Today IBM announced two new blade servers using Intel Xeon E5-2400 (Sandy Bridge-EN) processors.

BladeCenter HS23E

The BladeCenter HS23E is a two-socket server blade for the BladeCenter chassis.  It has 12 DIMM slots, two mezzanine ports, two hot-swap drive bays, and an integrated dual-port 1 Gigabit Ethernet adapter.

Like the HS23 announced in March, the HS23E has two mezzanine slots: one standard-speed CIOv slot, and one high-speed CFFh slot.  The CIOv slot has 8 lanes of PCIe Generation 3; the CFFs slot is connected with 16 lanes.

In addition to supporting the Xeon E5-2400 family of processors up to the E5-2470, 8-core, 2.3GHz chip, the HS23E also supports one-processor configurations using Intel Xeon E5-1400 or Intel Pentium 1400 processors.

The HS23E blade is supported in existing BladeCenter chassis, including the BladeCenter-H, -HT, -S, and –E.   When using 80- or 95-watt processors, there are some limits on using the HS23E in a BladeCenter-E chassis that uses 2000W power supplies.

Software RAID-0 and RAID-1 is supported using the integrated ServeRAID C105 controller.  An optional the ServeRAID H1135 controller, which occupies the CIOv slot, provides a 6Gbps hardware-based RAID option.

Two Expansion Blades are supported with the HS23E, which attach to the blade and occupy a second slot in the blade enclosure.  The Expansion Blade offers two PCI Express 2.0 slots.  The GPU Expansion Blade, which can be stacked, offer support for up to four NVidia GPU adapters.

IBM has posted a virtual tour of the HS23E IBM.

IBM Flex System x220 Compute Node

The Flex System x220 fits into IBM’s new Flex System family of components.  The blade-like Flex System components are used as building blocks for IBM’s pre-integrated PureFlex bundles, and are also available for build-your-own assemblages using the 14-bay, 10U Flex System Enterprise Chassis.

Like the HS23E, the Flex System x220 Compute Node is a two-socket server that uses Xeon E5-2400 processors up to 95 watts.  It has 12 DIMM slots supporting up to 192GB of memory.  There are two hot-swap, small form factor (SFF) drive bays for SAS, SATA or SSD drives.

The x220 has an integrated Broadcom BCM5718 dual-port Gigabit Ethernet controller.  The I/O connectors support daughtercards including 1GbE,  10GbE, FCoE, 8 and 16Gb FC, and FDR Infiniband adapter options.

Software RAID-0 and RAID-1 for SATA drives is supported using the integrated ServeRAID C105 controller.  Hardware-based RAID for SATA and SAS is available using an optional ServeRAID H1135 daughter card.  (The H1135 daughter card goes on a dedicated connector, and does not consume one of the blade’s two I/O slots.) 

A ServeRAID M5115 controller can be plugged into I/O adapter slot #1; this controller allows support for up to eight internal 1.8” solid-state drives, or a combination of internal solid-state drives and SFF drives in the hot-swap bays.

More details on the x220 Compute Node can be found here: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips0885.html

Daniel Bowers is Vice President and Senior Analyst for Ideas International.  He possesses 19 years of IT industry experience in roles spanning server hardware and software engineering, product marketing, and server administration. His primary areas of expertise include blade servers, virtualization, and datacenter technologies.  This is Daniel’s first guest blog post for Blades Made Simple.  You can find out more about Daniel and Ideas International at http://www.ideasinternational.com/PDFs/Analyst-Biography-Daniel-Bowers.pdf

Today, Dell announced the addition of 3 new blade servers to its PowerEdge portfolio – the PowerEdge M820, PowerEdge M520 and the PowerEdge M420.  Each server offers a unique addition to the Dell blade server family and will be available soon.

 PowerEdge M820

The PowerEdge M820 is a full-height, 4-socket blade server that is the first to use the Intel Xeon E5-4600 processor family.  The M820 has 48 DIMMs for up to 1.5TB of memory and comes with 2 x Select Network Adapters providing a choice between 10Gb Brocade, Broadcom or QLogic.  The server also has 4 additional I/O mezzanine card slots capable of holding additional 10Gb, Infiniband or Fibre cards.  The PowerEdge M820 will be available to purchase in mid-Q2 2012.  Find out more at:

http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/poweredge-m820/pd?~ck=anav

PowerEdge M520

If you are familiar with the Dell PowerEdge M610 blade server, then the new PowerEdge M520 shouldn’t be any surprise to you.  It offers the same form factor and the same amount of memory, but is based on the newer Intel Sandy Bridge CPU.  The PowerEdge M520 is a half-height, 2-socket blade server that uses the Intel Xeon E5-2400 processor family.  As with most of the servers in the E5-2400 family, the M520 has 12 DIMMs for up to 192GB of memory.  Unlike the M820 or the M620, the PowerEdge M520 does not come with the Select Network Adapter, but instead comes standard with 4 x 1GbE Dual Port LOM.  (It is important to note, that a 48-port Blade Module, like the PowerConnect M6348, is required to have all 4 NICs available for use; otherwise only 2 of the 4 are available.) The server also has 2 additional I/O mezzanine card slots capable of holding additional 10Gb, Infiniband or Fibre cards.  The PowerEdge M520 is scheduled to be available for purchase in the next few weeks.  Find out more at:

http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/poweredge-m520/pd?~ck=anav

PowerEdge M420

The PowerEdge M420 is a quarter-height, 2-socket blade server that uses the Intel Xeon E5-2400 processor family.  The M420 introduces a new concept to Dell’s blade family by allowing up to 32 servers within a single Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis.  Each PowerEdge M420 blade server has up to 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2400 CPUs, 6 DIMM slots (for up to 96GB of memory), 2 internal SD slots, a Dual Port 10Gb Broadcom 57810s onboard NIC, 1 x mezzanine expansion.

The M420 quarter-height blades are deployed in the M1000e using a full-height sleeve known as a “subassembly”.  While each sleeve does not need to be fully populated with M420 blades in order to be installed, it does occupy the same physical space as a full-height blade, however it can be positioned adjacent to other half-height servers.  The M420 offers a great platform for any application using a lot of CPU processing.  A 42U rack can hold 4 x Dell PowerEdge M1000e chassis and each chassis can hold 32 PowerEdge M420 server.  That means you can have up to 128 Dell PowerEdge M420s in a rack.  Each M420 can hold 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2400 CPUs with a total of 16 CPU cores so that equates to 2,048 CPU cores in a rack. 

The PowerEdge M420 is scheduled to be available for purchase in the next few weeks.  Find out more at: http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/poweredge-m420/pd?~ck=anav

For a list of all of Dell’s blade server offerings, visit http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/poweredge-mseries-servers?~ck=anav

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.  Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

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:

Performance / watt

The higher performance and lower power draw of the four-blade Dell solutions compared to the UCS B250 M2 blade solution led to the PowerEdge M710HD solution’s 76% higher performance per watt score and the PowerEdge M620 solution’s 108% higher performance per watt score.

Power at Idle

Even with all blades configured with the same amount of system memory, the four-blade PowerEdge M710HD solution consumed 58% as much power at idle as the four-blade UCS B250 M2 solution with its extra DIMMs and supporting circuitry. Similarly, the four-blade PowerEdge M620 blade solution drew just 55% as much power at idle as the Cisco blade solution.

Power at 100% Load

Both of the four-blade PowerEdge solutions, again with the same amount of system memory installed per blade, drew 64% to 67% as much power as the four-blade Cisco UCS B250 M2 blade solution with all blades running at 100% load.

Performance

With the same processor models and the same memory capacity installed in each blade, the four-blade solution based on PowerEdge M710HD blades provided up to 11% higher performance than the four-blade solution based on UCS B250 M2 blades, and the four-blade solution based on PowerEdge M620 blades provided up to 25% higher performance than the UCS blade solution.

Rack density

When the 10U M1000e Modular Blade Enclosure is equipped with its maximum of sixteen M710HD or M620 servers, the solution can fit 1.6 servers per rack unit of space, 2.4 times as dense as the solution with Cisco UCS B250 M2 blades.

Cost

In the configuration tested, the Cisco UCS B250 M2 blade solution costs $112,591.02[1], while the similarly configured Dell PowerEdge M710HD solution costs 34% less at $73,820.00, and the PowerEdge M620 solution costs 33% less at $75,372.00.

To read the report in its entirety, please visit:

http://i.dell.com/sites/content/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/PowerEfficiencyComparisonofDellandCiscoHighMemoryCapacityBladeServers.pdf

To read the writer’s blog post on this report, visit:

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/enterprise/b/inside-enterprise-it/archive/2012/03/26/comparison-of-dell-and-cisco-high-memory-capacity-blade-servers.aspx

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.  Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

IBM officially announced their new blade, the HS23 blade server, and it comes with some improvement.

The HS23 blade server is a dual CPU socket blade running Intel´s new Xeon® processor, the E5-2600,  and is the first IBM BladeCenter server that offers four integrated LAN ports: dual-port Gigabit Ethernet and dual-port 10Gb Ethernet with IBM Virtual Fabric capability.

It has the same 30mm single-wide form-factor of all other IBM blades to protect customers’ investment by providing compatibility with the IBM BladeCenter H, E, S, and HT chassis.

The HS23 blade server  scales up to 14 virtual NICs (vNICs) per single-wide blade server for a total of 18 I/O ports with the choice of Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, iSCSI, and FCoE connectivity.  One thing to note – this new high-speed adapter n the IBM HS23 blade server will work only in BladeCenter H chassis.  The blade server can provide up to four 10GbE (same as HS22 and HS22V), but the difference is that HS23 comes standard with  two 10GbE Virtual Fabric ports. Another CFFh virtual Fabric can be added to provide connectivity with the other two high-speed switches.

For those that are familiar with the I/O paths in Chassis H, here is how it works when using the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapters:
 two 10 Gb Ethernet ports on the adapter itself are routed to the chassis I/O bays 8 and 10 (unlike other CFFh cards), and two 10 Gb Ethernet ports integrated on a blade itself are routed to the chassis I/O bays 7 and 9.

But if you do not want to use this technology (Virtual Fabric) you have to remove the 10Gb LOM Interposer in order to be able to add another CFFh expansion card like a QLogic Ethernet and 8Gb Fibre Channel Expansion Card, which enables connectivity between the blade and two Ethernet switches and two SAN switches.   Again, BladeCenter H only.

Other features of the HS23 blade server:

Processors

Up to two Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family CPUs with eight-core (up to 2.7 GHz) ; six-core (up to 2.9 GHz) ; quad-core (up to 2.4 GHz) or dual-core (up to 3.0 GHz). Two QPI links up to 8.0 GT/s each. Up to 1600 MHz memory speed. Up to 20 MB L3 cache.
Memory

Up to 16 DDR3 DIMM sockets (8 DIMMs per processor) using Very Low Profile (VLP) DIMMs. Support for up to 1600 MHz memory speed depending on the processor. Four memory channels per processor (2 DIMMs per channel). Up to 256 GB with 16x 16 GB RDIMMs and two processors.
Mixing 1.5 V and 1.35 V DIMMs in the same server is supported. In such a case all DIMMs operate at 1.5 V.
Disk Bays

Two 2.5″ hot-swap SAS/SATA drive bays supporting SAS, SATA, and SSD drives.

HS23 comes to replace both HS22 and HS22V on IBM portfolio. Positioned just below HX5, HS23 is designed to meet the needs of small/ midsized businesses and is ideal for a variety of workloads including virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions.

About the Author

Thales Osterne is a contributor and author for BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over seven years in the IT field with five years of experience in IBM BladeCenter and System X.  When he is not blogging, Thales works as a product manager for IBM System X & Bladecenter at Lanlink Informatica, a major business partner in Brazil.

One of the industry-leading independent technology assessment service firms, Principled Technologies, just updated their site with a ton of white papers covering performance on just about any product or technology.  You can check out their website at http://www.principledtechnologies.com/default.htm for the complete list, but I wanted to give you the links to their papers that cover virtualization performance on blade servers.

These are the newest white papers, and yes they are mostly Dell.  However, keep an eye on

http://www.principledtechnologies.com/Topics/servers.htm as I’m sure they’ll have HP, IBM and Cisco papers up soon.

    

	Database server consolidation with an Intel Xeon processor E5-2690-based server We tested to see how many dual-socket quad-core legacy servers this new server could consolidate using virtualization.
	Server consolidation and TCO: Dell PowerEdge M620 vs. HP ProLiant BL490 We examine the number of virtual machines each server could support and the total cost of ownership for each server over 3 years.
	Server consolidation and TCO: Dell PowerEdge M620 vs. Dell PowerEdge M710HD We examine the number of virtual machines each server could support and the total cost of ownership for each server over 3 years.
	Server consolidation and TCO: Dell PowerEdge M620 vs. Dell PowerEdge M610 We examine the number of virtual machines each server could support and the total cost of ownership for each server over 3 years

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.    Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

HP launched the new  ProLiant BL460c Gen8 blade but you would have never known about it.   With the prelaunch work done it February it seemed like a non event.   The bulk of the goodness on the Gen 8 updates are across the ProLiant  family so I will try to keep my focus on those that pertain to the  BL460c.

The BL460c is focused around the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 Family  processors with up to 8 cores/16 threads each, advanced memory capabilities and new cloud ready management .

CPU
Eight-Core Processors

Intel® Xeon® E5-2680 (2.70GHz/8-core/20MB/130W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2670 (2.60GHz/8-core/20MB/115W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2665 (2.40GHz/8-core/20MB/115W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2660 (2.20GHz/8-core/20MB/95W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2650 (2.0GHz/8-core/20MB/95W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2650L (1.80GHz/8-core/20MB/70W) Processor

Six-Core Processors

Intel® Xeon® E5-2667 (2.90GHz/6-core/15MB/130W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2640 (2.50GHz/6-core/15MB/95W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2630 (2.30GHz/6-core/15MB/95W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2630L (2.0GHz/6-core/15MB/60W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2620 (2.0GHz/6-core/15MB/95W) Processor

Quad-Core Processors

Intel® Xeon® E5-2609 (2.40GHz/4-core/10MB/80W) Processor
Intel® Xeon® E5-2603 (1.80GHz/4-core/10MB/80W) Processor

Dual-Core Processors

Intel® Xeon® E5-2637 (3.0GHz/2-core/5MB/80W) Processor

One interesting thing I saw today when trying to get find out more  information was that you need both processers installed to use both PCIe 3.0 slots. Just something to keep in mind.

Memory

New HP SmartMemory is qualified to run at speeds up to 25 percent faster than industry standards but there is a catch. HP memory from previous generation servers are not qualified to run with Gen 8 Blade.  The HP SmartMemory has to pass testing by HP before meeting qualification. The best part about the new architecture is not having to guess if the amount of memory you put in the server will reduce the overall speed. It use to be if you filled all three DIMMs per channel performance would drop. The ProLiant BL460c Gen8 has four memory controllers per processor socket so that memory speed and capacity is not affected as more memory are added. When using the correct combination of processors and DIMMs, the server supports operating all 16 DIMMs at 1600MHz providing up to 256 GB for maximum memory speed or 1333MHz providing up to 512 GB for maximum memory capacity.

Standard (Pre-configured Models)
64GB (8 x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHz RDIMMs at 1.5V
32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHz RDIMMs at 1.5V
32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 1333MHz RDIMMs at 1.35V
16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz RDIMMs at 1.35V

Maximum (LRDIMM)
512GB (16 x 32GB) up to 1333MHz at 1.35V
Maximum (RDIMM)
256GB (16 x 16GB) up to 1600MHz at 1.5V
256GB (16 x 16GB) up to 1333MHz at 1.35V
Maximum (UDIMM)
128GB (16 x 8GB) up to 1333MHz at 1.35V

The maximum RAM capacity is only based on 16 GB DIMMS but 32 GB will follow soon. There was even a non HP announcement today about 64GB DDR3 LRDIMM’s.

Cloud Management

The new management capabilities for Gen 8 have seem to come along away. In the end all the server vendors are playing with Intel , so this area is probably where the most vendors will differentiate themselves . My favourite new feature is the HP Active Health System.
All configurations change are logged, failed parts are tracked so they don’t get but back in and all the Active Health information can be sent to support automatically so I don’t have to stay on the phone with support.

The cloud based management is based on HP Insight Online. The portal gives you access to monitor your servers, warranty and contracts, service tickets and allows for replacement parts to be proactively ordered. You can give your partners access your portal for remote management and but it looks like automatic (direct-to-expert) support will cost you some additional dollars.

It’s also worth noting that HP changed their drives to better report and show drive failures. The old hard drives will not work in the new
blades.

As more information is released I plan to write about the impact for VDI on my blog at ITbloodpressure.com.

Dwayne is the newest Contributor to BladesMadeSimple.com and is the author of IT Blood Pressure (http://itbloodpressure.com/) where he provides tips on Virtual Desktops and gives advice on best practices in the IT industry with a particular focus in Healthcare.  In his day job, Dwayne is an Infrastructure Specialist in the Healthcare and Energy Sector in Western Canada.

(UPDATED 3/7/12) With the launch of Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 processor, Dell revealed the details of the new PowerEdge M620 blade server.  Offering an industry first 24 memory DIMMs in a half-height form factor, the M620 offers up to 768GB of RAM along side the newly announced Intel E5-2600.  The Dell PowerEdge M620 also comes with the ability to chose from a variety of LOM (LAN on Motherboard) cards – a feature first seen in the PowerEdge M710HD and M915 last Summer.  Formerly known as the Network Daughter Card, the newly renamed feature, called Select Network Adapter, is a removable network card that gives buyers the option of choosing from Broadcom, Intel or QLogic adapters – each offering up to two ports of 10Gb.  Since it is removable, it offers investment protection as new technology becomes available.  For more features and details about the M620, see below.

CPU Offerings

At the time of launch, Dell is offering the following Intel E5-2600 CPUs on the M620:

Intel® Xeon® E5-2650L 1.80GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8C, 70W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2650 2.00GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8C, 95W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2660 2.20GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8C, 95W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2665 2.40GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8C, 115W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2670 2.60GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8C, 115W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2680 2.70GHz, 20M Cache, 8.0GT/s QPI, Turbo, 8C, 130W

Intel® Xeon® E5-2630L 2.00GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, 6C, 60W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2620 2.00GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, 6C, 95W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2630 2.30GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, 6C, 95W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2640 2.50GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, 6C, 95W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2667 2.90GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, 6C, 130W

Intel® Xeon® E5-2603 1.80GHz,10M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, No Turbo, 4C, 80W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2609 2.40GHz, 10M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, No Turbo, 4C, 80W
Intel® Xeon® E5-2637 3.0GHz, 5M cache, 6.4 GT/s QPI, Turbo, 2C, 80W

If you have software licensed by the core, you’ll be happy to see the E5-2637 CPU, which offers 2 CPU cores while maintaining a high 3.0GHz frequency.

Memory

Although the maximum memory speed with the Romley platform running the Intel Xeon E5-2600 CPU touts a 1600MHz memory performance speed, there is a trade off on capacity.  Basically, if you want a lot of memory, you’ll have to run the memory at a slower speed at 1033.   To help determine performance vs capacity, I’ve listed a chart below that should help decode things.  In the spirit of full disclosure, the 32GB DIMMs, which are required to achieve the maximum capacity of 768GB RAM, will not be available until Q2 2012 (date not provided at this time.)  To aid with your memory selection, check out:

http://www.poweredgecpumemory.com

LAN on Motherboard Options

As mentioned above, the PowerEdge M620’s on-board network is available in removable card, known as the Select Network Adapter.  While this is new to the M6xx family, it is Dell’s second generation of removal LOM cards.  In fact, with the 12G product launch, the Select Network Adapter can be found in the R620 and R720 rack servers too.  Below is a chart of the 3 card options, as well as the features they support.  In summary, if you want SR-IOV or DCB Support, you’ll want to go with the Intel X520 card – otherwise it’s a battle between Broadcom and QLogic.REVISED 3/7/12  – I clearly was under the influence of lack of sleep when I wrote this.  The matrix was all messed up.  Here is the CORRECT list of supported options:

Other New Options

The PowerEdge M620 comes with 2 x mezzanine I/O card expansion slots (x8 PCIe 3.0) fully available in both the 1 CPU and 2 CPU blade server designs.  I was planning on listing the options available for the mezzanine slots on the M620, but the list is too long, however you can find it on the M620 page at http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/poweredge-m620/pd?~ck=anav.  Instead, I want to touch on a couple of other cool features that you might find valuable.

Dual embedded SD slots for Hypervisor – since the market is heading toward encouraging embedded hypervisors, Dell decided to place dual card slots into the M620 designed to be redundant.  If you lose your primary SD card, the secondary slot is available to resume the workload.

Now, for my final trick – SCAN THIS QR Tag:

Welcome to the future.  No longer will you have to search for assistance with a server product.  With the 12th Generation of the Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell is introducing the concept of using QR tags to offer technical assistance in the form of step-by-step videos, reference materials and even help with looking up your service tag.

For more information on the Dell PowerEdge M620, download the the full  PowerEdge M620 Technical Guide or visit http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/poweredge-m620/pd?~.

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.    Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

The International Data Corporation’s (IDC) released their  Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker today covering Q4 2011.  Despite a 7.2% decrease in the worldwide server factory revenue, the blade market continued to experience growth in 4Q11 with factory revenue increasing 8.3% year over year.   Other key facts from the IDC press release:

• Bladed servers (including x86, EPIC, and RISC blades) accounted for $2.3 billion in revenues, or 16.1% of quarterly server market revenue.
• 89.6% of all blade revenue is driven by x86-based blades, which now represent 22.5% of all x86 server revenue.

HP maintained the number 1 spot in the server blade market in 4Q11 with 47.4% revenue share – down from 51% in 3Q11, while IBM grew from 18.2% in 3Q11 to 21.5% revenue share in 4Q11. Cisco and Dell rounded out the top 4 blade server vendors with 11.0% and 8.7% factory revenue share, gaining 5.3 and 1.3 points of blade market share, respectively from Q311.

According to Jed Scaramella, research manager, Enterprise Servers at IDC, “While there was softness in other segments, blades remained a strong point and continued as a driver of growth for the server market. The blade server category achieved both its highest reported revenue and revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2011.  IDC believes blades are a key element in a server vendor’s portfolio as they are a strategic footprint in the datacenter and important for vendor revenue and profitability. A converged blade platform is an opportunity for additional pull-through revenue beyond the server, including storage, networking, software, and services.”

For the full IDC report covering the Q4 2011 Worldwide Server Market, please visit IDC’s website at:
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23347812

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.    Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

In anticipation of Intel’s upcoming E5-2600 CPU (aka Sandy Bridge) announcement, Dell officially announced the 12th Generation of PowerEdge servers today.  Although the specifics of the 12th Generation, or “12G”, servers have not yet been released, it is very clear there will be a new blade server added to the Dell PowerEdge portfolio: the M620.

While Dell.com announcement site does not have a lot of the details of what’s coming in 12G, The Register has been able to secure some good information on the Dell PowerEdge M620 blade server that I’ll share with you.

1. The M620′s size is “half-height”allowing you to put up to 16 inside of the Dell PowerEdge M1000e chassis.
2. It will hold up to 2 x Intel Xeon E5 CPUs
3. It will hold up to 768GB of RAM (the same as its tower and rack equivalent)
4. The M620 has two hot-plug, 2.5-inch drive bays, and can have SSD, SATA disk, or SAS disk drives slid into those two slots. 
5. The PERC S110 controller with software raid and the PERC H310, H710, and H710P controllers for internal RAID arrays can snap onto this M620 blade. 
6. The M620 has two SD cards for redundant embedded hypervisors to sit on.

Of course, there are a few other goodies that The Register didn’t mention – so I’ll hold off talking about until the official Intel announcement.

To read the full article from The Register discussing the next generation of Dell PowerEdge server (including the tower and rack models,) go to http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/27/dell_poweredge_12g_server_launch/

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.    Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.

Photo from Dell.com

As I mentioned yesterday, one of my fellow bloggers, Stephen Foskett, is writing a series on blade servers.  His latest post reveals the history of the blade server.  Stephen’s article challenged me to do some research of my own – and here’s what I found.   Apparently the first “official” patent for a server on blade (patent # 6,411,506 - “High density web server chassis system and method) was awarded in June of 2002 to Christopher G. Hipp and David M. Kirkeby of RLX Technologies.   One interesting fact is that U.S. Patents referenced within the document refers to other patents from many leaders of the industry including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Micron, Hitachi and even Dell.

I’ve taken the liberty of downloading the entire patent document for your reference:
High Density Web Server Chassis – Patent 6411506 B1 (1.84Mb, PDF).

If you like technology and are a history buff, I recommend you check out Stephen’s article at http://blog.fosketts.net/2012/02/20/blade-server-history/.

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 15 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.    Kevin works for Dell as a Server Specialist covering the Global 500 East market.