Making blade servers simple
Posted in Cisco, Dell, Performance, Power on Apr 30th, 2012
Dell recently published a new whitepaper that compares the performance and power efficiency of four of the Dell PowerEdge M710HD and M620 blades vs. four of the Cisco B250 M2 blade servers. Here is a summary of the key findings:
Posted in Cisco on Apr 10th, 2012
On March 8, Cisco launched the UCS B200 M3 blade server. The half-height blade uses processors from Intel’s newly-announced Xeon E5 family, and competes with the Dell M620, HP BL460c Gen8, and IBM HS23 server blades.
Posted in Cisco on Feb 8th, 2012
According to a recent event posting by Cisco, the 3rd generation of Cisco UCS blade servers will be revealed on March 6, 2012. The server launch event advertises that Cisco will announce the B200 M3 blade server, and C220 M3, and C240 M3 rack servers on March 6th, 2012. These soon-to-be-announced servers are 2 socket servers built [...]
Posted in Cisco on Jan 30th, 2012
Cisco announced on Jan. 26, 2012 a field replacement program for Cisco UCS B440 Blade Servers. Cisco Field Notice FN – 63430 describes the problem as a failure of a MOSFET, or Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor, power transistor on the blade server that can cause the component to overheat and emit a short flash which could lead [...]
Posted in Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, IDC, Market Analysis on Dec 1st, 2011
Hot off the presses is the latest IDC worldwide server market revenue report for Q3 2011. The gist of the report is that while some of the numbers are slightly adjusted, really not much has changed in the blade server market. Revenue growth for the entire server market (all servers, not just blade servers) slowed considerably [...]
Posted in Cisco, Cloud Computing, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel on Aug 3rd, 2011
In case you haven’t heard, “cloud” discussions are here to stay and everyone has their own recommendations for you to start building your cloud environment, but which is best for you? Intel has created the “Intel® Cloud Builders” program aimed at making it easier for you to build, enhance and operate cloud infrastructure.
I was recently on one of those calls from HP “checking in”. If you are an HP customer you may know these calls start off with something like “We know you spent money on HP last quarter so how many people from this company will have to pester you until you buy more stuff from us?” One of the [...]
Posted in Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Server Comparisons on Jul 15th, 2011
Many people get confused as to why so many I/O modules are needed within a given blade chassis. The basic concept is simple (in most cases) – for each port you need on a given blade server, you need to have a corresponding I/O module. For example, if you need 4 NICs, you’re going to need [...]
If you are like me, you are constantly referring to manufacture web sites for product specs, available options, etc. Today, I’ve put together a list of web sites that will help streamline your search. Since links change and new ones get added, I’ve put out a “helpful links” tab at the top of my blog [...]
Posted in Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, IDC, Market Analysis on May 24th, 2011
May 24, 2011 - IDC came out with their 1Q 2011 worldwide server market revenue report today showing that Cisco has finally entered the market standings with a 3rd place standing at 9.4% factory revenue share . IDC’s findings also showed that both HP and IBM decreased their blade server market share from Q4 2010.