(Updated 7/27/2010 – 11 am EST – added info on power and tower options)

 When you think about blade servers, you probably think, “they are too expensive.” When you think about doing a VMware project, you probably think, “my servers are too old” or “I can’t afford new servers.” For $8 per GB, you can have blade servers preloaded with VMware ESXi 4.1 AND 4TB of storage! Want to know how? Keep reading. 

No, I’m not smoking something. I’ve done the configuration and I can show you how to achieve a 4 TB SAN and 3 ESX hosts on blade servers with the IBM BladeCenter S. Before I can explain what I’ve done, let me give you the basics of the IBM BladeCenter S. 

Overview of the IBM BladeCenter S 

At 7U high, the chassis of the IBM BladeCenter S is the same height as the original IBM BladeCenter (now called the BladeCenter E). The chassis uses the same blade servers as the rest of the IBM blade chassis family, but the chassis holds only 6 blade servers – primarily due to the addition of locally attached storage drives. In addition, the chassis has the option to add a DVD drive for access to local media. 

In contrast, the SAS RAID Controller Module (IBM part #43W3584) allows for you to pool the storage and offer access to these arrays to each blade server that has the SAS Connectivity Card installed. Volumes that are created can be assigned to a specific blade or shared by several blade servers. The IBM SAS RAID Controller Module supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10 and each module also comes with RAID battery backup module. There are some caveats to be aware of: only SAS or NL SAS drives are supported (no SATA); the maximum volume size is currently limited to 2TB and the maximum number volumes each blade server can have is 8 (for a total of 48 volumes per chassis.) Another important thing to take note is that you must have 2 x SAS RAID Controller Modules, which sit in I/O Bays #3 and #4. This provides a redundant connection for each blade server with the SAS Connectivity Card. In fact, since I brought it up, let’s take a closer look at how the modules work in the IBM BladeCenter S. 

BladeCenter S a Look From BehindWhen you look at the back of the IBM BladeCenter S, it may look confusing, but don’t worry – it’s pretty straight forward. The chassis comes standard with 2 x 1450w power supplies standard and a single Advanced Management Module. If you are using high wattage blade servers or using the second DSM, you probably will need the 2nd set of power supplies (IBM part # 46C7438). If your budget is tight and you can’t afford to pony up the additional $599 U.S. list I recommend you take advantage of IBM’s Power Calculator prior to purchase to see if you need the 2nd set of power supplies. Following the design of the other IBM BladeCenter chassis, the IBM BladeCenter is cooled by a set of 4 redundant hot-swap blower modules. Don’t bother looking for any other fans or cooling devices, because you won’t find them. These four blowers cool the entire chassis, modules and blade servers. 

Management 
The Advanced Management Module (AMM) is the device that provides you with LOCAL keyboard, video and mouse connectivity (although only USB for keyboard and mouse) as well as an ethernet port to connect into your management network. The AMM gives you the ability to manage / monitor all of the chassis’ thermals as well as remotely control the blade servers and the I/O modules. In all honesty, the AMM is feature rich, so if you want to take a peek at what it can do, take at look at this IBM BladeCenter S Advanced Management Module simulator. Unlike the other IBM blade chassis, there is not an option for a redundant AMM, however in the event of a failure your blade servers, I/O modules, fans and blowers will continue to function without penalty. 

I/O Architecture 

The biggest technical confusion I see from engineers and customers alike is around the I/O layout of the blade chassis. The IBM BladeCenter S is a bit dissimilar to the other IBM chassis in the BladeCenter family so let me explain how it works. There are 4 I/O bays in the IBM BladeCenter S. The 1st I/O bay maps to the NICs that come on the motherboard of each blade server. If you are familiar with rack-mount servers, you know they typically have 2 x 1Gb Ethernet ports. The IBM Blade servers are no different – they also have 2 x 1Gb Ethernet NICs. In order for them to be “lit up” you need to have a module in bay 1 that can allow the signal from the blade server to extend out of the chassis. To simplify things – think of having a power outlet in the wall at home and connecting an extension cord to it so you can turn on a light that is a few feet away. The same rudimentary concept is how it works in the blade infrastructure. The only difference is, with the IBM BladeCenter S, both NIC ports 0 and 1 go to the I/O Module Bay #1. This means if that module has an issue, then those 2 NICs located on the motherboard of each blade server will be dead. There is no redundancy with the onboard NICs in the IBM BladeCenter S (unlike the other IBM BladeCenter chassis.) Why did IBM design it this way? Well, the original target market for the IBM BladeCenter S was small businesses and remote offices. When you look at those environments – how many have redundant NICs for the rack / tower server NICs? Odds are none. With that in mind, IBM designed the BladeCenter S to only have a single I/O module for both onboard NICs. Never fear, though. After a few months, IBM revised the design to allow for I/O Module #2 to provide an additional 2 NICs, using the 2/4 port Ethernet adapter (IBM part # 44W4479) on each blade server. The card is designed to provide 4 Ethernet Ports, however with the BladeCenter S, only 2 ports are connected. Therefore with network modules in I/O Module Bay 1 and 2 you can get 4 NICs. Add this to the 2 x SAS storage cards that we mentioned in the sections above and you “should” have adequate architecture to provide a VMware environment. 

The $32,000 Design 

Now that I’ve spent a few moments telling you what the IBM BladeCenter S is all about, perhaps you understand the potential. So how did I get to the $32,000 design that enables you to have 4 TB and 3 ESX hosts? I won’t devulge in the actual bill of materials, but here’s what I came up with: 

• 1 x IBM BladeCenter S chassis
• 1 x Disk Storage Module
• 4 x 1 TB Near Line Storage Disk Drives
• 1 set of 1450W Power Supplies
• 2 x Server Connectivity (Ethernet) Modules
• 2 x SAS RAID Connectivity Modules
• 1 x DVD
• 3 x HS22 blade servers – each with 2 x Intel E5620 Xeon Processors, 24GB RAM, SAS Connectivity Card, ESXi 4.1 USB Memory Key

Total U.S. List Price (as of 7/26/2010): $30,768.00 

Yes, I also know that HP has an offering (the BladeSystem C3000) that could compete to this design – however IBM is the only blade server vendor that offers dedicated local disk storage. HP’s design takes up a blade server slot. Perhaps I’ll write up something on this in the future. 

THIS SECTION ADDED ON 7/27/2010 – I’ve added this section to cover a couple of pieces that I left off in the original post.

Power
A really valuable feature of the IBM BladeCenter S is the ability to run on 110 v or 220 v.  Use of 110 v is ideal for remote or small offices.  The BladeCenter S power supplies are auto-sensing so you can use the same power supplies.  There are a few power categories to choose from with the BladeCenter S:

• Redundant AC Power Source – in this policy, the power limit is set to equal the capacity of N power modules.  According to IBM’s Implementing the IBM
  BladeCenter S Chassis Redbook, this policy is the most conservative approach and is recommended when all four power modules are installed. When the chassis is correctly wired with dual AC power sources, one AC power source can fail without affecting your blade server operation. 
• Redundant Power Module Policy – in this policy, the power limit equals the capacity of one less than the number of power modules installed (more than one power module must be present). One power module can fail without affecting blade server operation.  If a single power module fails, all the blade servers that are powered on will continue to operate at normal performance levels.
• No Redundancy – all power modules are used, there is no redundancy and if you lose a power supply and the power demands exceed the capacity of the available power modules, the chassis will power down… Not recommended.

Office Enablement Kit
For those environments where a standard server rack is not ideal, IBM offers the Office Enablement Kit (part # 201886X).  This adds an additional few hundred dollars, but it gives you an 11u rack enclosure, complete with front and rear locking doors and wheels.  It also comes with an acoustic attenuation module that helps muffle the sound.  (YouTube video on this can be seen here.)  As mentioned above, the IBM BladeCenter S is only 7U tall, so the additional 4U can be used for an optional Flat Panel Monitor kit (shown in the image to the left) or perhaps additional storage or networking.  This kit really helps to finalize an “all-in-one” solution for small or remote environments.

Yes, I know it’s only 4 x 1TB drives, and I know it’s Near-Line SAS drives, however it is enough resources to help YOU create that VMware infrastructure that you need. Of course, the VMware licensing will be extra, but I just saved you a ton of money – now you can afford it… 

So – what do you think? Is this appealing, or is this just a pipe dream? Let me know your thoughts. I’m really interested in getting an idea of whether this design would really work in your world.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave in Eastern Europe, you know by now that the New Orleans Saints are headed to the Super Bowl.  According to IBM, this is all due to the Saints having an IBM BladeCenter S running their business.  Okay, well, I’m sure there’s other reasons, like having stellar tallent, but let’s take a look at what IBM did for the Saints.

Other than the obvious threat of having to relocate or evacuate due to the weather, the Saints’ constant travel required them to search for a portable IT solution that would make it easier to quickly set up operations in another city.  The Saints were a long-time IBM customer, so they looked at the IBM BladeCenter S for this solution, and it worked great.  (I’m going to review the BladeCenter S below, so keep reading.)  The Saints consolidated 20 physical servers onto the BladeCenter S, virtualizing the environment with VMware.   Although the specific configuration of their blade environment is not disclosed, IBM reports that the Saints are using 1 terabyte of built-in storage, which enables the Saints to go on the road with the essential files (scouting reports, financial apps, player stats, etc) and tools the coaches and the staff need.  In fact, in the IBM Case Study video, the Assistant Director of IT for the New Orleans Saints, Jody Barbier, says, “The Blade Center S definitely can make the trip with us if we go to the Super Bowl.”  I guess we’ll see.  Be looking for the IBM Marketing engine to jump on this bandwagon in the next few days.

A Look at the IBM BladeCenter S
The IBM BladeCenter S is a 7u high (click image on left for larger view of details) chassis that has the ability to hold 6 blade servers and up to 12 disk drives held in Disk Storage Modules located on the left and right of the blade server bays.  The chassis has the option to either segment the disk drives to an individual blade server, or the option to create a RAID volume and allow all of the servers to access the data.  As of this writing, the drive options for the Disk Storage Module are: 146GB, 300GB, 450GB SAS, 750GB and 1TB Near-Line SAS and 750GB and 1TB SATA.  Depending on your application needs, you could have up to 12TB of local storage for 6 servers.  That’s pretty impressive, but wait, there’s more!  As I reported a few weeks ago, there’s is a substantial rumour that there is a forthcoming option to use 2.5″ drives.  This would enable the ability to have up to 24 drives (12 per Disk Storage Module.)  Although that would provide more spindles, the current capacities of 2.5″ drives aren’t quite to the capacities of the 3.5″ drives.  Again, that’s just “rumour” – IBM has not disclosed whether that option is coming (but it is…)

IBM BladeCenter – Rear View
I love pictures – so I’ve attached an image of the BladeCenter S, as seen from the back.  A few key points to make note of:
110v Capable – yes, this can run on the average office power.  That’s the idea behind it.  If you have a small closet or an area near a desk, you can plug this bad boy in.   That being said, I always recommend calculating the power with IBM’s Power Configurator to make sure your design doesn’t exceed what 110v can handle.  Yes, this box will run on 220v as well.  Also, the power supplies are auto-sensing so there’s no worry about having to buy different power supplies based on your needs.

I/O Modules – if you are familar with the IBM BladeCenter or IBM BladeCenter H I/O architecture, you’ll know that the design is redundant, with dual paths.  With the IBM BladeCenter S, this isn’t the case.   As you can see below, the onboard network adapters (NICs) both are mapped to the I/O module in Bay #1.  The expansion card is mapped to Bay #3 and 4 and the high speed card slot (CFF-h) is mapped to I/O Bay 2.  Yes, this design put I/O Bays 1 and 2 as single points of failure (since both paths connect intothe module bay), however when you look at the typical small office or branch office environment that the IBM BladeCenter S is designed for, you’ll realize that very rarely do they have redundant network fabrics – so this is no different.

Another key point here is that I/O Bays 3 and 4 are connected to the Disk Storage Modules mentioned above.  In order for a blade server to access the external disks in the Disk Storage Module bays, the blade server must:

a) have a SAS Expansion or Connectivity card installed in the expansion card slot
b) have 1 or 2 SAS Connectivity or RAID modules attached in Bays 3 and 4

This means that there is currently no way to use the local drives (in the Disk Storage Modules) and have external access to a fibre storage array.

BladeCenter S Office Enablement Kit
Finally – I wanted to show you the optional Office Enablement Kit.  This is an 11U enclosure that is based on IBM’s NetBay 11.  It has security doors and special acoustics and air filtration to suit office environements.  The Kit features:
 *an acoustical module (to lower the sound of the environment)  Check out this YouTube video for details.
 * a locking door
 * 4U of extra space (for other devices)
 * wheels

There is also an optional Air Contaminant Filter that is available that assists in keeping the IBM BladeCenter S functional in a dusty environment (i.e. shops or production floors) using air filters.

If the BladeCenter S is going to be used in an environment without a rack (i.e. broom closet) or in a mobile environment (i.e. going to the Super Bowl) the Office Enablement Kit is a necessary addition.

So, hopefully, you can now see the value that the New Orleans Saints saw in the IBM BladeCenter S for their flexible, mobile IT needs.  Good luck in the Super Bowl, Saints.  I know that IBM will be rooting for you.