Nov 10
15

IBM Offering Free BladeCenter Chassis

27 Comments

IBM is striving to increase marketshare by offering customers the chance to get a “free” IBM BladeCenter chassis.  This is a  great promotion that IBM has continued to offer over the past several years.  Keep in mind this promo is for the chassis, not the switches or blade servers that go in it, however it is still a nice offering and should help offset some of the cost to implementa blade server project.   The promotion is limited to U.S. customers who have not purchased a BladeCenter chassis in the past 12 months (check with your local IBM team if you are outside of the U.S.)  There is a limit of 5 “free” chassis per customer, so make sure you contact your local Business Partner (or contatct me if you don’t have an IBM partner) and take advantage of this offer.

The promotion appears to be limited to the following models:

  • BladeCenter E Chassis    86773TU or 86774TU
  • BladeCenter H Chassis  88524SU or 88524TU
  • BladeCenter S Chassis   88861TU

I would love to see HP, Dell or Cisco offer a similar promotion.  It’s a great way to get customers interested in your blade server product.  Any takers?

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Posted in IBM by Kevin Houston 27 Comments

  • Kajtzu

    Sad it is US only.

  • http://www.benway.net benwaynet

    We tried blades once. Our issue was we didn’t buy enough servers to fill the chassis (7 of 10) before they changed the blade architecture.
    Plus I always felt like the chassis could be a single point of failure.

  • Awol

    If they had more compelling technology and reasoable price most of the time they wouldn’t have to “give” things away.. Never seen HP or Dell do this because they don’t need to.

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Spoken like a true #HP fanatic ;) Thanks for the comment wolf!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    It will always be challenging to overcome the chassis being a single point of failure. The midplane is really the only thing that would be the single point, but all vendors say they offer ‘passive’ midplanes so they should never fail, but never say never. Customers who truely want/need blades and are concerned with reliability often look toward multiple chassis designs. Thanks for your comment!

  • Joe Onisick

    Mid-planes do fail. I had two IBM chassis DOA for a customer about 3 years ago. Took IBm 2 weeks to narrow it down to the mid-plane. Turns out is was a manufacturing defect. The same could easily happen with any other blade architecture. The odds are very very low, but I still like to look at a minimum of 2 chassis in most situations.

    Joe

  • http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Mission-Critical-Computing-Blog/bg-p/199 Jacob Van Ewyk (HP)

    HP has an Integrity Blades Start Kit offer: a free c7000 chassis and Integrity blade with the purchase of HP-UX and support. More information at http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/w1/en/migrate-to-hp/from-sun-starter-kit.html.

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  • marrtins

    Yes, it is sad. Be happy to lay my hands on BladeChassis H at last…

  • Art@newmac1.com

    For anybody who is intrested in this promo email me art @newmac1.com (remove the space) and for the guy who had an issue with them changing the blade architecture thats why you go with IBM, they dont make their new blades in-compatable with the old chassis their oldest chassis is still useable.

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  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Thanks for the feedback on blade server failure, Joe. I guess anything is liable to fail given the odds. I appreciate your continued reading!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Thanks for the feedback on blade server failure, Joe. I guess anything is liable to fail given the odds. I appreciate your continued reading!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Jacob – thanks for letting me know about the #hp free chassis promo. Integrity blades aren’t for everyone so the offer probably isn’t appealing to everyone. My understanding is that IBM’s offer is not dependent on any specific blade purchase, but the promo is up to the partner to pass-thru to the customer, so I’m sure “some” purchase would be required. I appreciate the comment!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Jacob – thanks for letting me know about the #hp free chassis promo. Integrity blades aren’t for everyone so the offer probably isn’t appealing to everyone. My understanding is that IBM’s offer is not dependent on any specific blade purchase, but the promo is up to the partner to pass-thru to the customer, so I’m sure “some” purchase would be required. I appreciate the comment!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Jacob – thanks for letting me know about the #hp free chassis promo. Integrity blades aren’t for everyone so the offer probably isn’t appealing to everyone. My understanding is that IBM’s offer is not dependent on any specific blade purchase, but the promo is up to the partner to pass-thru to the customer, so I’m sure “some” purchase would be required. I appreciate the comment!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Jacob – thanks for letting me know about the #hp free chassis promo. Integrity blades aren’t for everyone so the offer probably isn’t appealing to everyone. My understanding is that IBM’s offer is not dependent on any specific blade purchase, but the promo is up to the partner to pass-thru to the customer, so I’m sure “some” purchase would be required. I appreciate the comment!

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Art – thanks for the comment, but I don’t want my site to be an advertising ground for your business. I can also sell it in my day-to-day job as VP of Servers at Corus360 in Atlanta, but this forum is not designed to sell, but to educate. Thanks for reading.

  • http://BladesMadeSimple.com/ Kevin Houston

    Art – thanks for the comment, but I don’t want my site to be an advertising ground for your business. I can also sell it in my day-to-day job as VP of Servers at Corus360 in Atlanta, but this forum is not designed to sell, but to educate. Thanks for reading.

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  • Art

    Sorry Kevin, thought you were just a blogger. Didn’t want to step on any toes.

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