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

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.

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.

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.

Hot off the presses is the latest IDC worldwide server market revenue report for Q3 2011. The gist of the report is that while some of the numbers are slightly adjusted, really not much has changed in the blade server market.

Revenue growth for the entire server market (all servers, not just blade servers) slowed considerably showing only 4.2% year over year growth bringing in $12.7 billion. Growth in the world of servers continues but this marks the slowest growth rate for any quarter since Q1 2010. IDC believes that overall server sales will continue to decelerate due to weakening economic conditions around the globe. “After nearly two years of steady revenue growth, the server market began to decelerate in Q3 2011 as demand stabilized for many system categories,” said Matt Eastwood, group VP and general manager. Incidentally, IBM and HP are both holding steady, tied for the #1 spot in revenue share, at 29.8%.

When looking at the blade server market specifically, growth was steady for Q3 2011 but not as explosive as Q2 2011. IDC reports “solid growth” in the quarter with a revenue increase of 16.4% year over year (vs 26.9% growth in 2Q11). Shipments increased 2.4% (vs 6.2% reported growth for 2Q11). One thing that hasn’t changed since last quarter is that 89% of all blade revenue is driven by x86 systems. Also, blade server sales representing  20.8% of all x86 server revenue. This shows continued steady growth for the blade server segment but that the pace may be slowing slightly.

#1 market share: HP managed to hold the majority margin moving to 51.0% in Q3 2011 from 51.9% in Q2 2011.

#2 market share: IBM continues to see its margin chipped away slightly down to 18.5% in Q3 2011 from 19.1% in Q2 2011.

#3 market share: Cisco’s disruptive market penetration seems to have slowed at 10.7% overall compared to a solid 10% in Q2 2011.

#4 market share: Even Dell dropped slightly to 7.2% revenue share from 8.2% last quarter.

In looking at the totals, the top four vendors represented 87.4% of the revenue share in the blade servers market which is actually down 2% from last quarter. Cisco grew revenue share by less than 1% which means that some of the displacement of the remaining top vendors is not accounted for. Does this mean there may be some new players in the “others” category that we should be watching? Without a detailed breakdown it’s hard to tell but I’ll definitely be looking forward to comparing the numbers next quarter to see if the trend continues. It could, after all, just be a factor of the margin of error in the statistics.

According to Jed Scaramella, research manager, Enterprise Servers at IDC, “Blade systems represented the fastest growing segment in the server industry and now account for 16.0% of total server revenue – a historic high.”

Probably the most interesting aspect of the report is the introduction of hyper-scale servers. “Hyper-scale servers are designed for large scale datacenters with streamlined system designs that focus on performance, energy efficiency, and density.” This sounds like the mantra for blade servers with the main difference being the lack of management and high availability capabilities at the hardware level. Basically these represent the miles of simple, rack mount commodity servers used by the likes of Google and Facebook. This is a $428 million dollar server segment and growing.

For the full IDC report covering the Q2 2011 Worldwide Server Market, please visit IDC’s website at http://www.idc.com.

IBM once again is promoting is striving to increase market share by offering customers the chance to get a “free” IBM BladeCenter chassis.   The last time they promoted a free chassis was in November, so this year they kicked in the promo effective July 5, 2011.  The promotion is for a free chassis – without any purchase, however a chassis without any blades or switches is just a metal box.  Regardless, this promotion is a great way to help offset some of the cost to implementation of your blade server project.

The Details

1) The promotion is limited to U.S. customers who have not purchased a BladeCenter chassis in the past 12 months.  I did find a current UK promo on IBM.com that requires 4 blade servers be purchased for a free chassis.  If you are in the UK, check out http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/uk/express/promotion/ for details.

2) The promotion requires pre-approval by IBM (after July 5, 2011 but before December 23, 2011) .

3) The promotion is limited to the following models:

BladeCenter E Chassis 86773TU or 86774TU
BladeCenter H Chassis 88524TU
BladeCenter S Chassis 88861TU

How to Purchase

You have the option of purchasing from your local IBM business Partner or from IBM direct.  If you are an IBM Business Partner, refer to IBM Announcement Letter 511-290 for terms and conditions.

For More Information on IBM BladeCenter

Check out the following links:

IBM System x Mobile App: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/resources/mobileapp/

IBM Support site for Fixes and Downloads:  http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/

IBM BladeCenter H Power Recommendation Document (from BladesMadeSimple.com) – PDF, 440kb

IBM Power Guide  – http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101706

IBM BladeCenter Benchmarks – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/resources/benchmarks/results/

IBM BladeCenter Main Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/

IBM BladeCenter Chassis Product Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/index.html

IBM Blade Server Product Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/servers/

IBM BladeCenter I/O Module Product Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/openfabric/ethernet.html

IBM BladeCenter Interoperability Guide – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000020&lndocid=MIGR-5073016

IBM BladeCenter Products and Technology Redbook – http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/SG247523.html

IBM BladeCenter and System x Reference Documents (xREF) – http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/pages/xref?Open

IBM Standalone Solutions Configuration Tool (SSCT) – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000008&lndocid=MIGR-62168

IBM Server Configuration and Options Guide HTML – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000008&lndocid=SCOD-3ZVQ5W

If you are like me, you are constantly referring to manufacture web sites for product specs, available options, etc.  Today, I’ve put together a list of web sites that will help streamline your search.  Since links change and new ones get added, I’ve put out a “helpful links” tab at the top of my blog as well for you to reference and bookmark.  As I get recommendations from my readers, I’ll update the “helpful links” tab, so be sure to add it to your favorites.

Cisco QuickLinks – http://ciscoquicklinks.com/

Cisco UCS 3 D Model – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/ps10265/ps10279/ucs_kaon_model_preso.html

Cisco UCS 5100 Blade Chassis – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10279/index.html

Cisco B-Series Blade Servers – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10280/index.html

Cisco UCS Manager – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10281/index.html

Cisco UCS Site Preparation Guide – http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/hw/site_prep/guide/siteprep_tech_specs.html

Manage your Cisco UCS via iPhone App;  SiMU Lab (Simple iPhone Management of UCS) – http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/simu-lab/id385832700?mt=8

Cisco UCS Emulator Download – http://developer.cisco.com/web/unifiedcomputing/ucsemulatordownload
 

Dell blade solutions (main page) – http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/blade-server-solutions.aspx

Dell M1000e Product Page – http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/pedge_m1000e/pd.aspx?refid=pedge_m1000e

Dell PowerEdge M1000e Technical Guidebook (PDF) - http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/server-poweredge-m1000e-tech-guidebook.pdf

Dell Blade Server Product Page – http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/blade-server-solutions-dell-m-series-blade-servers.aspx

Dell Technical Guidebook for the M610 Blade Server (PDF) – http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/server-poweredge-m610-tech-guidebook.pdf

Dell Technical Guidebook for the M710 Blade Server (PDF) – http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/server-poweredge-m710-tech-guidebook.pdf

Dell M-Series I/O Solutions Guide (PDF) – http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/blade_io_solutions_guide_v1.2_jn.pdf

Dell M1000e Technical Whitepaper (PDF) – http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/poweredge-m1000e-white-paper-en.pdf

Power Distribution Whitepaper for M1000e Chassis (PDF) – http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/pe_m1000e_selection_whitepaper.pdf

Dell Systems Management Consoles Product Page – http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/dcsm-dell-consoles.aspx

Dell Tech Center (single site for Dell technical info, demos, blogs) – http://www.delltechcenter.com/

Dell Power Planning Calculator – http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pedge/topics/en/config_calculator?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz

HP BladeSystem Main Page – http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/bladesystem/index.html

DDR3 Memory Configurator – http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/options/tool/hp_memtool.html

HP BladeSystem Enclosures Main Page – http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/enclosures/c-class/index.html

HP Proliant Server Blades Main Page – http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02d/3709945-3709945-3328410.html

HP Blade Interconnects Main Page – http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/c-class-interconnects.html

HP Configurator Tool – http://h30099.www3.hp.com/eGlue/eco/begin.do

HP Server / Software Demo Site (recorded demos) – http://h20324.www2.hp.com/SDP/Content/Booth.aspx?ID=63

HP BladeSystem Power Sizer – http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/347628-0-0-0-121.html

NEW  IBM System x Mobile App: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/resources/mobileapp/

IBM Support site for Fixes and Downloads:  http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/

IBM BladeCenter H Power Recommendation Document (from BladesMadeSimple.com) – PDF, 440kb

IBM Power Guide  – http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101706

IBM BladeCenter Benchmarks – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/resources/benchmarks/results/

IBM BladeCenter Main Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/

IBM BladeCenter Chassis Product Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/index.html

IBM Blade Server Product Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/servers/

IBM BladeCenter I/O Module Product Page – http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/openfabric/ethernet.html

IBM BladeCenter Interoperability Guide – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000020&lndocid=MIGR-5073016

IBM BladeCenter Products and Technology Redbook – http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/SG247523.html

IBM BladeCenter and System x Reference Documents (xREF) – http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/pages/xref?Open

IBM Standalone Solutions Configuration Tool (SSCT) – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000008&lndocid=MIGR-62168

IBM Server Configuration and Options Guide HTML – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000008&lndocid=SCOD-3ZVQ5W

If I’ve missed any important websites, please let me know in the comments below and I’ll add them.

May 24, 2011  - IDC came out with their 1Q 2011 worldwide server market revenue report today showing that Cisco has finally entered the market standings with a 3rd place standing at 9.4% factory revenue share .  IDC’s findings also showed that both HP and IBM decreased their blade server market share from Q4 2010.

According to IDC, worldwide server sales (all servers, not just blade servers) for 1Q 2011 increased 12.1 % year over year to $11.9 billion in factory revenues. IDC also reported the blade server market accelerated and continued its strong growth in 1Q with revenue increasing 23.8% year over year with shipments increasing to 5.4% compared to 1Q 2010.  Overall, blade servers represent 15.2% of the quarterly worldwide server revenues.  Interestingly enough, 90% of all blade revenue is driven by x86 systems, a segment in which blades now represent 20.5% of all x86 server revenue.

Here’s a summary of the top 4 blade server market share (based on factory revenue share):

#1 market share: HP decreased their market share from 53.4% in Q4 2010 to 50.0% in Q1 2011

#2 market share: IBM decreased their market share from 28.1% in Q4 2010 to 20.2% in Q1 2011.

#3 market share: Cisco at 9.4% in Q1 2011

#4 market share: Dell at 8.2% in Q1 2011

HP maintains the #1 market share spot now holding an impressive 50% of all blade server factory revenue market share.  An interesting observation, though, is that both HP and IBM have fallen over the past 12 months when compared to Q1 2010.  As you can see in the chart, HP dropped 6.2% market share and IBM fell 3.4% market share year-over-year.  Is this contributed to Cisco’s entry into the market place? 

According to Jed Scaramella, research manager, Enterprise Servers at IDC, “After several years of being a highly consolidated market where the top 3 vendor accounted for over 80% of blade revenue, the recent entry of Cisco has introduced a viable new competitor to the market.”  While the quantities of Cisco UCS customers were not mentioned into the IDC report, according to Cisco’s Omar Sultan’s blog (http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/they-were-wrong-about-ucs-what-else-are-they-wrong-about/) , there are 3,820 customers as of Cisco’s 2nd Fiscal Quarter 2011.

For a full summary of the IDC Quarterly Server Tracker report, visit my other blog at:
http://corus360.com/company/blog/idc-shows-hp-as-the-server-leader-for-q1-2011

UPDATED 11:30 a.m. EST (4/6/11) - Intel announced today the next version of their 4 socket chipset, known as “E7”.  Previously known with the codename of Westmere EX, the newly released Xeon 7600 will be rebranded as the Intel Xeon E7.  Following suit with the Intel “tick-tock” strategy, this refresh falls under the “tick” with a new core design and a smaller die at 32 nm.  The E7 CPU family increases the core capacity to 10 cores (20 with Intel’s Hyper-Threading feature) and has up to 30MB of last level cache that is sharable across all cores.  The integrated memory controller now offers 4 scalable Memory Interconnects with speeds up to 6.4 GT/s and there are now 4 full-width Intel QuickPath Interconnects linking the 4 CPUs together.  The Intel Xeon E7 will also provide support for 32GB DIMMs, although not every manufacturer will offer 32GB on their blade servers.

Here’s the complete Intel Xeon E7 Product Family Offering:

  As expected, Dell, HP and IBM all announced a refresh of their blade servers.  Here’s what has been announced to be refreshed:

Dell – announced a refresh in the PowerEdge M910 today at 10 a.m Pacific.  Click here for my blog post about this announcement.

HP – refreshed their BL620c G7 and BL680c G7 with new speeds using the Intel Xeon E7.  This refresh will not be the Gen 8 models – expect that to come with the release of the next generation Intel 2 socket offering (Sandy Bridge).   The BL680cG7 is a double-wide server that offers 64 DIMM slots for a total of 2TB of RAM (along with 40 cores of CPUs across 4 CPUs.) 

You can find the QuickSpecs on the BL680c G7 with the refreshed CPU on HP’s website at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13742_na/13742_na.html.    The QuickSpecs on the BL620c G7can be found here: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13747_na/13747_na.HTML

When I go to San Francisco, I head over to the west side of town to peer through the closed gates of the hidden campus of Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) dreaming of catching a glimpse of the magic.  Recently Arik Hesseldahl, from All Things Digital, accomplished my dream and had a peek behind the curtains of what makes ILM run.  Arik interviewed ILM’s CIO, Kevin Clark and then toured the ILM data center.  In his tour, Arik reveals that ILM is using IBM’s LS22 (AMD-based) blade servers and IBM’s HS22 (Intel-based) blade servers to help with the rendering of several movies in post-production at ILM such as Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Dark of the Moon or even Star Wars: Episode 1 (in 3D).  

Arik’s article excites me not just because I’m a Star Wars geek, but because it’s yet another example of the success of blade servers in a high-compute environment.  This is no surprise to Disney and Dreamworks who continue to use HP blade servers.  In fact, one of the biggest movies of all times, AVATAR was processed on HP blade servers.  As technology continues to evolve this year with the introduction of the Intel Westmere EX and the Intel Sandy Bridge platforms onto blade servers, I believe we’ll see more success stories in the near future.  Arik mentions in the video below and in his article, that ILM previously used “customized Racksaver servers, each containing a single AMD Athlon processor and 2 gigabytes of memory, that were used to render imagery for Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. They’re also now considered so old that it’s not cost-effective to run them any longer.”

If you aren’t running blade servers, perhaps you should take a look at the Dark Side and see what you are missing.

To read Arik’s full article titled, “Lucasfilm’s Data Center, and an Encounter With the Real Death Star”  and to get a glimpse inside of the ILM data center, go to http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/20110325/lucasfilms-data-center-and-an-encounter-with-the-real-death-star-video/