Super Micro Computer has revealed Rack Scale Design (RSD) products for building software-defined data centers. RSD is the standardized architecture introduced by Intel, originally known as Rack Scale Architecture.

The Supermicro RSD uses the company’s server, storage, and networking hardware, as well as rack level management software from the open source RSD software framework from Intel and Redfish RESTful APIs developed by DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force).

Supermicro logo on a workstation
Supermicro logo on a workstation – Supermicro

I’m super, thanks for tasking

“Supermicro RSD makes it easy for companies of any size to build cloud infrastructure that until now are limited to leading large public and private cloud providers,” Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro, said.

“The Supermicro RSD solution enables more customers to build large scale modern data centers leveraging Supermicro’s best-of-breed server, storage and networking product portfolio.”

Charlie Wuischpard, GM of Intel’s scalable data center solutions group, added: “The launch of Supermicro’s platform, incorporating Intel Rack Scale Design, brings open, industry standards-based, hyperscale-inspired capabilities such as resource discovery, composability and telemetry to cloud, communications and enterprise data centers.”

The Supermicro RSD system uses the existing Broadwell X10 generation as well as new X11 generation gear. Minimum hardware configurations include:

  • A 1U management appliance that bundles all RSD related software or a software only distribution
  • Two Supermicro 1G management switches for connecting the baseboard management controllers (BMC)
  • One Supermicro data switch
  • Supermicro’s X10 and X11 server portfolio

The software includes:

  • Pod Manager (PodM): A pod is a collection of physical racks. Pod Manager sits at the top of the logical software hierarchy and uses Redfish API to communicate with the racks that make up the pod. It manages and aggregates the hardware resources within multiple racks in the Pod by polling respective PSMEs and RMMs
  • Rack Management Module (RMM): RMM manages power and thermal resources within a rack by polling rack hardware and reports this information to PodM through Redfish API
  • Pooled System Management Engine (PSME): PSME acts as the drawer or chassis manager. PSME communicates with each BMC controller in the drawer/chassis and reports aggregated information such as telemetry and asset information through Redfish API to PodM
  • Web UI: A browser based graphical user interface that simplifies the management of RSD