Making blade servers simple
Posted in Cisco, Server Comparisons on Aug 24th, 2010
One of the questions I get the most is, “which blade server option is best for me?” My honest answer is always, “it depends.” The reality is that the best blade infrastructure for YOU is really going to depend on what is important to you. Based on this, I figured it would be a good exercise [...]
Posted in Future Technologies on Jun 17th, 2010
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 [...]
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 [...]
Posted in Dell, IBM, Server Comparisons on May 21st, 2010
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 [...]
Posted in Future Technologies on May 17th, 2010
It’s been a while since I’ve posted what rumours I’m hearing, so I thought I’d dig around and see what I can find out. NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from any vendor about any of this information so this may be false info. Read at your own risk.
Intel officially announced today the Xeon 5600 processor, code named “Westmere.” Cisco, HP and IBM also announced their blade servers that have the new processor. The Intel Xeon 5600 offers: 32nm process technology with 50% more threads and cache Improved energy efficiency with support for 1.35V low power memory There will be 4 core and [...]
IDC reported on February 24, 2010 that blade server sales for Q4 2009 returned to quarterly revenue growth with factory revenues increasing 30.9% in Q4 2009 year over year (vs 1.2% in Q3.) For the first time in 2009 there was an 8.3% increase in year-over-year shipments in Q4. Overall blade servers accounted for $1.8 billion in Q4 [...]
Posted in IBM on Mar 4th, 2010
A few weeks ago, IBM and Emulex announced a new blade server adapter for the IBM BladeCenter and IBM System x line, called the “Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter for IBM BladeCenter" (IBM part # 49Y4235). Frequent readers may recall that I had a "so what" attitude when I blogged about it in October and that [...]
Posted in IBM on Mar 2nd, 2010
UPDATED: 3/2/2010 at 12:58 PM EST Author’s Note: I’m stretching outside of my “blades” theme today so I can capture the entire eX5 messaging. Finally, all the hype is over. IBM announced today the next evolution of their “Enterprise x-Architecture”, also known as eX5. Why eX5? Simple: e=Enterprise X=x-Architecture 5=fifth generation. IBM’s Enterprise x-Architecture has been [...]
Posted in IBM on Feb 9th, 2010
IBM officially announced today a new addition to their blade server line – the HS22v. Modeled after the HS22 blade server, the HS22v is touted by IBM as a “high density, high performance blade optimized for virtualization.” So what makes it so great for virtualization? Let’s take a look. Memory One of the big differences [...]
I'm a technology fanatic who has been working in server platform infrastructure since 1997. I'm certified in HP, Dell and IBM Blade Servers as well as VMware and Citrix.You can contact me at:
LinkedIn: Kevin Houston
Twitter: Kevin_Houston
Email: bladesmadesimple AT gmail DOT com
