Concept Guide

Dell PowerConnect W AirWave 7.2 | Sizing Guide CPU, BIOS, Operating Systems, and Storage | 7
Chapter 2
CPU, BIOS, Operating Systems, and
Storage
This chapter explains sizing information for the following topics:
 “CPU and BIOS” on page7
 “Operating System” on page7
 “Storage” on page8
CPU and BIOS
Intel Nehalem and Westmere Architecture Information
With the advent of Nehalem, Intel now supports NUMA (Non Uniform Memory Access). In NUMA, memory on
the same processor board as the CPU (local memory) is accessed faster than memory on other processor boards
(shared memory), hence the "non-uniform" nomenclature. As a result, NUMA architecture scales much better to
higher numbers of CPUs/cores than SMP.
 32-bit - ensure NUMA is disabled.
 Some vendors' BIOS refer to non NUMA as "Memory Node Interleaving". Ensure "Memory Node
Interleaving" is enabled on 32-bit operating systems.
 By default, most vendors disable this setting in their BIOS.
 64-bit - ensure NUMA is enabled. Some vendors' BIOS have NUMA Enabled or NUMA-Aware OS options.
Ensure that Power Management is configured for Maximum Performance. By default, most vendors configure
BIOS to an eco-friendly setting.
Ensure that Memory Operating Mode is configured to Optimizer Mode, if available.
AMD Information
Scalability numbers are based on published performance data versus the Intel product line. See Appendix A,
“Miscellaneous Sizing Information” on page15 for details in the AMD Scalability Matrix.
Operating System
To ensure hardware capability, purchase server hardware that is certified by Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
 AWMS includes the CentOS operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is installed by default.
You may choose to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
 AWMS supports both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms. An AWMS server servicing more than 2,500
devices requires 64-bit OS installation coupled with AWMS 7.1 or higher.
 AWMS 7.1 installs 64-bit CentOS by default.