Revised with corrections  3/1/2011 10:29 a.m. (EST)
Almost a year ago, I wrote an article highlighting the 4 socket blade server offerings.  At that time, the offerings were very slim, but over the past 11 months, that blog post has received the most hits, so I figured it’s time to revise the article.  In today’s post, I’ll review the 4 socket Intel and AMD blade servers that are currently on the market.  Yes, I know I’ll have to revise this again in a few weeks, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. 

Cisco

Cisco released their first 4 socket blade offering in April 2010  known as the “UCS B440 M1“.

 This blade is a full-width blade that offers:

• 4 x Intel Xeon 7500 CPUs (6 to 8 cores)
• Max of 512GB (across 32 DIMM slots)
• 2 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 4 x hot-swap drive bays

The Cisco UCS B440 M1 blade server also has 2 x mezzanine expansion card slots that are capable of holding a variety of converged network adapters (CNAs) with a minimum of 10GbE connectivity.  Each Cisco UCS 5108 chassis can hold 4 x UCS B440 M1 for a total of 28 UCS B440 M1′s per 42u rack.  To save you from doing the math, that’s a max of 896  CPU cores and 14.3TB of memory per 42u rack. 

You can read more about the Cisco UCS B440 M1 on Cisco.com.

Dell
Dell has two 4 socket blade offerings, the PowerEdge M905 and the PowerEdge M910.  Anytime you see a “5″ at the end of a Dell server number, you can be assured that it has an AMD processor whereas the servers ending in “0″ are Intel processors.

The PowerEdge M905 is a full-height blade that offers:

• 4 x AMD Opteron 8300 or 8400 (up to 6 cores)
• 4 x 1Gb Ethernet LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 192GB (across 24 DIMM slots)
• 4 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 2 x hot-swap drive bays

The PowerEdge M910 is a full-height blade that offers:

• 4 x Intel Xeon 7500 (up to 8 cores)
• 4 x 1Gb Ethernet LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 512GB (across 32 DIMM slots)
• 4 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 2 x hot-swap drive bays

Each Dell M1000e chassis can hold 8 x PowerEdge M905 or PowerEdge M910′s for a total of 32 Dell PowerEdge M905/M910 per 42u rack.  To save you from doing the math, for the M905 that’s a max of 768 CPU cores and 6.1TB of memory per 42u rack; for the M910 that’s a max of 1024 CPU cores and 16.3TB of memory per 42u rack.

You can find out more about the Dell PowerEdge M905 and PowerEdge M910 on Dell.com.

HP

HP has been in the 4 socket blade offering space for the longest, so they have the largest collection of servers to review.  Keep in mind, the “Gx” at the end of the server signifies the family generation of the product, so the G5 is older than the G7 (yes, common sense, but if I don’t spell it out, someone will comment on it…)

The BL680c G5 is a full-height blade that offers:

• 4 x Intel Xeon 7400 CPUs (up to 6 cores each)
• 4 x 1Gb Ethernet LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 128GB (across 16 DIMM slots)
• 4 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 2 x hot-swap drive bays

(You may ask – why am I listing this older generation blade server?  Quite simply because HP still mentions it on the HP.com website.)

The BL680c G7  is the next generation to the BL680 G5 and it was first mentioned June 2010.  The BL680 G7 is a double-width (2 x full-height) blade that offers:

• 4 x Intel Xeon 7500 CPUs (up to 8 cores each)
• 6 x 10Gb FlexFabric NICs LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 1TB (across 64 DIMM slots)
• 7 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 4 x hot-swap drive bays

HP uses a naming schema that is fairly easy to understand.  Anytime you see a “5″ at the end of a HP server number, you can be assured that it has an AMD processor whereas the servers ending in “0″ are Intel processors.   HP offers a pair of AMD servers that parity the  2 Intel blade servers mentioned above.

The BL685c G6  is a full-height blade that offers:

• 4 x AMD Opteron 8300 or 8400 (up to 6 cores)
• 4 x 10Gb Flex-10 NICs LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 256GB (across 32 DIMM slots)
• 4 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 2 x hot-swap drive bays

The BL685c G7  is the newest AMD offering in a full-height blade that comes with:

• 4 x AMD Opteron 6100 (up to 12 cores)
• 4 x 10Gb FlexFabric NICs LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 512 GB (across 32 DIMM slots)
• 3 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 2 x hot-swap drive bays

I’ll be talking about FlexFabric in the near future, but for now think of it as HP’s version of the Converged Network Adapter.  You can read more  at www.hp.com/go/flexfabric.

Here are the totals (sorry, too much info for fancy summarizing:)

BL680c G5

BL680c G7

BL685c G6

BL685c G7

You can find out more about HP’s blade servers at HP.com.

IBM

The IBM HX5 was announced March 2010.   The HX5 is a 2 CPU blade server that uses a modular approach allowing users to add a memory blade (called the MAX5) or an 2nd HX5 to create a 4 CPU offering.  While I covered the technology back in March (check it out here) I’m looking at the 2 x HX5 combination as IBM’s 4 socket offering.

The IBM HX5  is a double-wide (2 x 30mm) blade that comes with:

• 4 x Intel Xeon 7500 CPUs (up to 8 cores each)
• 4 x 1Gb Ethernet NICs LOM (LAN on Motherboard)
• Max of 256GB (across 32 DIMM slots)
• 4 x I/O mezzanine expansion card slots
• 4 x internal drive bays

Each IBM BladeCenter H chassis can hold 7 x HX5 blade servers for a total of 28 HX5 blade servers per 42u rack.  To save you from doing the math, that’s a max of 896 CPU cores and 7.1TB of memory per 42u rack.

Summary
Here’s a summary of all of the current 4 socket blade servers (click to enlarge):

Here’s a summary of the top offerings (shown in yellow on the chart):

Most CPU Cores in a Blade Server:  HP BL685c G7
Most I/O Expansion in a Blade Server: HP BL680c G7
Most Memory in a Blade Server: HP BL680c G7

Most Memory in a 42u Rack: (tie) Dell M910, HP BL680c G7, HP BL685c G7
Most CPU Cores in a 42u Rack: HP BL685c G7

Yes, I know that there are slim chances that anyone would fill up a rack with 4 socket servers, however I thought this would be good comparison to make. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below.

Along with the Intel blade server announcements, Tuesday HP also announced two new AMD based blades, the BL465c G7 and BL685G7.  Although originally viewed as a refresh of their existing AMD blade servers, while at the HP Tech Forum in Las Vegas, I found there were a few interesting facts.  Let’s take a look.

BL465c G7
Before Tuesday’s announcement, HP had 2 Dual CPU AMD blades –  the BL495 blade server (based on the AMD Opteron 2300) and the BL465c G6 blade server (based on the AMD Opteron 2400.)  The BL495 had NO hot-plug drives, but maximum memory slots whereas the BL465c G6 offered fewer memory slots but offered hot-plug drives.  The 7th Generation (G7) of the BL465c takes a step toward combining the benefits of the BL495 and the Bl465c G6.  The BL465c G7 is a half-height blade server that has 2 AMD Opteron 6100 CPUs, supports up to 256GB of RAM AND offers 2 hot-plug drive bays. 

If you look at the image of the BL456c G7 on the left, you see only a single hot-plug drive – so where’s the 2nd?  It’s BEHIND the drive you see.  In a very innovative approach, the drives are stacked one behind the other but still “hot-plug” and serviceable without impacting the other drive.  It’s a bit hard to imagine, so take a few minutes to watch my video of the BL465c G7 from the HP Tech Forum EXPO floor (below.)  It’s also important to note this 7th generation server also comes standard with the dual port FlexFabric I/O standard on the motherboard as announced with the additional G7 blade models.

 Here are the specifics of the BL465c G7

• Up to two AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processors
• Up to 256 GB of DDR3 memory
• 10GbE NC551i FlexFabric 2 Ports
• Smart Array P410i RAID controller
• Up to two hot plug disk drives
• Two mezzanine I/O expansion slots
• Insight Control with iLO Advanced (iLO 3)

For more information on the BL465c G7, check out HP’s web site.

BL685c G7
The 7th generation of the BL685c provides a 4 socket AMD Opteron 6100.  Code named, “Magny-Cours“, the AMD Opteron 6100 gives a substantial performance increase over the previous generation.  The BL685c G7 comes standard with 32 memory slots which can reach a max of 512GB of RAM. 

Here are the specifics of the BL685c G7:

• Up to four AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processors
• Up to 512 GB of DDR3 memory
• (2) 10GbE NC551i FlexFabric 2 Ports per controller
• Smart Array P410i RAID controller
• Up to two hot plug disk drives
• Three mezzanine I/O expansion slots
• Insight Control with iLO Advanced (iLO 3)

For more information on the BL685c G7, check out HP’s web site.

Closer Look at the BL465c G7 and BL685c G7 from HP Tech Forum EXPO