Life in the Fast Lane – The New Cisco UCS C3260 Rack Server

co-written with Richard Jacobik

Cisco recently started shipping the newest member to the UCS family – the storage-optimized UCS C3260 Rack Server. Data centers these days are bursting at the seams with unstructured data from new emerging applications and services. According to IDC, 80% of data is unstructured and continues to grow at a 16.2% CAGR. The ability for data centers to economically and rapidly ingest, index, analyze, and archive all this data is top of mind.

Cisco first introduced the C3000 family of storage optimized UCS rack servers in 2014 with the launch of the UCS C3160 rack server last fall. While on the surface the two servers models may look similar, the new C3260 is more than just a facelift but a remodel that supports data-intensive applications which drive higher throughput and more efficient transfer rates. The UCS C3260 is a platform that provides better density, throughput, and HA in a 4-RU chassis.

Travel the Country Roads and the Interstate Highways – UCS C3160 vs. C3260

The simplest way to describe the differences between the two server models is to compare and contrast taking a trip driving on secondary roads vs. taking freeways or highways. Both routes ultimately take you to the same destination but provide two different experiences.

The UCS C3160 provides the country road experience for data with a single processor node and 4 x 10 Gbps I/O throughput. It’s an ideal storage experience for non-throughput intensive services such as Backup and Recovery, Indexing, and Object Storage. Since last year, many ISV partners started reporting significant benefits in overall throughput, transfer rates, and efficiency.

The UCS C3260 provides an experience more like driving on a high-speed freeway with dual node processing and 4 x 40 Gbps of I/O throughput. It’s all about the fast-lane, high-throughput storage and processing for Big Data applications, massive Media Ingest, and Software-Defined Storage. The driving experience on freeways is to travel at varying speeds and choices between the many driving lanes. In a similar fashion, the C3260 provides the same flexibility in processing and throughput levels.

Both server models provide a 360 TB storage destination for data but each is geared toward different services and experiences.

Inside the UCS C3260

High Data Availability The C3260 gives you the highest levels of availability with dual-server node capability based on the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 v2 series. Each server node offers up 24 cores and 8 DIMM slots for up to 512 GB of memory or 1TB across both nodes.

Massive Local Storage The C3260 is all about insatiable data storage and offers 360 TB of storage across 60 LFF with SSD drives. The Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) allows for drives to be pooled and dynamically allocated to each server node.

High I/O Throughput In addition to high storage-density, the C3260 offers up to 160 Gbps (4 x 40 Gbps) of throughput powered by Cisco’s Gen 3 VIC 1300 technology.

Investment Protection The system architecture is based on a modular design that allows for individual components of the C3260 to be upgraded. Server nodes and drives can be individually upgraded as processors and drive density advance.