudera, and a number of other companies.
Supermicro also works with many other software companies through meet-in-the-channel business models, working together with resellers and integrators. Because of the availability, the large number of designs and options, and the reliability of our systems, we often meet new (to us) storage software companies that have been using Supermicro storage systems for many years through the channel without working directly with us. We are working directly with more of these companies.
Unlike some OEMs that have a portfolio of acquired software solutions, Supermicro is free to work with all of the leading ISVs and ensure that our customers are receiving the best solution for their needs.
Supermicro validates specific hardware configurations with the ISV’s software and can factory install and test the software and perform on-site installation, cabling and testing if requested by the customer. Large scale customers ordering many racks of servers and storage often find these services to be very critical in enabling fast on-site bring-up. This type of service where Supermicro designs the rack architecture, installs the software and networking in the factory and stress tests it, and then sends a team responsible for on-site cabling, installation and bring-up is an area which is unique to Supermicro from most of our competitors.
Blocks & Files: What do customers need to consider when enhancing their storage systems?
Wendell Wenjen: In our experience, customers often look at these criteria in either expanding their storage capacity or adding a new storage system as a separately managed system:
- Type of storage access – Block, File, or Object, or some combination; how these access methods work with existing or new applications consuming the storage capacity.
- Performance Requirements – in IOPS and throughput, performance metrics and benchmark tests, storage traffic transfer pattern (size, read vs writes, random vs sequential). How to meet the performance requirements (hardware – Flash vs. Flash + Disk + mostly disk), storage networking performance. Note that Supermicro will work with customers to fully performance test a clustered storage system which enables our customers to optimize the storage design during the design phase and have confidence in the delivered system’s performance.
- Cost – Total acquisition cost, cost per TB, lifecycle cost.
- Greenfield vs Brownfield, compatibility with existing systems, expansion versus new system build.
