(Updated 7/27/2010 – 11 am EST – added info on power and tower options)

 When you think about blade servers, you probably think, “they are too expensive.” When you think about doing a VMware project, you probably think, “my servers are too old” or “I can’t afford new servers.” For $8 per GB, you can have blade servers preloaded with VMware ESXi 4.1 AND 4TB of storage! Want to know how? Keep reading. 

No, I’m not smoking something. I’ve done the configuration and I can show you how to achieve a 4 TB SAN and 3 ESX hosts on blade servers with the IBM BladeCenter S. Before I can explain what I’ve done, let me give you the basics of the IBM BladeCenter S. 

Overview of the IBM BladeCenter S 

At 7U high, the chassis of the IBM BladeCenter S is the same height as the original IBM BladeCenter (now called the BladeCenter E). The chassis uses the same blade servers as the rest of the IBM blade chassis family, but the chassis holds only 6 blade servers – primarily due to the addition of locally attached storage drives. In addition, the chassis has the option to add a DVD drive for access to local media. 

In contrast, the SAS RAID Controller Module (IBM part #43W3584) allows for you to pool the storage and offer access to these arrays to each blade server that has the SAS Connectivity Card installed. Volumes that are created can be assigned to a specific blade or shared by several blade servers. The IBM SAS RAID Controller Module supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10 and each module also comes with RAID battery backup module. There are some caveats to be aware of: only SAS or NL SAS drives are supported (no SATA); the maximum volume size is currently limited to 2TB and the maximum number volumes each blade server can have is 8 (for a total of 48 volumes per chassis.) Another important thing to take note is that you must have 2 x SAS RAID Controller Modules, which sit in I/O Bays #3 and #4. This provides a redundant connection for each blade server with the SAS Connectivity Card. In fact, since I brought it up, let’s take a closer look at how the modules work in the IBM BladeCenter S. 

BladeCenter S a Look From BehindWhen you look at the back of the IBM BladeCenter S, it may look confusing, but don’t worry – it’s pretty straight forward. The chassis comes standard with 2 x 1450w power supplies standard and a single Advanced Management Module. If you are using high wattage blade servers or using the second DSM, you probably will need the 2nd set of power supplies (IBM part # 46C7438). If your budget is tight and you can’t afford to pony up the additional $599 U.S. list I recommend you take advantage of IBM’s Power Calculator prior to purchase to see if you need the 2nd set of power supplies. Following the design of the other IBM BladeCenter chassis, the IBM BladeCenter is cooled by a set of 4 redundant hot-swap blower modules. Don’t bother looking for any other fans or cooling devices, because you won’t find them. These four blowers cool the entire chassis, modules and blade servers. 

Management 
The Advanced Management Module (AMM) is the device that provides you with LOCAL keyboard, video and mouse connectivity (although only USB for keyboard and mouse) as well as an ethernet port to connect into your management network. The AMM gives you the ability to manage / monitor all of the chassis’ thermals as well as remotely control the blade servers and the I/O modules. In all honesty, the AMM is feature rich, so if you want to take a peek at what it can do, take at look at this IBM BladeCenter S Advanced Management Module simulator. Unlike the other IBM blade chassis, there is not an option for a redundant AMM, however in the event of a failure your blade servers, I/O modules, fans and blowers will continue to function without penalty. 

I/O Architecture 

The biggest technical confusion I see from engineers and customers alike is around the I/O layout of the blade chassis. The IBM BladeCenter S is a bit dissimilar to the other IBM chassis in the BladeCenter family so let me explain how it works. There are 4 I/O bays in the IBM BladeCenter S. The 1st I/O bay maps to the NICs that come on the motherboard of each blade server. If you are familiar with rack-mount servers, you know they typically have 2 x 1Gb Ethernet ports. The IBM Blade servers are no different – they also have 2 x 1Gb Ethernet NICs. In order for them to be “lit up” you need to have a module in bay 1 that can allow the signal from the blade server to extend out of the chassis. To simplify things – think of having a power outlet in the wall at home and connecting an extension cord to it so you can turn on a light that is a few feet away. The same rudimentary concept is how it works in the blade infrastructure. The only difference is, with the IBM BladeCenter S, both NIC ports 0 and 1 go to the I/O Module Bay #1. This means if that module has an issue, then those 2 NICs located on the motherboard of each blade server will be dead. There is no redundancy with the onboard NICs in the IBM BladeCenter S (unlike the other IBM BladeCenter chassis.) Why did IBM design it this way? Well, the original target market for the IBM BladeCenter S was small businesses and remote offices. When you look at those environments – how many have redundant NICs for the rack / tower server NICs? Odds are none. With that in mind, IBM designed the BladeCenter S to only have a single I/O module for both onboard NICs. Never fear, though. After a few months, IBM revised the design to allow for I/O Module #2 to provide an additional 2 NICs, using the 2/4 port Ethernet adapter (IBM part # 44W4479) on each blade server. The card is designed to provide 4 Ethernet Ports, however with the BladeCenter S, only 2 ports are connected. Therefore with network modules in I/O Module Bay 1 and 2 you can get 4 NICs. Add this to the 2 x SAS storage cards that we mentioned in the sections above and you “should” have adequate architecture to provide a VMware environment. 

The $32,000 Design 

Now that I’ve spent a few moments telling you what the IBM BladeCenter S is all about, perhaps you understand the potential. So how did I get to the $32,000 design that enables you to have 4 TB and 3 ESX hosts? I won’t devulge in the actual bill of materials, but here’s what I came up with: 

• 1 x IBM BladeCenter S chassis
• 1 x Disk Storage Module
• 4 x 1 TB Near Line Storage Disk Drives
• 1 set of 1450W Power Supplies
• 2 x Server Connectivity (Ethernet) Modules
• 2 x SAS RAID Connectivity Modules
• 1 x DVD
• 3 x HS22 blade servers – each with 2 x Intel E5620 Xeon Processors, 24GB RAM, SAS Connectivity Card, ESXi 4.1 USB Memory Key

Total U.S. List Price (as of 7/26/2010): $30,768.00 

Yes, I also know that HP has an offering (the BladeSystem C3000) that could compete to this design – however IBM is the only blade server vendor that offers dedicated local disk storage. HP’s design takes up a blade server slot. Perhaps I’ll write up something on this in the future. 

THIS SECTION ADDED ON 7/27/2010 – I’ve added this section to cover a couple of pieces that I left off in the original post.

Power
A really valuable feature of the IBM BladeCenter S is the ability to run on 110 v or 220 v.  Use of 110 v is ideal for remote or small offices.  The BladeCenter S power supplies are auto-sensing so you can use the same power supplies.  There are a few power categories to choose from with the BladeCenter S:

• Redundant AC Power Source – in this policy, the power limit is set to equal the capacity of N power modules.  According to IBM’s Implementing the IBM
  BladeCenter S Chassis Redbook, this policy is the most conservative approach and is recommended when all four power modules are installed. When the chassis is correctly wired with dual AC power sources, one AC power source can fail without affecting your blade server operation. 
• Redundant Power Module Policy – in this policy, the power limit equals the capacity of one less than the number of power modules installed (more than one power module must be present). One power module can fail without affecting blade server operation.  If a single power module fails, all the blade servers that are powered on will continue to operate at normal performance levels.
• No Redundancy – all power modules are used, there is no redundancy and if you lose a power supply and the power demands exceed the capacity of the available power modules, the chassis will power down… Not recommended.

Office Enablement Kit
For those environments where a standard server rack is not ideal, IBM offers the Office Enablement Kit (part # 201886X).  This adds an additional few hundred dollars, but it gives you an 11u rack enclosure, complete with front and rear locking doors and wheels.  It also comes with an acoustic attenuation module that helps muffle the sound.  (YouTube video on this can be seen here.)  As mentioned above, the IBM BladeCenter S is only 7U tall, so the additional 4U can be used for an optional Flat Panel Monitor kit (shown in the image to the left) or perhaps additional storage or networking.  This kit really helps to finalize an “all-in-one” solution for small or remote environments.

Yes, I know it’s only 4 x 1TB drives, and I know it’s Near-Line SAS drives, however it is enough resources to help YOU create that VMware infrastructure that you need. Of course, the VMware licensing will be extra, but I just saved you a ton of money – now you can afford it… 

So – what do you think? Is this appealing, or is this just a pipe dream? Let me know your thoughts. I’m really interested in getting an idea of whether this design would really work in your world.

What’s the process to design an HP blade server?  Find out on my interview with Gary Thome, Chief Blade Architect for HP.  Thanks to the friends at SDR News, I was able to talk with Gary at the HP Tech Forum last month in Las Vegas.  In the video below, Gary discusses the steps it takes for HP to design the next generation blade and he discusses the latest blade servers announced at the HP Technology Forum.

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.

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

At the 2010 HP Tech Forum press release on Monday, June 21, 2010, new HP BladeSystem products were announced. In the following video, Mark Potter, Vice President of HP Industry Standard Servers, reveals the newest HP BladeSystem products.

As expected, HP announced today new blade servers to their BladeSystem lineup as well as a new converged switch for their chassis. Everyone expected updates to the BL460 and BL490, the BL2x220c and even the BL680 blade servers, but the BL620 G7 blade server was a surprise (at least to me.)  Before I highlight the announcements, I have to preface this by saying I don’t have a lot of technical information yet.  I attended the press conference at HP Tech Forum 2010 in Las Vegas, but I didn’t get the press kit in advance.  I’ll update this post with links to the Spec Sheets as they become available.

The Details

First up- the BL620 G7

HP Proliant BL620 Blade Server

BL680 G7
The BL680 G7 is an upgrade to to the previous generation, however the 7th generation is a double-wide server.  This design offers up to 4 servers in a C7000 BladeSystem chassis.  This server’s claim to fame is that it will hold 1 terabyte (1TB) of RAM.  To put this into perspective, the Library of Congress’s entire library is 6TB of data, so you could put the entire library on 6 of these BL680 G7’s!  

HP BL680 G7 Blade Server

“FlexFabric” I/O Onboard
Each of the Generation 7 (G7) servers is coming with “FlexFabric” I/O on the motherboard of the blade server.  These are NEW NC551i Dual Port FlexFabric 10Gb Converged Network Adapters (CNA) that supports stateless TCP/IP offload, TCP Offload Engine (TOE), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI protocols.  

Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-Port Module
The final “big” announcement on the blade server front is a converged fabric switch that fits inside the blade chassis.  Titled, the Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-Port Module, it is designed to allow you split the Ethernet fabric and the Fibre fabric at the switch module level, inside the blade chassis INSTEAD OF at the top of rack switch.  You may recall that I previously blogged about this as being a rumour, but now it is true.   

 The image on the left was my rendition of what it would look like.   

And here are the actual images.   

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-Port Module

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb/24-Port Module

 HP believes that converged technology is good to the edge of the network, but that it is not yet mature enough to go to the datacenter (not ready for multi-hop, end to end.)  When the technology is acceptable and mature and business needs dictate – they’ll offer a converged network offering to the datacenter core.  

What do you think about these new blade offerings?  Let me know, I always enjoy your comments.  

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.

Last week, Blade.org invited me to their 3rd Annual Technology Symposium  – an online event with speakers from APC, Blade Network Technologies, Emulex, IBM, NetApp, Qlogic and Virtensys.  Blade.org is a collaborative organization and developer community focused on accelerating the development and adoption of open blade server platforms.   This year’s Symposium focused on ”the dynamic data center of the future”.   While there were many interesting topics (check out the replay here), the one that appealed to me most was “Shared I/O” by Alex Nicolson, VP and CTO of Emulex.  Let me explain why. 

While there are many people who would (and probably will) argue with me, blade servers are NOT for all workloads.  When you take a look at the blade server ecosystem today, the biggest bottleneck you see is the limitation of on board I/O.  Without compromising server slots, the maximum amount of expansion you can achieve on nearly any blade server is 8 I/O ports (6 Ethernet + 2 storage.)  In addition, blade servers are often limited to 2 expansion cards so if a customer has a requirement for “redundant physical adapters” the amount of expansion is reduced even more.    Based on these observations, if you could remove the I/O from the server  the blade server limitations would be eliminated allowing for the adoption of blade servers into more environments.  This could be accomplished with shared I/O.  

When you stop and think about the blade infrastructure design, no matter who the vendor is, it has been the same for the past 9 years.  YES, the vendors have come out with better chassis designs that allow for “high-speed” connectivity, but the overall design is still the same: blade server with CPUs, Memory and I/O cards all on one system board.  It’s time for blade server evolution to a design where I/O is shared.The idea behind Shared I/O is simple: separate the I/O from the server.  Instead of having storage adapters inside a blade server, you would have an I/O Drawer outside containing the blade chassis with the I/O adapters for the blade servers.  No more I/O bottlenecks on your blade servers.  Your I/O potential is (nearly) unlimited!  The advantages to this design include:

• More internal space for blade server design.  If the I/O – including the LAN on Motherboard – was moved off the server, there would be substantial space remaining for more CPUs, more RAM or even more disks.
• Standardized I/O adapters no matter what blade vendor is used.  This is the thought that really excites me.  If you could remove the I/O from the blade server, you would be able to have IBM, Dell, HP and even Cisco in the same rack using the same I/O adapter.  Your investments would be limited to the blade chassis and server.  Not only that, but as blade server architecture changes, you would be able to KEEP the investments you make into your I/O adapters OR on the flip side of that, as I/O adapter speeds increase, you could replace them and keep your servers in place without having to buy new adapters for every server.
• Sharing of I/O adapters means FEWER adapters are needed.  In order for this design to be beneficial, the adapters would need to have the ability to be shared between the servers.  This means that 1 storage HBA may provided resources for 6 servers, but as I/O adapter throughput continues to increase, this may be more of a desire.  Let’s face it – 10Gb is being discussed (and sold) today, but this time next year, 40Gb may be hot and in 3 years, 100Gb may be on the market.  Technology will continue to evolve and if the I/O adapters were separated from the servers, you would have the ability to share the technology across all of your servers.

Now, before you start commenting that this is old news and that companies like Xsiogo have been offering virtual I/O products for a couple of years – hear me out.  The evolution I’m referring to is not a particular vendor providing proprietary options.  I imagine a blade ecosystem across all the vendors that allow for a standardized I/O platform providing guidelines for all blade servers to connect to a shared I/O drawer made by any vendor.  Yes, this may be an unrealistic Nirvana, but look at USB.  All vendors provide them natively out of the chassis without any modifications, so why can’t we get to the same point with a shared I/O connectivity?

So, what do you think.  Am I crazy, or do you think blade server technology will evolve to allow for a separation of I/O.  Share you thoughts in the comments below.

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.