Analytics as an Appliance

Overview

Beeks Analytics as an Appliance is built on Dell PowerEdge servers, offering a range of CPU, storage, and expansion options to meet your specific requirements.

For high-performance financial market data processing, appliances can be configured with FPGA capture and compression cards. The system supports a distributed architecture, with separate dedicated appliances recommended for maximum scalability. Beeks Analytics is compatible with multiple CPU architectures, with Rocky Linux as the preferred operating system. The architecture is modular and scalable, allowing components to run on separate or combined appliances depending on your needs.

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Features & Benefits

Distributed Architecture

• Supports a distributed setup with separate dedicated appliances for VMX-Analysis and VMX-Capture.
• Can receive data from multiple VMX-Capture appliances across different locations.
• Both VMX-Capture and VMX-Analysis can run concurrently on the same appliance with careful resource management.

Server Chassis Variants

• Appliances are typically built on Dell PowerEdge servers.
• Available in 1U and 2U chassis with single or dual CPU slots.
• Support for PERC hardware NVMe RAID, with RAID configurations recommended for performance and resiliency.

CPU Architecture

• Beeks Analytics utilises AMD EPYC4 CPUs, with continued support for EPYC2, EPYC3, and Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs (2nd, 3rd, 4th Generation).
• Appliances are specified in sizes from S – XXL, starting at 16 cores/64GB RAM.
• Best cost: clock-speed CPUs selected for each variant, with scalability options.

Capture Cards

• Napatech cards are mandatory for any VMX-Capture installation, providing
  • High fidelity capture with deep buffers.
• Ability to handle PTP and/or PPS time signals.
  • Capability to separate traffic into distinct streams, offloading work from the server CPU and improving scalability.
• Card Options
  • NT200A02
    • Fully-featured with PTP hardware timestamping and 2 QSFP28 ports.
  • NT50A01
    • Lower cost, lacks hardware time sync, uses OS clock sync, and has 2 SFP28 ports.
• Standard setup uses a single Napatech card, but up to 3 NT200A02 cards can be used in 2U chassis.

Compression Cards

• Optional for VMX-Capture deployments.
• Compress data on-the-fly before writing to disk, enabling handling of higher data volumes.
• Offload packet capture decompression tasks to the FPGA, speeding up tasks and reducing server CPU load.
• Supported Cards
  • AMD Alveo U50
  • Bitware Agilex IA-440i (standard option)
• Multiple cards can be used in an appliance and scale linearly based on throughput needs.
• Combined capture + analysis appliances usually have one compression card, with larger setups or dedicated 2U capture boxes recommended to have at least 2 compression cards.

Storage Variants

• Beeks Analytics turnkey appliances support various storage configurations with RAID controllers.
• Dedicated RAID controllers recommended for VMX-Capture, VMX-Analysis, and mdPlay functions.
• NVMe drives offer high performance, with RAID5 recommended for large capture volumes.

Operating System

• Supported OS’s: RHEL8, RHEL9, and their derivatives.
• Rocky Linux 9 from version 12 onwards is preferred for 25% better performance.
• Easy setup with minimal install; the installer configures repositories and system settings automatically.

Public Documentation

As part of our commitment to transparency, most of our Beeks Analytics documentation is publicly accessible at Beeks Technical Documentation.

Technical Documentation