In this Computex 2016, SuperMicro is going to present server, storage and network solution in general, and focus on performance, efficiency, density and management of its products such as enterprise, cloud, HPC and embedded IoT infra. Especially, in the event, SuperMicro adopts a new 7U 8-way MP SuperServer, high-density 3U MicroBlade system and new storage product supports up to 48 2.5type drives in 2U based on ‘SuperStorage’ architecture.

In addition, SuperMicro introduces that it will extend NVMe support to the product line in general. NVMe drive is expected to get a significant cost efficiency through a massive performance improvement and power efficiency compared to SAS3 SSD. SuperMicro has already applied it to more than 50 servers and storage products. NVMe SSD is providing flexibility to operation by hot-swap support at the standard that is compatible with SAS/SATA bay, and enhancing the density by using a new form factor.


As core competitiveness of SuperMicro, Charles Liang mentioned a technology innovation, quick release of products that applied recent technology, and efficiency in aspect of performance, power and cost. For the last five years, it has shown a rapid growth as it achieved sale growth to five times. It is introduced that, especially, the storage part is presenting a big growth. As major product lines, server and storage related, embedded and IoT product line, management software, virtualization solution, etc. are pointed out.

Among product lines of SuperMicro, 1U/2U TwinPro and 4U FatTwin lines are optimized to hyper-converged infra so that they provide high performance per cost or watt. Moreover, in storage lines, there are unique products, such as 90/60 bay storage or 2U 48 bay array, and they are recommended to big data environment or software-defined storage configuration. SuperBlade, MicroBlade or MicroCloud provides small cabling, which is up to 95%, easy management and cost-efficiency based on miniaturized compute unit up to 0.05U.

In storage line, the recent trends are software-defined storage array based on open software and the application of NVMe. Compared to the legacy, proprietary storage based on hard disk, an open hardware, SSD-integrated hybrid configuration, and all flash system have been providing performance and efficiency improvement to hundreds of thousand times. Also, it is introduced that open hardware and all flash storage based on NVMe based on software will provide more improved performance, efficiency, flexibility, etc.



A design based on NVMe flash directly connects processor and storage through PCIe system bus, rather than passing the controller like the existing one, so that it enables reduction of delay time and improvement of performance. At the actual test result, compared to the configuration based on SAS3 SSD, a configuration based on NVMe drive shows more than 10 times of performance difference even though the numbers of drive configuration are the same. Also, NVMe storage has big advantages in power efficiency and great gap in cost-efficiency if NVMe and SAS3 storage has same performance level.

In 2017, it is expected that the half of SSD will be based on NVMe, and according to the increase of requirement from the market, SuperMicro will provide NVMe support from more than 50 servers and storage lines. Moreover, all the 2.5type NVMe SSDs will support hot-swap and have compatibility with SAS and SATA drive bay so that they can provide high flexibility and manageability to customers. Besides, hardware RAID technology in NVMe configuration will be released soon, and capacity increase through 3D NAND technology is expected.

Currently, NVMe storage can provide performance improvement that reaches ten times even using same form factors of SAS, SATA SSD. On top of that, a new form factor that can maximize advantages of performance and density is prepared. By optimized to 1U-level system that lacks space, NVMe flash of this new form factor provides features such as optimized performance and energy efficiency, a design that drives up the capacity density, PCIe 3.0, hot plug support, etc. In 2018, it is expected to provide capacity up to 32TB for each drive.


SuperMicro’s Rack-scale design used by all flash storage based on NVMe is built on Intel’s rack-scale design standard, and provides configuration optimized for next generation software defined storage, cloud and datacenter applications. Enclosure can be from 2U up to maximum 40U, and manage 80 1U hot-swap half-width trays at the front side. In tray, DP Xeon-based computing tray, or a storage tray with 12 U.2 NVMes or 16 new formfactor NVMes is prepared.

Besides, SuperMicro will present various new products at this Computex. At 7U formfactor, 7U 8-way MP SuperServer supports maximum nine Xeon E7-based systems, 192 DDR4 memory sockets, U.2 NVMe drive, etc. In addition, a new 7U SuperBlade can mount 20 nodes based on Xeon E5-2600 v4 DP configuration and support accelerator such as Nvidia Tesla, Intel Xeon Phi, etc. In storage part, 2U Simply Double storage, etc. are introduced as well as all flash NVMe solution.

Meanwhile, SuperMicro introduced that it has many cooperative relationships in providing solutions related to a storage and cloud. As the representative ones, it has cooperation related to ceph storage with Red Hat, cloud with OpenStack, VSAN with VMware, hyper converged with Nutanix, and cloud platform with Ubuntu. In the partner panel discussion, officials from Intel, Nutanix, FireEye, etc. attended and introduced their opinions.



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