Iata ce tip de servere mentin Siri in functiune in centrele de date ale Apple

  Lansat in 2011 prin intermediul iPhone 4S, asistentul functional Siri s-a dovedit a fi una dintre functiile populare ale iDevice-urilor si asta in ciuda faptului ca intelege un numar extrem de limitat de limbi si ca nu recunoaste intotdeauna cuvintele chiar atat de bine. Intregul sistem functioneaza cu ajutorul unei infrastructuri de tip cloud a carei configuratie a fost aleasa de catre Apple, compania preluand toate inregistrarile facute de catre Siri pentru utilizatori, analizandu-le si oferind rapid raspunsuri la intrebari, efectuand cautari pe web sau actionand diverse functii ale iOS-ului.

SO one of my ex-colleague is now lead cloud architect at Apple and does know on which hardware SIRI is running so this is the infra. World is separated in region and in region got 1 Siri instance, last time I asked there was 3 siri instances for US (East coast, central, west coast ) this based on how many potential user there is per region, but there is at least 1 per country. 1 instance of siri is made of : 4 HP c7k http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/enclosures/product-detail.html?oid=5363108#!tab=specs . Each c7k is loaded with 8 blades of this type: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=5288623#!tab=features

  Daca v-ati intrebat vreodata ce tip de infrastructura are Apple implementata pentru a sustine Siri, ei bine astazi veti afla. Compania americana are in centrele sale de date “instante” cu cate 4 rack-uri cu clustere de servere dedicate fiecarei tari din care sunt trimise raspunsuri pentru analiza, SUA fiind una dintre tarile in care exista nu mai putin de 3 clustere dedicate, cate unul pentru partea de est, cea centrala si cea de vest. Un cluster de acest gen este compus din 4 rack-uri de servere HP C7K(BLc7000)

The server dont have any local disk, they boot from sAN and keep all data from SAN, if a server die, just remove it, put another one, start, and its good to go. so if you count a Siri instance is made of: 32 servers with a total of 1024 cores, and 32 TB of RAM. The aplication is stateless, so no HA and DR per se, but if one server fail, just the current Siri query are lost, you just have to repeat again and your query will end up to another one server. If the full DC blown u or lost connection, this is a guess but I think each carrier will redirect Siri traffic to another region but that I can’t guarantee.

  In fiecare rack de acest gen exista cate 8 servere HP ProLiant BL660c Gen8 personalizate de catre Apple, fiecare server de acest gen avand un pret de lista de 28.000$. Uitandu-ne doar la hardware, vorbim despre 32 de servere care au 1024 nuclee si 32 TB RAM, ele avand o putere de procesare enorma, ea fiind necesara pentru a sustine software-ului din spatele Siri. Practic toate cele 3 clustere dedicate SUA au un pret de lista de 800.000 $, iar pentru fiecare tara de pe glob compania Apple ar avea dedicat cate un cluster in valoare de aproximativ 267.000$.

  Ca sa fiu sincer imi vine greu sa cred ca Apple chiar are dedicate cate 32 de servere pentru fiecare tara de pe glob si imi imaginez ca Romania si tarile asemanatoare impart clustere de acest gen fara probleme.