Inspur NE5260M5 Review 2U Short-Depth Edge Server

Inspur NE5260M5 Test Configuration

For our solution we had a fairly basic configuration:

• System: Inspur NE5260M5
• CPU: 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8260
• Memory: 12x 64GB DDR4-2666 ECC RDIMMs (768GB total)
• Networking: 2x Mellanox ConnectX-5
• SSD: 2x 480GB SK.Hynix M.2 boot SSDs, 1x 400GB Intel DC S3700 400GB data SSD

For those who are interested, here is the system topology for the unit:

Here you can see the PCIe devices on both CPUs. Each riser is connected to a different CPU. Here, for example, we can see one of the two Mellanox NICs connected to each CPU. One can see the “mlx5” devices attached to each NUMA node.

Next, let us move to management.

Inspur NE5260M5 Management

Inspur’s primary management is via IPMI and Redfish APIs. That is what most hyperscale and CSP customers will utilize to manage their systems. Inspur also includes a robust and customized web management platform with its management solution for each node.

There are key features we would expect from any modern server. These include the ability to power cycle a system and remotely mount virtual media. Inspur also has a HTML5 iKVM solution that has these features included. Some other server vendors do not have fully-featured HTML5 iKVM including virtual media support as of this review being published.

Another feature worth noting is the ability to set BIOS settings via the web interface. That is a feature we see in solutions from top-tier vendors like Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo, but many vendors in the market do not have.

Based on comments in our previous articles, many of our readers have not used an Inspur Systems server and therefore have not seen the management interface. We have an 8-minute video clicking through the interface and doing a quick tour of the Inspur Systems management interface:

It is certainly not the most entertaining subject, however, if you are considering these systems, you may want to know what the web management interface is on each machine and that tour can be helpful.

This system also has dual firmware images. That allows upgrades to happen to one of the two images. In the event that a new firmware causes an issue, there is a second firmware which can be used as the primary.

Inspur added a few features to the NE5260M5 to make it easier to manage in the field.

Next, we are going to move onto the Inspur NE5260M5 performance.