Comments on: More Blade Server Rumours

By: Kevin Houston

Kevin Houston — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:17:55 +0000

yes #ibm announced an iDataplex GPU solution but I don't focus on non-blade technology on this blog. HOWEVER it is important to point out that iDataplex is a “solution” that must be bought and ordered from IBM. It's not a pay-as-you grow model and you can't buy a couple of servers and add more in the future like you can with blade servers. Great point though. Thanks for reading!

By: Proteus

Proteus — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:37:12 +0000

IBM just announced their iDataplex GPU solution this week. (2 full power Fermi GPUs in a 2 socket, half-depth Nehalem server). 42 dual westmere, dual GPU+Infiniband/10GbE servers in a standard 42U rack footprint. No blade will be able to match that, from any vendor.

By: leslie gillette

leslie gillette — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:49:30 +0000

RT @kevin_houston: RT @Kevin_Houston More Blade Server Rumours http://ow.ly/1qxLIj

By: Kevin Houston

Kevin Houston — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:20:55 +0000

RT @Kevin_Houston More Blade Server Rumours http://ow.ly/1qxLIj

By: Kevin Houston

Kevin Houston — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:05:18 +0000

Great comments, Mike. It will be interesting to see how #GPUs on a blade server will be handled, if indeed the rumour is true.

By: Kevin Houston

Kevin Houston — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:09:25 +0000

Great comments, Nik. Mike, from #dell mentioned the same thing shortly after you. It will be interesting to see how the blade vendor handles the power requirement. Thanks for reading!

By: mike roberts

mike roberts — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:34:19 +0000

Kevin,
interesting rumours. in order to effectively run GPGPUs you need a couple of things that no blade vendor can really support right now.
1) you need a high bandwidth PCIe connection to the host like full x16 gen2 PCIe. PCI-X and gen1 x4 PCIe slots are not enough to handle the bandwidth of these devices
2) you need the capability to support very high power cards. the GPGPUs can be up to 250+ Watts each. so you'd need supplimental power connections and much greater power delivery capability than IBM/HP's "sidecar" PCI expansion blades support today.
maybe someone will offer these things in a blade?

on the high memory blade, would also be nice if someone figured out how to put 18 dimms in a high density blade without requiring expensive, non hot plug SSDs
mike

By: Nik Simpson

Nik Simpson — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:09:11 +0000

The challenge of putting conventional GPUsisn’t trivial. If you look at the current crop of workstation graphics/HPC accelerator GPUs from NVidia there are several problems:

1. They are huge, requiring a full length PCIe slot
2. They draw 250/300 watts/GPU
3. They need dedicated power supply connections

To fit one inside a blade (as opposed to putting it in a separate PCIe/PCIx expansion chassis) is going to take some serious engineering work.

By: Kevin Houston

Kevin Houston — Mon, 17 May 2010 09:00:59 +0000

New blog posting, More Blade Server Rumours – http://tinyurl.com/2aaxko6