Tag Archive

Why Blade Servers Will be the Core of Future Data Centers

Published on October 25, 2011 By Kevin Houston

In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that engineers would be able to double the number of components on a microchip every two years.  Known as Moore’s law, his prediction has come true – processors are continuing to become faster each year while the components are becoming smaller and smaller.  In the footprint of the original ENIAC [...]

Dell Network Daughter Card (NDC) and Network Partitioning (NPAR) Explained

Published on October 11, 2011 By Kevin Houston

If you are a reader of BladesMadeSimple, you are no stranger to Dell’s Network Daughter Card (NDC), but if it is a new term for you, let me give you the basics. Up until now, blade servers came with network interface cards (NICs) pre-installed as part of the motherboard.  Most servers came standard with Dual-port [...]

Why Are Dell’s Blade Servers “Different”?

Published on September 28, 2011 By Kevin Houston

I’ve learned over the years that it is very easy to focus on the feeds and speeds of a server while overlooking features that truly differentiate.  When you take a look under the covers, a server’s CPU and memory are going to be equal to the competition, so the innovation that goes into the server [...]

Dell Announces Blade Refresh and NIC Partitioning (NPAR)

Published on April 5, 2011 By Kevin Houston

Dell announced today a refresh of the PowerEdge M910 blade server based on the Intel Xeon E7 processor.  The M910 is a full-height blade that can hold 512GB of RAM across 32 DIMMs.   The refreshed M910 blade server will also feature Dell’s FlexMem bridge that enables users to use all 32 DIMM slots with only 2 CPUs.  You can read more [...]

Dell Announces Converged 10GbE Switch for M1000e

Published on January 26, 2011 By Kevin Houston

Updated 1/27/2011 Dell quietly announced the addition of a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) switch module, known as the M8428-k.  This blade module advertises 600 ns low-latency, wire-speed,  10GbE performance, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) switching, and low-latency 8 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) switching and connectivity.

More HP and IBM Blade Rumours

Published on February 24, 2010 By Kevin Houston

I wanted to post a few more rumours before I head out to HP in Houston for “HP Blades and Infrastructure Software Tech Day 2010″ so it’s not to appear that I got the info from HP. NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from HP so this may be false info. [...]

HP BladeSystem Rumours

Published on February 15, 2010 By Kevin Houston

I’ve recently posted some rumours about IBM’s upcoming announcements in their blade server line, now it is time to let you know some rumours I’m hearing about HP.   NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from HP so this may be false info.  That being said – here we go: Rumour #1:  Integration of [...]

Cisco, EMC and VMware Announcement – My Thoughts

Published on November 3, 2009 By Kevin Houston

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 [...]

IBM BladeCenter HS22 Delivers Best SPECweb2005 Score Ever Achieved by a Blade Server

Published on October 22, 2009 By Kevin Houston

According to IBM’s System x and BladeCenter x86 Server Blog, the IBM BladeCenter HS22 server has posted the best SPECweb2005 score ever from a blade server.  With a SPECweb2005 supermetric score of 75,155, IBM has reached a benchmark seen by no other blade yet to-date.  The SPECweb2005 benchmark is designed to be a neutral, equal benchmark [...]

(UPDATED) Officially Announced: IBM’s Nexus 4000 Switch: 4001I (PART 2)

Published on October 21, 2009 By Kevin Houston

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 [...]