They make it look so complicated in the movies.  Detailed covert operations with the intent to hack into a casino’s mainframe preceeded by weeks of staged planned rehearsals, but I’m here to tell you it’s much easier than that.  

This is my story of how I had 20 seconds of complete access to The Venetian Casino’s data center, and lived to tell about it.

Now, before I go on, I must apologize to all of the hopeful future visitors of The Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.  I have a feeling that security will get tightened down following this story.  So, let me set the stage.  I was asked to attend the HP Technology Forum in Las Vegas to blog about the event and cover it via Twitter.  Part of the agenda for the blogging attendees, and the media, was a tour of The Venetian Hotel and Casino’s Data Center.  I jumped at the opportunity.  I always enjoy customer data centers since it gives me the chance to view what “real people” are doing.  Once we landed at the Sands Hotel and Casino, I was fortunate to be part of the first group of 15 or 20 people so we hiked over to the hidden area where the data center was located.  Well, it wasn’t really hidden, just a door that said, “Employees Only.”  We rode up an elevator one or two floors and came out into a desolate barren hallway that gave the appearance of a hospital.  The hallway made a few turns and we came out into a set of office cubicles.  On the other side were the double doors leading to the data center.  No metal barred doors, no retina scans, no lasers – just two plain doors leading into the data center.  I should’ve know this was a sign of things to come.

Quick Venetian Casino Data Center Facts

* 3 Major Data Centers: Las Vegas, Singapore and China
* 500 physical servers in Las Vegas (very little virtualization)
* They use pure Ethernet (IP) for the machines in Singapore; a mix of Serial and IP in Las Vegas 

As we entered the data center, I quickly realized The Venetian was a Dell shop.  Did I mention this was a tour hosted by HP?  After inquiring about the large numbers of Dell servers, the CTO of The Venetian Casino, Steve Vollmer, made it clear that they do use a wide variety of manufacturers for their servers, however they are 100% HP Networking.   Usually when you are given a customer tour by a vendor, like HP, it’s an ALL VENDOR customer – meaning they have HP everything  but this was a “real customer data center” tour.  Kudos to Michael Thacker and the HP Public Relations team on finding a real customer with a mix of vendors’ gear.  Which leads me to how I got left behind.

I’m a server guy – networking gear is out of my expertise, so while the rest of the media and bloggers were interviewing Mr. Vollmer, I started wondering around taking pictures (no video allowed.)  I noticed that all of the physical servers (Dell, IBM and HP) were using the on-board Ethernet adapters only.  Very interesting.  It was mentioned that the casino machines are simply computers, so it makes sense that all of the communication is IP based.  As I wondered around to the last aisle of racks, I came across an HP BladeSystem!  Very cool.  I thought they were stuck on old, aging equipment, but here stood the royal crown (INSERT angelic sounds and bright light here).  Sitting right above it was a Dell M1000e Blade Chassis.  Wow – these guys are true to being a multi-vendor customer.  As I was wiping up the drool off the floor, I heard the door slam to the Data Center.  NOTHING but the whirl of server fans and A/C air blowing around.   Now my first thought was that I was the last person and I’m about to get pulled out by the Network Admin who was on the tour with us.  I turned the corner to find no one.   I was alone!

You’ve got to be kidding me.  Surely I’m not standing in a Las Vegas casino’s data center BY MYSELF – but I was.  Now, many things ran through my head – so many movies have been made about breaking into casinos and here I was in the heart of millions of electronic dollars.  I’d like to be able to conclude this story with some amazing details on how I logged onto the casino servers and transferred money to my offshore account but I can’t.  a) I’m a good person.  I don’t steal, lie or cheat and b) I didn’t have a USB key on me.  The reality is, once I realized I was alone I knew I had to get out of the data center as quickly as possible, so I looked up at the overhead camera, gave a smile and walked out the double doors to quickly catch up to the group heading back downstairs.

There’s a few lessons to be learned here:
1) Real customers use a mix of vendors for their hardware – not just one vendor
2) Always carry a USB key with you – you never know when you need it
3) Don’t waste your time breaking in to a casino – just tour their data center with a large crowd

That’s my story.  Now I just hope I don’t get any calls from the F.B.I…

Disclaimer: airfare, accommodations and some meals are being provided by HP, however the content being blogged is solely my opinion and does not in anyway express the opinions of HP.

Dell announced today two new additions to their blade server family – the PowerEdge 11G M710HD and the M610x.  The two new servers are just a part of Dell’s “Blade 3.0 Launch” – a campaign highlighting Dell’s ongoing effort to become the leader in blade server technology.  Over the next several months, Dell will be making changes in their chassis infrastructure introducing more efficient power supplies and fans that will require up to 10% less power over existing chassis.  Don’t worry though, there will not be a new chassis.  They’ll simply be upgrading the fans and power supplies that ship standard at no charge to the customer. 

Dell also has announced a significant upgrade to their Chassis Management Controller Software (CMC).  This is great news, as Dell’s chassis management software interface had not had an update since the early part of the decade.  The CMC 3.0 release offers a better user interface and ease of use.  One of the key features that CMC 3.0 will offer is the ability to upgrade the iDRAC, BIOS, RAID, NIC and Diagnostic firmware to all the blades at one time offering huge time savings.  Expect the CMC 3.0 software to be available in early July 2010.  For demo’s of the new interface, jump over to Dell TechCenter.

PowerEdge 11G M710HD
Ideal for virtualization or applications requiring large amounts of memory, the M710HD is a half-height blade server that offers up:

*  Up to 2 Intel 5500 or 5600 Xeon Processors 
* 18 memory DIMMs
*  2 hot-swap drives (SAS and Solid State Drive Option)
* 2 mezzanine card slots
* dual SD slots for redundant hypervisor
*2 or 4 x 1Gb NICs

On paper – the Dell M710HD looks like a direct competitor to the HP Proliant BL490 G6, and it is, however Dell has added something that could change the blade server market – a flexible embedded network controller.  The “Network Daughter Card” or NDC is the blade servers LAN on Motherboard (LOM) but on a removeable daughter card, very similar to the mezzanine cards.  This is really cool stuff because this design allows for a user to change their blade server’s on-board I/O as their network grows.  For example, today many IT environments are standardized on 1Gb networks for server connectivity, however 10Gb connectivity is becoming more and more prevalent.  When users move from 1Gb to 10Gb in their blade environments, with the NDC design, they will have the ability to upgrade the onboard network controller from 1Gb to 10Gb therefore protecting their investment.  Any time a manufacturer offers investment protection I get excited.  An important note – the M710HD will come with a NDC that will provide up to 4 x 1Gb NICs when the Dell PowerConnect M6348 Ethernet Switch is used. 

PowerEdge 11G M610x
As the industry continues to hype up GPGPU (General Purpose computing on Graphic Processor Units), it’s no surprise to see that Dell has announced the availability of a blade server with dedicated PCIe 16xGen2 slots.  Here’s some quick details about this blade server:

* Full-height blade server
* Up to 2 Intel 5500 or 5600 Xeon Processors 
* 12 memory DIMMs
*  2 hot-swap drives
* 2 mezzanine card slots
* 2 x PCIe 16x(Gen2) slots

I know the skeptical reader will think, “so what – HP and IBM have PCIe expansion blades,” which is true – however the M610x blade server differenciates itself by offering 2 x PCIe 16x Generation 2 slots that can hold up to 250w cards, allowing this blade server to handle many of the graphics cards designed for GPGPU or even the latest I/O Adapters from Fusion I/O.  Although this blade server can handle these niche PCIe cards, don’t overlook the opportunity to take advantage of the PCIe slots for situations like fax modems, dedicated SCSI controller needs, or even dedicated USB requirements. 

I’m curious to know what your thoughts are about these new servers.  Leave me a comment and let me know.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s some more views of the M610x.

(Updated to include links to results)

I’ve had a few questions lately about “the best” blade server to use for virtualization – specifically VMware virtualization. While the obvious answer is “it depends”, I thought it would be an interesting approach to identify the blade servers that ranked in the top 5 in VMware’s VMmark benchmark.  Before I begin, let me explain what the VMmark testing is about.   VMmark enables equipment manufacturers, software vendors, system integrators and other organizations to:

• Measure virtual machine performance accurately and reliably
• Determine the performance of different hardware and virtualization platforms
• Make appropriate hardware decisions for your virtual infrastructure

VMware developed VMmark as a standard methodology for comparing virtualized systems. According to VMware’s VMmark website, the benchmark system in VMmark is comprised of a series of “sub-tests” that are derived from commonly used load-generation tools, as well as from benchmarks developed by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC®). In parallel to VMmark, VMware is a member of the SPEC Virtualization subcommittee and is working with other SPEC members to create the next generation virtualization benchmark.

In testing the terms, a “tile” is simply a collection of virtual machines (VM’s) that are executing a set of diverse workloads designed to represent a natural work environment.   The total number of tiles that a server can handle provides a detailed measurement of that server’s consolidation capacity.  The more tiles, the better.  The faster the performance, the better.

THE RESULTS (as of 6/2/2010)…click on the link to open the details

24 Cores (4 Sockets)
HP ProLiant BL685c G6 (Six Core AMD Opteron 8435) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 29.19@20 tiles (published 7/14/2009)
HP ProLiant BL680c G5 (Six Core Intel Xeon E7458) running VMware ESX v3.5.0 Update 3 - 18.64@14 tiles (published 3/30/2009)

16 Cores (4 Sockets)
Dell PowerEdge M905 (Four Core AMD Opteron 8393 SE) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 22.90@17 tiles (published 6/19/2009)
HP ProLiant BL685 G6 (Four Core AMD Opteron 8389) running VMware ESX v4.0 – 20.87@14 tiles (published 4/24/2009)

12 Cores (2 Sockets)
Cisco UCS B250 M2 (Six Core Intel Xeon X5680) running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 35.83@26 tiles (published 4/6/2010)
Fujitsu BX922 S2 (Six Core Intel Xeon X5680) running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 32.89@24 tiles (published 4/6/2010)

8 Cores (2 Sockets)
Fujitsu BX922 S2 (Four Core Intel Xeon X5677) running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 27.99@18tiles(published 5/10/2010)
HP ProLiant BL490c G6 (Four Core Intel Xeon X5570) runningVMware ESX v4.0 – 25.27@17tiles (published 4/20/2010)

THE WINNER IS…
Cisco UCS B250 M2 running VMware ESX v4.0 Update 1 – 35.83 with 26 tiles

Cisco’s Winning Configuration
So – how did Cisco reach the top server spot?  Here’s the configuration:

server config:

• 2 x Intel Xeon X5680 Processors
• 192GB of RAM (48 x 4GB)
• 1 x Converged Network Adapter (Cisco UCS VIC M81KR)

storage config:

• EMC CX4-240
• Cisco MDS 9134
• 1173.48GB Used Disk Space
• 1024MB Array Cache
• 50 disks used on 5 enclosures/shelves (1 with 14 disk, 4 with 9 disks)
• 55 LUNs used
  *21 at 38GB (file server + mail server) over 20 x 73GB SSDs
  *5 at 38GB (file server + mail server) over 20 x 73GB SSDs
  *21 at 15GB (database) + 2 LUNs at 400GB (Standby, Webserver, Javaserver) over 16 x 450GB 15k disks
  *5 at 15GB (database)  over 16 x 450GB 15k disks
  * 1 LUN at 20GB (boot) over 5 x 300GB 15k disks
• RAID 0 for VMs, RAID 5 for VMware ESX 4.0 O/S

As you can see from the information above, the Cisco UCS B250 M2 is the clear winner above all of the blade server offerings.  As you can see, none of the Xeon 7500 blade servers have yet to be tested but when they do, I’ll be sure to let you know.

NOTE: IDC revised their report on May 28, 2010.  This post now includes those changes.

IDC reported on May 28, 2010 that worldwide server sales for Q1 2010 factory revenues increased 4.6  4.7% year over year to $10.4 billion in the first quarter of 2010 (1Q10).  They also reported the blade server market accelerated and continued its sharp growth in the quarter with factory revenue increasing 37.1% 37.2% year over year, with shipment growth increasing by 20.8% compared to 1Q09.  According to IDC, nearly 90% of all blade revenue is driven by x86 systems, a segment in which blades now represent 18.8% of all x86 server revenue.

While the press release did not provide details of the market share for all of the top 5 blade vendors, they did provide data for the following: 

#1 market share: HP increased their market share from 52.4% in Q4 2009 to 56.2% in Q1 2010

#2 market share: IBM decreased their market share from 35.1% in Q4 2009 to 23.6% in Q1 2010.

The remaining 20.2% of market share was not mentioned, but I imagine they are split between Dell and Cisco.  In fact, based on the fact that Cisco was not even mentioned in the IDC report, I’m willing to bet a majority of that  I’m working on getting some visibility into clarification on that (if you’re with Dell or Cisco and can help, please shoot me an email.)

According to Jed Scaramella, senior research analyst in IDC’s Datacenter and Enterprise Server group,  ”"In the first quarter of 2009, we observed a lot of business in the mid-market as well as refresh activity of a more transactional nature; these factors have driven x86 rack-based revenue to just below 1Q08 value. Blade servers, which are more strategic in customer deployments, continue to accelerate in annual growth rates. The blade segment fared relatively well during the 2009 downturn and have increased revenue value by 13% from the first quarter of 2008.”

For the full IDC report covering the Q1 2010 Worldwide Server Market, please visit http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS22356410

new link: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS22360110

Updated 5/24/2010 – I’ve received some comments about expandability and I’ve received a correction about the speed of Dell’s memory, so I’ve updated this post.  You’ll find the corrections / additions below in GREEN.

Since I’ve received a lot of comments from my post on the Dell FlexMem Bridge technology, I thought I would  do an unbiased comparison between Dell’s FlexMem Bridge technology (via the PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server) vs IBM’s MAX5 + HX5 blade server offering.  In summary both offerings provide the Intel Xeon 7500 CPU plus the ability to add “extended memory“ offering value for virtualization, databases and any other workloads that benefit from large amounts of memory.

The Contenders

IBM
IBM’s extended memory solution is a two part solution consisting of the HX5 blade server PLUS the MAX5 memory blade.

• HX5 Blade Server
  I’ve spent considerable time on previous blogs detailing the IBM HX5, so please jump over to those links to dig into the specifics, but at a high level, the HX5 is IBM’s 2 CPU blade server that offers the Intel Xeon 7500 CPU.   The HX5 is a 30mm, ”single wide” blade server therefore you can fit up to 14 in an IBM BladeCenter H blade chassis. 
• MAX5
  The MAX 5 offering from IBM can be thought of as a “memory expansion blade.”  Offering an additional 24 memory DIMM slots, the MAX5 when coupled with the HX5 blade server, provides a total of 40 memory DIMMs.    The MAX5 is a standard “single wide”, 30mm form factor so when used with a single HX5 two IBM BladeCenter H server bays are required in the chassis.

DELL
Dell’s approach to extended memory is a bit different.  Instead of relying on a memory blade, Dell starts with the M910 blade server and allows users to use 2 CPUs plus their FlexMem Bridge to access the memory DIMMs of the 3rd and 4th CPU sockets.  For details on the FlexMem Bridge, check out my previous post.

• PowerEdge 11G M910 Blade Server
  The M910 is a 4 CPU capable blade server with 32 memory DIMMs.  This blade server is a full-height server therefore you can fit 8 servers inside the Dell M1000e blade chassis.

The Face-Off

ROUND 1 – Memory Capacity
When we compare the memory DIMMs available on each, we see that Dell’s offering comes up with 32 DIMMs vs IBM’s 40 DIMMs.  However, IBM’s solution of using the HX5 blade server + the MAX 5 memory expansion has a current maximum memory size is 8Gb whereas Dell offers a max memory size of 16Gb.  While this may change in the future, as of today, Dell has the edge so I have to claim: 

Round 1 Winner:  Dell

ROUND 2 – Memory Performance
As many comments came across on my posting of the Dell FlexMem Bridge technology the other day, several people pointed out that the memory performance is something that needs to be considered when comparing technologies.  Dell’s FlexMem Bridge offering reportedly runs at a maximum memory speed of 833Mhz,  runs at a max of 1066Ghz, but is dependent upon the speed of the processor.  A processor that has a 6.4GT QPI supports memory @ 1066Ghz ; a processor that supports 5.8GT/s QPI supports memory at 978Mhz, and a processor with a QPI speed of 4.8GT runs memory at 800Mhz.  This is a component of Intel’s Xeon 7500 architecture so it should be the same regardless of the server vendor.  Looking at IBM, we see the  HX5 blade server memory runs at a maximum of 978Mhz.    However, when you attach the MAX5 to the HX5 for the additional memory slots, however, the memory runs at speed of 1066Mhz, regardless of the speed of the CPU installed.  While this appears to be black magic, it’s really the results of IBM’s proprietary eXa scaling – something that I’ll cover in detail at a later date.   Although the HX5 blade server memory, when used by itself, does not have the ability to achieve 1066Ghz, this comparison is based on the Dell PowerEdge 11G M910 vs the IBM HX5+MAX5.  With that in mind, the ability to run the expanded memory at 1066Mhz gives IBM the edge in this round.

Round 2 Winner:  IBM

ROUND 3 – Server Density
This one is pretty straight forward.  IBM’s HX5 + MAX5 offering takes up 2 server bays, so in the IBM BladeCenter H, you can only fit 7 systems.  You can only fit 4 BladeCenter H chassis in a 42u rack, therefore you can fit a max of 28  IBM HX5 + MAX5 systems into a rack.

The Dell PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server is a full height server, so you can fit 8 servers into the Dell M1000e chassis.  4 Dell chassis will fit in a 42u rack, so you can get 32 Dell M910′s into a rack.

Round 3 Winner:  Dell

(NEW) ROUND 4 – Expandability
It was mentioned several times in the comments that expandability should have been reviewed as well.  When we look at Dell’s design, we see there two expansion options: run the Dell PowerEdge 11G M910 blade with 2 processors and the FlexMem Bridge, or run them with 4 processors and remove the FlexMem Bridge.

The modular design of the IBM eX5 architecture allows for a user to add memory (MAX5), add processors (2nd HX5) or both (2 x HX5 + 2 x MAX5).  This provide users with a lot of flexibility to choose a design that meets their workload.

Choosing a winner for this round is tough, as there a different ways to look at this:

Maximum CPUs in a server: TIE – both IBM and Dell can scale to 4 CPUs. 
Maximum CPU density in a 42u rack:  Dell wins with 32 x 4 CPU servers vs IBM’s 12.
Maximum Memory in a server: IBM with 640Gb using 2 x HX5 and 2 x MAX5
Max Memory density in a 42u Rack: Dell wins with 16Tb

Round 4 Winner:  TIE
Summary
While the fight was close, with a 2 to 1 win, it is clear the overall winner is Dell.  For this comparison, I tried to keep it focused on the memory aspect of the offerings. 

On a final note, at the time of this writing, the IBM MAX 5 memory expansion has not been released for general availability, while Dell is shipping their M910 blade server. 

There may be other advantages relative to processors that were not considered for this comparison, however I welcome any thoughts or comments you have. 

Let’s face it.  Virtualization is everywhere.  

Odds are there is something virtualized in your data center.  If not, it soon will be.  As more workloads become virtualized, chances are you are going to run out of “capacity” on your virtualization host.  When a host’s capacity is exhausted, 99% of the time it is because the host ran out of memory, not CPU.  Typically you would have to add another ESX host server when you run out of capacity.  When you do this, you are adding more hardware cost AND more virtualization licensing costs.  But what if you could simply add memory when you need it instead of buying more hardware.  Now you can with Dell’s FlexMem Bridge.

Background
You may recall that I mentioned the FlexMem Bridge technology in a previous post, but I don’t think I did it justice.  Before I describe what the FlexMem Bridge technology, let me provide some background.  With the Intel Xeon 7500 CPU (and in fact with all Intel Nehalem architectures), the memory is controlled by a memory controller located on the CPU.  Therefore you have to have a CPU in place to access the associated memory DIMMs…up until now.  Dell’s innovative approach removed the necessity to have a CPU in order to access the memory.

Introducing  Dell FlexMem Bridge
Dell’s FlexMem Bridge sits in CPU sockets #3 and #4 and connects a memory controller from CPU 1 to the memory DIMMs associated to CPU socket #3 and CPU 2 to the memory associated to CPU Socket #4.  

The FlexMem Bridge does two things:

1. It extends the Scalable Memory Interconnects (SMI) from CPU 1 and CPU 2 to the memory subsystem of CPU 3 and CPU 4.
2. It reroutes and terminates the 2nd Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) inter-processor communications links to provide optimal performance which would otherwise be disconnected in a 2 CPU configuration.

Sometimes it’s easier to view pictures than read descriptions, so take a look at the picture below for a diagram on how this works.

(A special thanks to Mike Roberts from Dell for assistance with the above info.)

Saving 50% on Virtualization Licensing
So how does this technology from Dell help you save money on virtualization licenses?  Simple - with Dell’s FlexMem Bridge technology, you only have to add memory, not more servers, when you need more capacity for VMs.  When you add only memory, you’re not increasing your CPU count, therefore your virtualization licensing stays the same.  No more buying extra servers just for the memory and no more buying more virtualization licenses.  In the future, if you find you have run out of CPU resources for your VM’s, you can remove the FlexMem bridges and replace with CPUs (for models with the Intel Xeon 7500 CPU only.) 

Dell FlexMem Bridge is available in the Dell PowerEdge 11G R810, R910 and M910 servers running the Intel Xeon 7500 and 6500 CPUs.

Perhaps one of Dell’s best kept secrets on their 11G servers (blade, rack and tower) is something called Lifecycle Controller. This innovative offering allows a user to configure the hardware, run diagnostics and prep the server for an operating system. “SO WHAT?” you are probably thinking – “HP and IBM have this with their SmartStart and ServerGuide CD’s!” Yes, you are right, however Dell’s innovation is a flash based device embedded on the motherboard that does all this – there are NO CD’s to mess with this. Out of the box, you turn it on and go.

What can Dell’s Lifecycle Controller do?  Here’s a partial list taken from Dell TechCenter:

• Basic device configuration (RAID, NIC and iDRAC) via simple wizards
• Diagnose the system using embed Diagnostics utility
• OS install by unpacking the drivers for the user selected OS
• Drivers are embed for systems with iDRAC Express, Lifecycle Controller
• Drivers are available on Systems Management Tools and Documentation media for systems with Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
• Advanced device configuration for NIC and BIOS. This is available only in systems with iDRAC Express
• Update BIOS, firmware and stage updated drivers by directly connecting to relevant updates on ftp.dell.com. This is available only in systems with iDRAC Express
• Roll back firmware to a last known good state. THis is available only in systems with iDRAC Express
• Supports 7 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
• Auto-discovery of bare metal systems. iDRAC can be configured in factory or using USC to connect and authenticate to a provisioning console
• Install OS on the discovered system using drivers resident on the Lifecycle Controller
• Install custom OS image – allows users to install OS that does not have the desired drivers on the Lifecycle Controller
• Install OS by booting from service image on a network share
• Remote out-of-band instant Firmware Inventory of installed and available firmware images
• Bare metal out-of-band updates – Remotely initiate offline BIOS, firmware and driver pack update and schedule updates 

I’m a big fan of “seeing is believing”, so to see how easy it is to use, check out this demo on setting up an Operating System with no CD’s (except the O/S) taken from Dell TechCenter:

Kudos to Dell on this innovation.  No CD’s means potentially faster deployment.  If you wonder – can the data on the Lifecycle Controller be updated?  The answer is YES – go to Dell TechCenter and check out the video on “Product Updates” (or click here to view directly.) 

Let me know what you think about this.  Do you see this as being helpful?

I heard a rumour on Friday that HP has been chosen by another animated movie studio to provide the blade servers to render an upcoming movie. To recount the movies that have used / are using HP blades:

• Disney’s A Christmas Carol
• AVATAR
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Happy Feet 2
• Mad Max 4

So, as I look at the vast number of movies that have chosen HP for their blade server technology, I have to wonder WHY?  HP does have some advantages in the blade marketplace, like having market share, but when you review HP with Dell, you would be surprised as to how similar the offerings are:

When you compare the two offerings, HP wins in a few categories, like the ability to have up to 32 CPUs in a single blade chassis – a valuable feature for rendering accomplished with the HP BL2x220c blade servers.  However, Dell also shines in areas, too.  Look at their ability to run 512GB of memory on a 2 CPU server using FlexMem Bridge technology.   From a pure technology comparison (taking out the management and I/O of the equation), I see Dell offering very similar product offerings as HP and I have to wonder why Dell has not been able to get any movie companies to use Dell blades.  Perhaps it’s not a focus of Dell marketing.  Perhaps it is because HP has a  history of movie processing on HP workstations.   Perhaps movie companies need 32 CPUs in a chassis.  I don’t know.  I welcome any comments from Dell or HP, but I’d also like to know, what do you think?  Let me know in the comments below.

Cisco recently announced their first blade offering with the Intel Xeon 7500 processor, known as the ”Cisco UCS B440-M1 High-Performance Blade Server.”  This new blade is a full-width blade that offers 2 – 4 Xeon 7500 processors and 32 memory slots, for up to 256GB RAM, as well as 4 hot-swap drive bays.  Since the server is a full-width blade, it will have the capability to handle 2 dual-port mezzanine cards for up to 40 Gbps I/O per blade. 

Each Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis can house up to four B440 M1 servers (maximum 160 per Unified Computing System). 

How Does It Compare to the Competition?
Since I like to talk about all of the major blade server vendors, I thought I’d take a look at how the new Cisco B440 M1 compares to IBM and Dell.  (HP has not yet announced their Intel Xeon 7500 offering.)

Processor Offering
Both Cisco and Dell offer models with 2 – 4 Xeon 7500 CPUs as standard.  They each have variations on speeds – Dell has 9 processor speed offerings; Cisco hasn’t released their speeds and IBM’s BladeCenter HX5 blade server will have 5 processor speed offerings initially.  With all 3 vendors’ blades, however, IBM’s blade server is the only one that is designed to scale from 2 CPUs to 4 CPUs by connecting 2 x HX5 blade servers.  Along with this comes their “FlexNode” technology that enables users to have the 4 processor blade system to split back into 2 x 2 processor systems at specific points during the day.  Although not announced, and purely my speculation, IBM’s design also leads to a possible future capability of connecting 4 x 2 processor HX5′s for an 8-way design.  Since each of the vendors offer up to 4 x Xeon 7500′s, I’m going to give the advantage in this category to IBM.  WINNER: IBM

Memory Capacity
Both IBM and Cisco are offering 32 DIMM slots with their blade solutions, however they are not certifying the use of 16GB DIMMs – only 4GB and 8GB DIMMs, therefore their offering only scales to 256GB of RAM.  Dell claims to offers 512GB DIMM capacity on their the PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server, however that is using 16GB DIMMs.  REalistically, I think the M910 would only be used with 8GB DIMMs, so Dell’s design would equal IBM and Cisco’s.  I’m not sure who has the money to buy 16GB DIMMs, but if they do – WINNER: Dell (or a TIE)

Server Density
As previously mentioned, Cisco’s B440-M1 blade server is a “full-width” blade so 4 will fit into a 6U high UCS5100 chassis.  Theoretically, you could fit 7 x UCS5100 blade chassis into a rack, which would equal a total of 28 x B440-M1′s per 42U rack.Overall, Cisco’s new offering is a nice addition to their existing blade portfolio.  While IBM has some interesting innovation in CPU scalability and Dell appears to have the overall advantage from a server density, Cisco leads the management front. 

Dell’s PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server is a “full-height” blade, so 8 will fit into a 10u high M1000e chassis.  This means that 4 x M1000e chassis would fit into a 42u rack, so 32 x Dell PowerEdge M910 blade servers should fit into a 42u rack.

IBM’s BladeCenter HX5 blade server is a single slot blade server, however to make it a 4 processor blade, it would take up 2 server slots.  The BladeCenter H has 14 server slots, so that makes the IBM solution capable of holding 7 x 4 processor HX5 blade servers per chassis.  Since the chassis is a 9u high chassis, you can only fit 4 into a 42u rack, therefore you would be able to fit a total of 28 IBM HX5 (4 processor) servers into a 42u rack.
WINNER: Dell

Management
The final category I’ll look at is the management.  Both Dell and IBM have management controllers built into their chassis, so management of a lot of chassis as described above in the maximum server / rack scenarios could add some additional burden.  Cisco’s design, however, allows for the management to be performed through the UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect modules.  In fact, up to 40 chassis could be managed by 1 pair of 6100′s.  There are additional features this design offers, but for the sake of this discussion, I’m calling WINNER: Cisco.

Cisco’s UCS B440 M1 is expected to ship in the June time frame.  Pricing is not yet available.  For more information, please visit Cisco’s UCS web site at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10921/index.html.

Dell appears to be first to the market today with complete details on their Nehalem EX blade server, the PowerEdge M910. Based on the Nehalem EX technology (aka Intel Xeon 7500 Chipset), the server offers quite a lot of horsepower in a small, full-height blade server footprint.

Some details about the server:

• uses Intel Xeon 7500 or 6500 CPUs
• has support for up to 512GB using 32 x 16 DIMMs
• comes standard two embedded Broadcom NetExtreme II Dual Port 5709S Gigabit Ethernet NICs with failover and load balancing.
• has two 2.5″ Hot-Swappable SAS/Solid State Drives
• 3 4 available I/O mezzanine card slots
• comes with a Matrox G200eW w/ 8MB memory standard
• can function on 2 CPUs with access to all 32 DIMM slots

Dell (finally) Offers Some Innovation
I commented a few weeks ago that Dell and innovate were rarely used in the same sentence, however with today’s announcement, I’ll have to retract that statement. Before I elaborate on what I’m referring to, let me do some quick education. The design of the Nehalem architecture allows for each processor (CPU) to have access to a dedicated bank of memory along with its own memory controller. The only downside to this is that if a CPU is not installed, the attached memory banks are not useable. THIS is where Dell is offering some innovation. Today Dell announced the “FlexMem Bridge” technology. This technology is simple in concept as it allows for the memory of a CPU socket that is not populated to still be used. In essence, Dell’s using technology that bridges the memory banks across un-populated CPU slots to the rest of the server’s populated CPUs. With this technology, a user could start of with only 2 CPUs and still have access to 32 memory DIMMs. Then, over time, if more CPUs are needed, they simply remove the FlexMem Bridge adapters from the CPU sockets then replace with CPUs – now they would have a 4 CPU x 32 DIMM blade server.

Congrats to Dell. Very cool idea. The Dell PowerEdge M910 is available to order today from the Dell.com website.

 Let me know what you guys think.