Supermicro BigTwin SYS-2029BZ-HNR Management
These days, out of band management is a standard feature on servers. Supermicro offers an industry standard solution for traditional management, including a WebGUI. This is based on the ASPEED AST2500 solution, a leader in the BMC field. The company is also supporting the Redfish management standard. On this server, we see similar features as we would across the Supermicro X11/H11 ranges. That means whether you are using this platform, an embedded Supermicro Intel motherboard or a 4U EPYC storage server, you will have a similar look and feel to the management experience.
In the latest generation of Supermicro IPMI is an HTML5 iKVM. One no longer needs to use a Java console to get remote KVM access to their server.
Currently, Supermicro allows users to utilize Serial-over-LAN, Java or HTML5 consoles from before a system is turned on, all the way into the OS. Other vendors such as HPE, Dell EMC, and Lenovo charge an additional license upgrade for this capability (among others with their higher license levels.) That is an extremely popular feature. One can also perform BIOS updates using the Web GUI but that feature does require a relatively low-cost license (around $20 street price.) That is a feature we wish Supermicro would include with their systems across product lines.
We also noticed a number of new features. One example of this was “Multi Node” which allowed us to see the power draw, post codes, CPU temperatures and several other bits of information.
Perhaps the most useful feature here is that the Multi Node tab showed the IP address and MAC address of each node in the chassis. If you need to quickly jump from one node to another, this is useful. This is also a feature not found in many of our other 2U 4-node systems.
Another feature we are seeing is the ability to monitor individual NVMe SSDs from the web interface and the management tools that Supermicro has. Beyond this, one can configure the two M.2 SATA drive boot options via the web console or using Redfish APIs.
One can do the same for the dual SATA boot SSDs. This is important for tasks such as setting up drives for OS installation or replacing drives for upgrades or repairs.
Supermicro BigTwin SYS-2029BZ-HNR Test Configuration
For our testing we used the following configuration:
- System: Supermicro BigTwin SYS-2029BZ-HNR
- CPUs (in pairs): Intel Xeon Platinum 8280, Intel Xeon Platinum 8276L, Intel Xeon Platinum 8268, Intel Xeon Platinum 8260, Intel Xeon Gold 6242, Intel Xeon Gold 6230, Intel Xeon Gold 5218, Intel Xeon Silver 4116.
- Memory: 384GB (12x 32GB) per node, added 4x 128GB Intel Optane DCPMM per node for testing as well
- SSDs: Intel DC P3520 2TB NVMe SSDs
- SATA DOM: Supermicro 64GB
- SIOM: Supermicro dual 1GbE AOC-MGP-i2M
- Add-in NICs: 2x Mellanox ConnectX-5 VPI 100GbE
- Boot option: M.2 HW RAID Carrier Card with 2x 500GB SATA M.2 SSDs
Next, we are going to look at the Supermicro BigTwin SYS-2029BZ-HNR performance before giving our final thoughts.
That is amazing what they can fit into a 2U. Especially considering dual sockets and 24 DIMMS per node. My 4U chassis with SM X11-DPI has two sockets and 16 DIMMS total (and only 12 of those 16 are usable if I want to have 6 channel). Quite amazing. But I’m homelab, so this is way out of my league. Cool though
This is amazing dual socket processor 4 node in 2U rack form factor server. Price very competitive with a giant brand.
My concern only at after sales support. Once they have it. They will be a leader for this region.