2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors Brief

Support for Breakthrough Memory Innovation
A new foundation for performance begins with support for Intel's breakthrough Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory, a new class of memory, and storage innovation architected for data-centric class environments. With individual module capacities up to 512 GB, Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory can deliver up-to 36 TB of system-level memory capacity when combine with traditional DRAM. Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory complements DRAM memory by affordably enabling unprecedented system memory capacity to accelerate workload processing and service delivery.

New 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors with Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory ^{3 4}

Foundational Enhancements

• Higher Per-Core Performance: Up to 56 cores (9200 series) and up to 28 cores (8200 series), delivering high-performance and scalability for compute-intensive workloads across compute, storage, and network usages
• Greater Memory Bandwidth/Capacity: Support for Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory, supporting up-to 36 TB of system-level memory capacity when combine with traditional DRAM. 50 percent increased memory bandwidth and capacity. Support for six memory channels and up-to 4 TB of DDR4 memory, per socket, with speeds up-to 2933 MT/s (1 DPC)
  
• Expanded I/O: 48 lanes of PCIe* 3.0 bandwidth and throughput for demanding I/O-intensive workloads
• Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect (Intel® UPI): Four Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect (Intel® UPI) (9200 series) and up to three Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect (Intel® UPI) (8200 series) channels increase scalability of the platform to as many as two sockets (9200 series) and up to eight sockets (8200 series). Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect (Intel® UPI) offers the perfect balance between improved throughput and energy efficiency
• Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) with VNNI: New Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) with Vector Neural Network Instruction (VNNI) bring enhanced artificial intelligence inference performance, with up to 30X performance improvement over the previous generation, 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors help to deliver AI readiness across the data center, to the edge and back
• Intel® Infrastructure Management Technologies (Intel® IMT): A framework for resource management, Intel® Infrastructure Management Technologies (Intel® IMT), combines multiple Intel capabilities that support platform-level detection, reporting, and configuration. This hardware-enhanced monitoring, management, and control of resources can help enable greater data center resource efficiency and utilization
• Intel® Security Libraries^◊ for Data Center (Intel® SecL-DC): A set of software libraries and components, Intel® SecL-DC enables Intel hardware-based security features. The open-source libraries are modular and have a consistent interface. They can be used by customers and software developers to more easily develop solutions that help secure platforms and help protect data using Intel hardware-enhanced security features at cloud scale
• Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512): With double the FLOPS per clock cycle compared to previous-generation Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (Intel® AVX2), Intel® AVX-512 boosts performance, and throughput for the most demanding computational tasks in applications, such as modeling and simulation, data analytics and machine learning, data compression, visualization, and digital content creation
• Security^◊ without compromise: Limiting encryption overhead and performance on all secure data transactions

Innovative Integrations

Platform integrations deliver improvements in performance and latency across the infrastructure:

• Integrated Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT): Chipset-based hardware acceleration for growing compression and cryptographic workloads for greater efficiency while delivering enhanced data transport and protection across server, storage, and network infrastructure
• Integrated Intel® Ethernet with scalable iWARP* RDMA*: Provides up to four 10 Gbps high-speed Ethernet ports for high data throughput and low-latency workloads. Ideal for software-defined storage solutions, NVM Express* over Fabric solutions, and virtual machine migrations. Integrated in the chipset

Industry-leading Memory and Storage Support

Storage innovations can drive significant improvements in efficiency and performance of data-hungry workloads.

• Support for Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory: Breakthrough memory and storage memory innovation offering groundbreaking capabilities for fast storage solutions. Can be combined with Intel® Optane™ DC SSDs for the ultimate in storage and data performance
• Support for Intel® Optane™ DC SSDs and Intel® QLC 3D NAND Solid-State Drives: Delivers industry-leading combination of high throughput, low latency, high QoS, and ultra-high endurance to break through data access bottlenecks
• Deploy next-generation storage with confidence with Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD): Enables hot swapping of NVMe SSDs from the PCIe bus without shutting down the system, while standardized LED management helps provide quicker identification of SSD status. This commonality brings enterprise reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features to NVMe SSDs, enabling deployment of next-generation storage with confidence
• Intel® Intelligent Storage Acceleration Library (Intel® ISA-L): Optimizes storage operations, such as encryption, for increased storage performance

Complementary Offerings for Even Greater Performance, Scalability

Intel offers a broad hardware and software portfolio that complements this new processor.

• Intel® Ethernet 800 series products support up to 100 GbE port speed with Application Device Queues (ADQ), which addresses latency-sensitive workloads for higher speed data communication. Data Plane Developer Kit (DPDK) is supported across Intel® Ethernet 800 series products for NFV acceleration, advanced packet forwarding, and highly efficient packet processing.
  Learn more at intel.com/ethernet
• Intel® FPGAs offer flexible, programmable acceleration, for low-latency applications, such as virtual switching, network services, data analytics, and AI.
  Learn more at intel.com/fpga
• A range of software tools and libraries for general and highly parallel computing help developers optimize applications for Intel® architecture.
  Learn more at software.intel.com

Enhanced Platform Trust
Data and platform reliability and protection are key concerns for enterprises dealing with increasing concerns and scrutiny regarding data security and privacy. Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family helps build highly trusted infrastructures with platform data protection, resiliency, and uptime.

Increased Data Protection and Reliability Across Every Workload

• Enhanced Intel® Run Sure Technology: New enhancements deliver advanced Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS) and server uptime for a company's most critical workloads. Hardware-assisted capabilities, including enhanced MCA and recovery and adaptive multidevice error correction, diagnose, and recover from previously fatal errors. And, they help ensure data integrity within the memory subsystem
• Intel® Key Protection Technology (Intel® KPT) with Integrated Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT) and Intel® Platform Trust Technology (Intel® PTT): Deliver hardware-enhanced platform security^◊ by providing efficient key and data protection at rest, in-use, and in-flight
• Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT) with One-Touch Activation: Enhanced platform security,^◊ while providing simplified and scalable deployment for Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT)

As more data-rich workloads flow through the data center, this comprehensive suite of hardware-enhanced features brings better data- and platform-level protection mechanisms for trusted services in enterprise and cloud environments.^◊

Dynamic and Highly Efficient Service Delivery
The convergence of enhanced compute, memory, network, and storage performance, combined with software ecosystem optimizations, make Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family the ideal platform for fully virtualized, software-defined data centers that dynamically self-provision resources—on-premises, through the network, and in the public cloud—based on workload needs.

Powerful Tools and Technologies for an Agile Data Center

Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT-x) features:

• Mode-based execution control (MBE) virtualization: Provides an extra layer of protection from malware attacks in a virtualized environment by enabling hypervisors to more reliably verify and enforce the integrity of kernel level code
• Timestamp counter scaling (TSC) virtualization: Provides workload optimization in hybrid cloud environments by allowing virtual machines to move across CPUs operating at different base frequencies

Intel® Node Manager (Intel® NM) 4.0: Helps IT intelligently manage and optimize power, cooling, and compute resources in the data center, maximizing efficiency, while reducing the chances of costly overheats.

Faster Time to Value with Intel® Select Solutions

In today's complex data center, hardware and software infrastructure is not “one size fits all". Intel® Select Solutions eliminates guesswork with rigorously benchmark tested and verified solutions optimized for real-world performance. These solutions accelerate infrastructure deployment on Intel® Xeon® processors for today's critical workloads in advanced analytics, hybrid cloud, storage, and networking.

Enterprise and Government – Primed for Business
For enterprise data centers modernizing to take advantage of the era of advanced analytics, the hybrid cloud and future-ready storage, Intel® Select Solutions can speed up your data-fueled, IT-driven business transformation.

Communications Service Providers – Tuned Network Enhancements
For Communication Service Providers transforming their network for a 5G-enabled future, Intel® Select Solutions offer a faster and more efficient deployment path of tested, reliable infrastructure with verified configurations that take full advantage of virtual network enhancements that support new and emerging customer workload demands.

High Performance Computing – Accelerated Time to Insight
For research in academia and government as well as the enterprises, high performance computing (HPC) capabilities with Intel® Select Solutions help push the limits of mainstream data today with deeper insights and more complex problem solving.

Learn more about Intel® Select Solutions featuring new 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory at intel.com/selectsolutions.

Strong, Capable Platforms for the Data-Fueled Enterprise

Enterprises are keen to extract value from the exploding data streams being presented to them for rapid insights that can shape their business initiatives. Traditional and emerging applications in the enterprise, including predictive analytics, machine learning, and HPC, require new levels of powerful compute capabilities and massive tiered data storage volumes. The modernized data center is being architected using a converged and holistic approach that can flexibly deliver new services and improve TCO across infrastructure assets today, while providing the most seamless and scalable on-ramp to a self-governing, hybrid data center.

Yet, organizations running their foundational business workloads, such as OLTP and web infrastructure, seek to reduce TCO with higher performing infrastructures.

The Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family delivers next-generation enterprise capabilities to businesses through a future-ready platform that can serve the hybrid cloud, data-fueled era, plus it helps improve day-to-day operations. This versatile platform brings disruptive levels of compute performance, coupled with memory and I/O advances, to compute-hungry and latency-sensitive applications. Combined with innovative Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory and Intel® QLC 3D NAND SSD data center family to manage large data volumes across storage, caching, and memory, platforms built on the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family are ready to handle the intense demands of the data and cloud era.

With a scalable portfolio of packaging options to suit diverse workload requirements, the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family is a performance workhorse designed for deploying highly efficient, virtualized infrastructures for compute, storage, and networking.

New 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors with Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory

Highlights for Enterprise Innovation

• 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors
• Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory
• Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost)
  
• Intel® Speed Select Technology (Intel® SST)
• Intel® Ethernet 800 Series
• Intel® Optane™ DC SSDs and Intel® QLC 3D NAND SSDs
• Intel® Infrastructure Management Technologies (Intel® IMT)
  

Next-generation Platform for Cloud-optimized, 5G-Ready Networks, and Next-generation Virtual Networks

The coming era of 5G will enable entirely new ecosystems and classes of consumer and enterprise services along with media applications on wireless and wireline networks. These data-rich, innovative use cases, driven by the new Internet of Things (IoT), visual computing, and analytics, represent significant future opportunities for communications service providers (CommSPs) to grow revenue.

The transition from purpose-built, fixed function infrastructure to a new generation of open networks is the essential first step to prepare for a 5G-enabled world. Software-defined networking with Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is enabling new service opportunities and operations efficiencies for both communication services providers and enterprises alike. Using flexible, optimized, industry-standard servers and virtualized, orchestrated network functions will allow future-ready infrastructures to be able to deliver innovative services with efficiency and ease.

Such distributed communications networks can support extreme levels of scalability, agility, programmability, and security across an ever-growing volume and variety of networking workloads—from the network core to the edge.

The Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family is the basis for next-generation platforms to build virtualized, cloud-optimized, 5G-ready networks. It offers an architecture that scales and adapts with ease to handle the demands of emerging applications and the convergence of key workloads, such as applications and services, control plane processing, high-performance packet processing, and signal processing. This new processor provides a foundation for agile networks that can operate with cloud economics, be highly automated and responsive, and support rapid and more secure delivery of new and enhanced services enabled by 5G.

New 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors Specialized for Networking/NFV “N” SKUs

Highlights for Communication Service Provider Innovation

• 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor “N” SKUs, specialized for Networking/NFV
• Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory
• Hardware-based acceleration of encryption and compression using integrated Intel® QAT
• Intel® Ethernet 800 Series
• Intel® FPGAs maximize versatility in communications infrastructure
• Intel® Infrastructure Management Technologies (Intel® IMT)
  

Additional Resources Optimized for Communication Service Providers
The open-source Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) enables optimized communications operations on Intel® architecture. DPDK has demonstrated ability to scale performance as processor core count and performance increase; workloads, such as Vector Packet Processing (VPP) IPsec, benefit from this enhanced performance. Additionally, these libraries provide pre-optimized mechanisms to allow new processor capabilities (such as Intel® AVX-512 and memory and I/O enhancements) to be able to utilize the new functionality for improved packet processing performance with less direct development effort.

Intel offers programs, such as Intel® Network Builders University, ideal for network evolution in the 5G era. With solution guidance and training from these programs, CommSPs can drive their network transformation initiatives forward with increased confidence.

Breakthrough HPC and High-performance Data Analytics Innovation

Today's scientific discoveries are fueled by innovative algorithms, new sources and volumes of data, and advances in compute and storage. Benefitting from exponentially expanding volumes and variety of data, HPC clusters are also the engine for running evolving High-performance Data Analytics (HPDA) workloads, leading to incredible discoveries and insight for business and human understanding. Machine learning, deep learning, and AI converge the capabilities of massive compute with the flood of data to drive next-generation applications, such as autonomous systems and self-driving vehicles.

Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family offers a common platform for AI with high throughput for both inference and training—up to 30x higher inference using 9200 series and up to 14x higher inference throughput using 8200 series, compared to Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors introduced in July 2017.

HPC is no longer just the domain of large scientific institutions. Enterprises are increasingly consuming a massive number of HPC compute cycles; some of the world's largest HPC clusters are in private oil and gas companies. Research in personalized medicine applies HPC for highly focused treatment plans. New HPC installations are engaging innovative, converged architectures for non-traditional usages that combine simulation, AI, visualization, and analytics in a single supercomputer.

HPC platforms—from the smallest clusters to largest supercomputers—demand a balance across compute, memory, storage, and network. The Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family was designed to deliver and enable such balance with massive scalability—to tens of thousands of cores. From its improved core count and mesh architecture to newly integrated technologies and support for Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory and storage devices, the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family enables the ultimate goals of HPC—to maximize performance across compute, memory, storage, and network without inducing bottlenecks at any intersection of resources.

The integration of Intel® Omni-Path Architecture (Intel® OPA), an end-to-end high-performance fabric, into the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family delivers both increased performance and scaling to distributed, parallel computing clusters. Near linear scaling up to 32 nodes enables building large HPC solutions that are not inhibited by the interconnect. The Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family and Intel® Omni-Path Architecture (Intel® OPA) can enable new discoveries and faster solutions for highly parallel workloads in many data centers.

New 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors for HPC

• Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 processors
• Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory
• Intel® Ultra Path Interconnect (Intel® UPI)
• Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost)
• Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512)
• Intel® Omni-Path Architecture (Intel® OPA) Host Fabric Interface
• Intel® Optane™ DC SSDs

Additional Technologies for HPC, HPDA, and AI
A range of high-productivity software tools, optimized libraries, foundational building blocks, and flexible frameworks for general and highly parallel computing help simplify workflows and assist developers to create codes that maximize the capabilities of IA for HPC and AI.

Optimizations for popular deep learning frameworks for IA, including Caffe and TensorFlow* offer increased value and performance for data scientists.

Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2017 includes performance libraries, such as Intel® Math Kernel Library (Intel® MKL) for Deep Neural Networks (Intel® MKL-DNN) to accelerate deep learning frameworks on IA, and Intel® Data Analytics Acceleration Library (Intel® DAAL) to speed big data analytics.

Resources Optimized for HPC
To continue to advance discovery through HPCinto the Exascale era, the Intel® Modern Code Developer Community offers developers and data scientists easily accessible online and face-to-face code modernization technical sessions on techniques, such as vectorization, memory and data layout, multithreading, and multinode programming.

Overview of 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors

Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family

• Up to 56 Intel® Xeon® Scalable processing cores per processor
  Two processors per 2U platform
  (Intel® Server System S9200WK Data Center Block)
• 12 memory channels per processors, 24 memory channels per node
  
• Features new Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) instruction for enhanced AI inference acceleration and performance
• Enhanced multichip package optimized for density and performance

2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors

SKU Numbering
Processor numbers for the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family use an alphanumeric scheme based on performance, features, processor generation, and any options, following the brand and its class.