Google announced a new family of virtual machines It will be the first of its kind in the public Cloud Market powered by 4th generation Intel Xeon server Treatments.
In Google Cloud Next ’22, the company lifted the lid on its new C3 VMs, which it says can provide more efficient and predictable computing performance, thanks to an architecture that allows certain tasks to be offloaded to supporting devices.
Meanwhile, adding a new Hyperdisk block storage to the mix means C3 VMs offer 4 times the throughput and 10 times the IOPS per vCPU than the previous generation, C2.
Backed by custom silicone
Google says the key to increased performance on offer with the new generation of virtual machines is the system-on-chip (SoC) design, which pairs the fourth-generation Xeon CPU with a custom-designed Intel Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU). .
Launched by Intel in the summer of 2021, IPUs are designed to help Cloud Network providers will edit CPUs Performance by offloading functions such as storage and network virtualization, which also leads to various security benefits. In essence, IPUs are virtually identical to data processing units (DPUs).
“We are thrilled to co-design the first ASIC Infrastructure Processing Unit with Google Cloud, now launched in the new C3 series of machines,” said Nick McKeon, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Network and Edge, Intel.
“A first in any public cloud, C3 VMs will run workloads on 4th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors while securely freeing programmable packet processing to IPUs at 200 Gbit/s line rates. This collaboration between Intel and Google to customers with a more secure, resilient, and performing infrastructure.”
Separately, Intel will be relieved to see its new Xeon CPUs (codenamed Sapphire Rapids) in place in the production environment. The new chips were originally scheduled to launch in 2021, but their rollout has been punctuated by frequent delays and Intel is still struggling to get it to the mass market.
Although select customers (presumably including Google Cloud) gained access to Sapphire Rapids silicon earlier this year, it now looks like the rest of the world will have to wait until the first quarter of 2023.
But according to Google, the new Xeon CPUs were at least worth the wait, giving a 20% performance advantage to some VM clients, when paired with a dedicated Intel IPU.
The new C3 family of virtual machines is now available in private preview. Pro radar technology Google Cloud was asked to provide a schedule for general availability.
