Making blade servers simple
Posted in Cisco on Nov 3rd, 2009
By now I’m sure you’ve read, heard or seen Tweeted the announcement that Cisco, EMC and VMware have come together and created the Virtual Computing Environment coalition . So what does this announcement really mean? Here are my thoughts: Greater Cooperation and Compatibility Since these 3 top IT giants are working together, I expect to see greater [...]
Posted in Cisco on Nov 2nd, 2009
The manager
participates not only in server provisioning, but also in
device discovery, inventory, configuration, diagnostics,
monitoring, fault detection, auditing, and statistics collection.
Posted in Cisco on Oct 28th, 2009
Previously known as “Palo”, Cisco’s virtualized adapter allows for a server to split up the 10Gb pipes into numerous virtual pipes (see below) like multiple NICs or multiple Fibre Channel HBAs. Although the card shown in the image to the left is a normal PCIe card, the initial launch of the card will be in [...]
Posted in IBM on Oct 21st, 2009
I’ve gotten a lot of response from my first post, “REVEALED: IBM’s Nexus 4000 Switch: 4001I” and more information is coming out quickly so I decided to post a part 2. IBM officially announced the switch on October 20, 2009, so here’s some additional information: The Nexus 4001I Switch for the IBM BladeCenter is part [...]
Posted in IBM on Oct 20th, 2009
Emulex and IBM announced today the availability of a new Emulex expansion card for blade servers that allows for up to 8 virtual nics to be assigned for each physical NIC. The “Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter for IBM BladeCenter (IBM part # 49Y4235)” is a CFF-H expansion card is based on industry-standard PCIe architecture and can [...]
Posted in IBM on Oct 19th, 2009
<see updates at bottom> Finally – information on the soon-to-be-released Cisco Nexus 4000 switch for IBM BladeCenter. Apparently IBM is officially calling their version “Cisco Nexus Switch Module 4001I for the IBM BladeCenter.” I’m not sure if it’s “officially” announced yet, but I’ve uncovered some details. Here is a summary of the Cisco Nexus Switch Module 4001I [...]
Posted in Server Comparisons on Oct 12th, 2009
(UPDATED 10/28/09 with new links to full article) I received a Tweet from @HPITOps linked to Gartner’s first ever “Magic Quadrant” for blade servers. The Magic Quadrant is a tool that Gartner put together to help people easily where manufacturers rank, based on certain criteria. As the success of blade servers continues to grow, the demand for blades increases. [...]
Posted in Cisco on Oct 9th, 2009
eWeek recently posted snapshots of Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) Software on their site: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/LABS-GALLERY-Cisco-UCS-Unified-Computing-System-Software-199462/?kc=rss Take a good look at the software because the software is the reason this blade system will be successful because they are treating the physical blades as a resource – just CPUs, memory and I/O. “What” the server should be [...]
Cisco Nexus 4000 switch for blade chassis environments, I thought it would be good to discuss how IBM is able to connect blade servers via 10Gb Datacenter Ethernet (or Converged Enhanced Ethernet) to a Cisco Nexus 5000. Other than Cisco’s UCS offering, IBM is currently the only blade vendor who offers a Converged Network Adapter (CNA) for the [...]
Posted in Cisco on Sep 29th, 2009
Cisco is announcing today the release of the Nexus 4000 switch. It will be designed to work in ”other” blade vendors’ chassis, although they aren’t announcing which blade vendors. My gut is that Dell and IBM will OEM it, but HP will stick with their ProCurve line announced a few weeks ago. Here’s what I know about [...]
I've been working in server platform infrastructure since 1997. I'm certified in HP and IBM Blade Servers, working on Dell.You can contact me at:
LinkedIn: Kevin Houston
Twitter: Kevin_Houston
Email: bladesmadesimple AT gmail DOT com
