HP

HP Flex 10 vs VMware vSphere Network I/O Control for VDI

Posted by on December 16, 2011 at 10:22 am

I once was a huge fan of HP’s Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb Ethernet Modules but with the new enhancements to VMware vSphere 5, I don’t think I would recommend for virtual environments anymore. The ability to divide the two onboard network cards up to 8 NICS was a great feature and still is, if you have to do [...]

Q3 2011 IDC Worldwide – Steady as She Goes

Posted by on December 1, 2011 at 12:01 pm

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 [...]

Nutanix Cluster: Disruptive to Blade Server Market?

Posted by on October 18, 2011 at 6:31 pm

  With all that is made of the competition between blade server manufacturers and the growth of the blade server market in general, is there room for another type of condensed computing in the data center? Have we been going about things all wrong with regard to architecture design? Nutanix thinks so. Nutanix is a [...]

What´s the Break-even point to choose Blade Servers?

Posted by on September 5, 2011 at 8:18 am

People are always asking me: “how many blades I have to put in a chassis to make it worth?” My answer is always: “It depends!” . There is no magical number.

HP Enclosure Promotion Follow-Up

Posted by on August 18, 2011 at 10:18 am

Not long ago it was reported that IBM was having a promotion to receive a free blade enclosure if you are a first time customer and the chassis in question is eligible. Details can be found in the following links:

A Look at Intel’s Cloud Builders Initiative

Posted by on August 3, 2011 at 9:47 am

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.

Another Free Chassis Offering – Is Cisco Driving These Offers?

Posted by on August 1, 2011 at 8:29 am

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 [...]

Blade Chassis I/O Diagrams

Posted by on July 15, 2011 at 3:38 pm

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 [...]

The End of Blade Servers?

Posted by on June 30, 2011 at 9:12 am

Personal Cassette Players.  Portable CD players.  Dial up Internet. Betamax.  The VCR.  Pagers.  These are all popular technologies that have gone away.  When they were hot, you would never have expected for them to one day be extinct.  Are blade servers set to follow in the footsteps of these other blade technologies?

Comprehensive List of Blade Server Web Site Links

Posted by on June 20, 2011 at 8:56 am

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 [...]