Yearly Archives: 2010

IBM Announces New Blade Servers with POWER7 (UPDATED)

UPDATED 4/14/2010 – IBM announced today their newest blade server using the POWER7 processor.  The BladeCenter PS700, PS701 and PS702 servers are IBM’s latest addition to the blade server family, behind last month’s announcement of the BladeCenter HX5 server, based on the Nehalem EX processor.  The POWER7 processor-based PS700, PS701 and PS702 blades support AIX, IBM i, and Linux operating systems.  (For Windows operations systems, stick with the HS22 or the HX5.)  For those of you not familiar with the POWER processor, the POWER7 processor is a 64-bit, 4 core with 256KB L2 cache per core and 4MB L3 cache per core.  Today’s announcement reflects IBM’s new naming schema as well.  Instead of being labled “JS” blades like in the past, the new POWER family blade servers will be titled “PS” – for Power Systems.  Finally – a naming schema that makes sense.  (Will someone explain what IBM’s “LS” blades stand for??)  Included in today’s announcement are the PS700, PS701 and PS702 blade.  Let’s review each.

IBM BladeCenter PS700
The PS700 blade server is a single socket, single wide 4-core 3.0GHz POWER7
processor-based server that has the following:

  • 8 DDR3 memory slots (available memory sizes are 4GB, 1066Mhz or 8GB, 800Mhz)
  • 2 onboard 1Gb Ethernet ports
  • integrated SAS controller supporting RAID levels 0,1 or 10
  • 2 onboard disk drives (SAS or Solid State Drives)
  • one PCIe CIOv expansion card slot
  • one PCIe CFFh expansion card slot

The PS700 is supported in the BladeCenter E, H, HT and S chassis.  (Note, support in the BladeCenter E requires an Advanced Management Module and a minimum of two 2000 watt power supplies.)

IBM BladeCenter PS701
The PS701 blade server is a single socket, single wide 8-core 3.0GHz POWER7
processor-based server that has the following:

  • 16 DDR3 memory slots (available memory sizes are 4GB, 1066Mhz or 8GB, 800Mhz)
  • 2 onboard 1Gb Ethernet ports
  • integrated SAS controller supporting RAID levels 0,1 or 10
  • 2 1 onboard disk drive (SAS or Solid State Drives)
  • one PCIe CIOv expansion card slot
  • one PCIe CFFh expansion card slot

The PS701 is supported in the BladeCenter H, HT and S chassis only. 

IBM BladeCenter PS702
The PS702 blade server is a dual socket, double-wide 16–core (via 2 x 8-core CPUs) 3.0GHz POWER7 processor-based server that has the following:

  • 32 DDR3 memory slots (available memory sizes are 4GB, 1066Mhz or 8GB, 800Mhz)
  • 4 onboard 1Gb Ethernet ports
  • integrated SAS controller supporting RAID levels 0,1 or 10
  • 2 onboard disk drives (SAS or Solid State Drives)
  • 2 PCIe CIOv expansion card slots
  • 2 PCIe CFFh expansion card slots

The PS702 is supported in the BladeCenter H, HT and S chassis only. 

For more technical details on the PS blade servers, please visit IBM’s redbook page at: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/redp4655.html?Open

Rumour? New 8 Port Cisco Fabric Extender for UCS

I recently heard a rumour that Cisco was coming out with an 8 port Fabric Extender (FEX) for the UCS 5108, so I thought I’d take some time to see what this would look like.  NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from Cisco so this may be false info.

Before we discuss the 8 port FEX, let’s take a look at the 4 port UCS 2140XP FEX and how the blade servers connect, or “pin” to them.  The diagram below shows a single FEX.  A single UCS 2140XP FEX has 4 x 10Gb uplinks to the 6100 Fabric Interconnect Module.  The UCS 5108 chassis has 2 FEX per chassis, so each server would have a 10Gb connection per FEX.  However, as you can see, the server shares that 10Gb connection with another blade server.  I’m not an I/O guy, so I can’t say whether or not having 2 servers connect to the same 10Gb uplink port would cause problems, but simple logic would tell me that two items competing for the same resource “could” cause contention.  If you decide to only connect 2 of the 4 external FEX ports, then you have all of the “odd #” blade servers connecting to port 1 and all of the “even # blades” connecting to port 2.  Now you are looking at a 4 servers contending for 1 uplink port.  Of course, if you only connect 1 external uplink, then you are looking at all 8 servers using 1 uplink port.

Introducing the 8 Port Fabric Extender (FEX)
I’ve looked around and can’t confirm if this product is really coming or not, but I’ve heard a rumour that there is going to be an 8 port version of the UCS 2100 series Fabric Extender.  I’d imagine it would be the UCS 2180XP Fabric Extender and the diagram below shows what I picture it would look like.  The biggest advantage I see of this design would be that each server would have a dedicated uplink port to the Fabric Interconnect.  That being said, if the existing 20 and 40 port Fabric Interconnects remain, this 8 port FEX design would quickly eat up the available ports on the Fabric Interconnect switches since the FEX ports directly connect to the Fabric Interconnect ports.  So – does this mean there is also a larger 6100 series Fabric Interconnect on the way?  I don’t know, but it definitely seems possible.

What do you think of this rumoured new offering?  Does having a 1:1 blade server to uplink port matter or is this just more

New Cisco Blade Server: B440-M1

Cisco recently announced their first blade offering with the Intel Xeon 7500 processor, known as the “Cisco UCS B440-M1 High-Performance Blade Server.”  This new blade is a full-width blade that offers 2 – 4 Xeon 7500 processors and 32 memory slots, for up to 256GB RAM, as well as 4 hot-swap drive bays.  Since the server is a full-width blade, it will have the capability to handle 2 dual-port mezzanine cards for up to 40 Gbps I/O per blade. 

Each Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis can house up to four B440 M1 servers (maximum 160 per Unified Computing System). 

How Does It Compare to the Competition?
Since I like to talk about all of the major blade server vendors, I thought I’d take a look at how the new Cisco B440 M1 compares to IBM and Dell.  (HP has not yet announced their Intel Xeon 7500 offering.)

Processor Offering
Both Cisco and Dell offer models with 2 – 4 Xeon 7500 CPUs as standard.  They each have variations on speeds – Dell has 9 processor speed offerings; Cisco hasn’t released their speeds and IBM’s BladeCenter HX5 blade server will have 5 processor speed offerings initially.  With all 3 vendors’ blades, however, IBM’s blade server is the only one that is designed to scale from 2 CPUs to 4 CPUs by connecting 2 x HX5 blade servers.  Along with this comes their “FlexNode” technology that enables users to have the 4 processor blade system to split back into 2 x 2 processor systems at specific points during the day.  Although not announced, and purely my speculation, IBM’s design also leads to a possible future capability of connecting 4 x 2 processor HX5’s for an 8-way design.  Since each of the vendors offer up to 4 x Xeon 7500’s, I’m going to give the advantage in this category to IBM.  WINNER: IBM

Memory Capacity
Both IBM and Cisco are offering 32 DIMM slots with their blade solutions, however they are not certifying the use of 16GB DIMMs – only 4GB and 8GB DIMMs, therefore their offering only scales to 256GB of RAM.  Dell claims to offers 512GB DIMM capacity on their the PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server, however that is using 16GB DIMMs.  REalistically, I think the M910 would only be used with 8GB DIMMs, so Dell’s design would equal IBM and Cisco’s.  I’m not sure who has the money to buy 16GB DIMMs, but if they do – WINNER: Dell (or a TIE)

Server Density
As previously mentioned, Cisco’s B440-M1 blade server is a “full-width” blade so 4 will fit into a 6U high UCS5100 chassis.  Theoretically, you could fit 7 x UCS5100 blade chassis into a rack, which would equal a total of 28 x B440-M1’s per 42U rack.Overall, Cisco’s new offering is a nice addition to their existing blade portfolio.  While IBM has some interesting innovation in CPU scalability and Dell appears to have the overall advantage from a server density, Cisco leads the management front. 

Dell’s PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server is a “full-height” blade, so 8 will fit into a 10u high M1000e chassis.  This means that 4 x M1000e chassis would fit into a 42u rack, so 32 x Dell PowerEdge M910 blade servers should fit into a 42u rack.

IBM’s BladeCenter HX5 blade server is a single slot blade server, however to make it a 4 processor blade, it would take up 2 server slots.  The BladeCenter H has 14 server slots, so that makes the IBM solution capable of holding 7 x 4 processor HX5 blade servers per chassis.  Since the chassis is a 9u high chassis, you can only fit 4 into a 42u rack, therefore you would be able to fit a total of 28 IBM HX5 (4 processor) servers into a 42u rack.
WINNER: Dell

Management
The final category I’ll look at is the management.  Both Dell and IBM have management controllers built into their chassis, so management of a lot of chassis as described above in the maximum server / rack scenarios could add some additional burden.  Cisco’s design, however, allows for the management to be performed through the UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect modules.  In fact, up to 40 chassis could be managed by 1 pair of 6100’s.  There are additional features this design offers, but for the sake of this discussion, I’m calling WINNER: Cisco.

Cisco’s UCS B440 M1 is expected to ship in the June time frame.  Pricing is not yet available.  For more information, please visit Cisco’s UCS web site at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10921/index.html.

Technical Details on the IBM HX5 Blade Server (UPDATED)

(Updated 4/22/2010 at 2:44 p.m.)
IBM officially announced the HX5 on Tuesday, so I’m going to take the liberty to dig a little deeper in providing details on the blade server. I previously provided a high-level overview of the blade server on this post, so now I want to get a little more technical, courtesy of IBM.  It is my understanding that the “general availability” of this server will be in the mid-June time frame, however that is subject to change without notice.

Block Diagram
Below is the details of the actual block diagram of the HX5.  There’s no secrets here, as they’re using the Intel Xeon 6500 and 7500 chipsets that I blogged about previously.

As previously mentioned, the value that the IBM HX5 blade server brings is scalability.  A user has the ability to buy a single blade server with 2 CPUs and 16 DIMMs, then expand it to 40 DIMMs with a 24 DIMM MAX 5 memory blade.  OR, in the near future, a user could combine 2 x HX5 servers to make a 4 CPU server with 32 DIMMs, or add a MAX5 memory DIMM to each server and have a 4 CPU server with 80 DIMMs. 

The diagrams below provide a more technical view of the the HX5 + MAX5 configs. Note, the “sideplanes” referenced below are actualy the “scale connector“.  As a reminder, this connector will physically connect 2 HX5 servers on the tops of the servers, allowing the internal communications to extend to each others nodes.  The easiest way to think of this is like a Lego .  It will allow a HX5 or a MAX5 to be connected together.  There will be a 2 connector, a 3 connector and a 4 connector offering. 

 (Updated) Since the original posting, IBM released the “eX5 Porfolio Technical Overview: IBM System x3850 X5 and IBM BladeCenter HX5” so I encourage you to go download it and give it a good read.  David’s Redbook team always does a great job answering all the questions you might have about an IBM server inside those documents. 

If there’s something about the IBM BladeCenter HX5 you want to know about, let me know in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks for reading!

Dell M910 Blade Server – Based on the Nehalem EX

Dell appears to be first to the market today with complete details on their Nehalem EX blade server, the PowerEdge M910. Based on the Nehalem EX technology (aka Intel Xeon 7500 Chipset), the server offers quite a lot of horsepower in a small, full-height blade server footprint.

Some details about the server:

  • uses Intel Xeon 7500 or 6500 CPUs
  • has support for up to 512GB using 32 x 16 DIMMs
  • comes standard two embedded Broadcom NetExtreme II Dual Port 5709S Gigabit Ethernet NICs with failover and load balancing.
  • has two 2.5″ Hot-Swappable SAS/Solid State Drives
  • 3 4 available I/O mezzanine card slots
  • comes with a Matrox G200eW w/ 8MB memory standard
  • can function on 2 CPUs with access to all 32 DIMM slots

Dell (finally) Offers Some Innovation
I commented a few weeks ago that Dell and innovate were rarely used in the same sentence, however with today’s announcement, I’ll have to retract that statement. Before I elaborate on what I’m referring to, let me do some quick education. The design of the Nehalem architecture allows for each processor (CPU) to have access to a dedicated bank of memory along with its own memory controller. The only downside to this is that if a CPU is not installed, the attached memory banks are not useable. THIS is where Dell is offering some innovation. Today Dell announced the “FlexMem Bridge” technology. This technology is simple in concept as it allows for the memory of a CPU socket that is not populated to still be used. In essence, Dell’s using technology that bridges the memory banks across un-populated CPU slots to the rest of the server’s populated CPUs. With this technology, a user could start of with only 2 CPUs and still have access to 32 memory DIMMs. Then, over time, if more CPUs are needed, they simply remove the FlexMem Bridge adapters from the CPU sockets then replace with CPUs – now they would have a 4 CPU x 32 DIMM blade server.

Congrats to Dell. Very cool idea. The Dell PowerEdge M910 is available to order today from the Dell.com website.

 Let me know what you guys think.

Details on Intel’s Nehalem EX (Xeon 7500 and Xeon 6500)

Intel is scheduled to “officially” announce today the details of their Nehalem EX CPU platform, although the details have been out for quite a while, however I wanted to highlight some key points.

Intel Xeon 7500 Chipset
This chipset will be the flagship replacement for the existing Xeon 7400 architecture.  Enhancements include:
•Nehalem uarchitecture
•8-cores per CPU 
•24MB Shared L3 Cache
• 4 Memory Buffers per CPU
•16 DIMM slots per CPU for a total of 64 DIMM slots supporting up to 1 terabyte of memory (across 4 CPUs)
•72 PCIe Gen2 lanes
•Scaling from 2-256 sockets  
•Intel Virtualization Technologies

Intel Xeon 6500 Chipset
Perhaps the coolest addition to the Nehalem EX announcement by Intel is the ability for certain vendors to cut the architecture in half, and use the same quality of horsepower across 2 CPUs.  The Xeon 6500 chipset will offer 2 CPUs, each with the same qualities of it’s bigger brother, the Xeon 7500 chipset.  See below for details on both of the offerings.

Additional Features
Since the Xeon 6500/7500 chipsets are modeled off the familiar Nehalem uarchitecture, there are certain well-known features that are available.  Both Turbo Boost and HyperThreading have been added to the and will provide users for the ability to have better performance in their high-end servers (shown left to right below.)

HyperThreading

Memory
Probably the biggest winner of the features that Intel’s bringing with the Nehalem EX announcement is the ability to have more memory and bigger memory pipes.  Each CPU will have 4 x high speed “Scalable Memory Interconnects” (SMI’s) that will be the highways for the memory to communicate with the CPUs.  As with the existing Nehalem architecture, each CPU has a dedicated memory controller that provides access to the memory.  In the case of the Nehalem EX design, each CPU has 4 pathways that each have a Scalable Memory Buffer, or SMB, that provide access to 4 memory DIMMs.  So, in total, each CPU will have access to 16 DIMMs across 4 pathways.  Based on the simple math, a server with 4 CPUs will be able to have up to 64 memory DIMMs.  Some other key facts:
• it will support up to 16GB DDR3 DIMMs
•it will support up to 1TB with 16GB DIMMS
•it will support DDR3 DIMMs up to 1066MHz, in Registered, Single-Rank, Dual-Rank and Quad-Rank flavors.

Another important note is the actual system memory speed will depend on specific processor capabilities (see reference table below for max SMI link speeds per CPU):
•6.4GT/s SMI link speed capable of running memory speeds up to 1066Mhz
•5.86GT/s SMI link speed capable of running memory speeds up to 978Mhz
•4.8GT/s SMI link speed capable of running memory speeds up to 800Mhz

Here’s a great chart to reference on the features across the individual CPU offerings, from Intel:

Finally, take a look at some comparisons between the Nehalem EX (Xeon 7500) and the previous generation, Xeon 7400:

That’s it for now.  Check back later for more specific details on Dell, HP, IBM and Cisco’s new Nehalem EX blade servers.

HP Blades Helping Make Happy Feet 2 and Mad Max 4

Chalk yet another win up for HP. 

It was reported last week on www.itnews.com.au that Digital production house Dr. D. Studios is in the early stages of building a supercomputer grid cluster for the rendering of the animated feature film Happy Feet 2 and visual effects in Fury Road the long-anticipated fourth film in the Mad Max series.  The super computer grid is based on HP BL490 G6 blade servers housed within an APC HACS pod, is already running in excess of 1000 cores and is expected to reach over 6000 cores during peak rendering by mid-2011.

This cluster boasted 4096 cores, taking it into the top 100 on the list of Top 500 supercomputers in the world in 2007 (it now sits at 447).

According to Doctor D infrastructure engineering manager James Bourne, “High density compute clusters provide an interesting engineering exercise for all parties involved. Over the last few years the drive to virtualise is causing data centres to move down a medium density path.”

Check out the full article, including video at:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/169048,video-building-a-supercomputer-for-happy-feet-2-mad-max-4.aspx

Blade Server Shoot-Out (Dell/HP/IBM) – InfoWorld.com

InfoWorld.com posted on 3/22/2010 the results of a blade server shoot-out between Dell, HP, IBM and Super Micro. I’ll save you some time and help summarize the results of Dell, HP and IBM.

The Contenders
Dell, HP and IBM each provided blade servers with the Intel Xeon X5670 2.93GHz CPUs and at least 24GB of RAM in each blade.

The Tests
InfoWorld designed a custom suite VMware tests as well as several real-world performance metric tests. The VMware tests were composed of:

  • a single large-scale custom LAMP application
  • a load-balancer running Nginx
  • four Apache Web servers
  • two MySQL servers

InfoWorld designed the VMware workloads to mimic a real-world Web app usage model that included a weighted mix of static and dynamic content, randomized database updates, inserts, and deletes with the load generated at specific concurrency levels, starting at 50 concurrent connections and ramping up to 200.  InfoWorld’s started off with the VMware tests first on one blade server, then across two blades. Each blade being tested were running VMware ESX 4 and controlled by a dedicated vCenter instance.

The other real-world tests included serveral tests of common single-threaded tasks run simultaneously at levels that met and eclipsed the logical CPU count on each blade, running all the way up to an 8x oversubscription of physical cores. These tests included:

  • LAME MP3 conversions of 155MB WAV files
  • MP4-to-FLV video conversions of 155MB video files
  • gzip and bzip2 compression tests
  • MD5 sum tests

The ResultsDell
Dell did very well, coming in at 2nd in overall scoring.  The blades used in this test were Dell PowerEdge M610 units, each with two 2.93GHz Intel Westmere X5670 CPUs, 24GB of DDR3 RAM, and two Intel 10G interfaces to two Dell PowerConnect 8024 10G switches in the I/O slots on the back of the chassis

Some key points made in the article about Dell:

  • Dell does not offer a lot of “blade options.”  There are several models available, but they are the same type of blades with different CPUs.  Dell does not currently offer any storage blades or virtualization-centric blades.
  • Dell’s 10Gb design does not offer any virtualized network I/O. The 10G pipe to each blade is just that, a raw 10G interface.  No virtual NICs.
  • The new CMC (chassis management controller) is a highly functional and attractive management tool offering new tasks like pusing actions to multiple blades at once such as BIOS updates and RAID controller firmware updates.
  • Dell has implemented more efficient dynamic power and cooling features in the M1000e chassis. Such features include the ability to shut down power supplies when the power isn’t needed, or ramping the fans up and down depending on load and the location of that load.

According to the article, “Dell offers lots of punch in the M1000e and has really brushed up the embedded management tools. As the lowest-priced solution…the M1000e has the best price/performance ratio and is a great value.”

HP
Coming in at 1st place, HP continues to shine in blade leadership.  HP’s testing equipment consisted of a c7000 nine BL460c blades, each running two 2.93GHz Intel Xeon X5670 (Westmere-EP) CPUs and 96GB of RAM as well as embedded 10G NICs with a dual 1G mezzanine card.  As an important note, HP was the only server vendor with 10G NICs on the motherboard.  Some key points made in the article about HP:

  •  With the 10G NICs standard on the newest blade server models, InfoWorld says “it’s clear that HP sees 10G as the rule now, not the exception.”
  • HP’s embedded Onboard Administrator offers detailed information on all chassis components from end to end.  For example, HP’s management console can provide exact temperatures of every chassis or blade component.
  • HP’s console can not offer  global BIOS and firmware updates (unlike Dell’s CMC) or the ability to powering up or down more than one blade at a time.
  • HP offers “multichassis management” – the ability to daisy-chain several chassis together and log into any of them from the same screen as well as manage them.  This appears to be a unique feature to HP.
  • The HP c7000 chassis also has power controlling features like dynamic power saving options that will automatically turn off power supplies when the system energy requirements are low or increasing the fan airflow to only those blades that need it.

InfoWorld’s final thoughts on HP: “the HP c7000 isn’t perfect, but it is a strong mix of reasonable price and high performance, and it easily has the most options among the blade system we reviewed.”

IBM
Finally, IBM’s came in at 3rd place, missing a tie with Dell by a small fraction.  Surprisingly, I was unable to find the details on what the configuration was for IBM’s testing.  Not sure if I’m just missing it, or if InfoWorld left out the information, but I know IBM’s blade server had the same Intel Xeon X5670 CPUs as Dell and HP used.   Some of the points that InfoWorld mentioned about IBM’s BladeCenter H offering:

  • IBM’s pricing is higher.
  • IBM’s chassis only holds 14 servers whereas HP can hold 32 servers (using BL2x220c servers) and Dell holds 16 servers.
  • IBM’s chassis doesn’t offer a heads-up display (like HP and Dell.)
  • IBM had the only redundant internal power and I/O connectors on each blade.  It is important to note the lack of redundant power and I/O connectors is why HP and Dell’s densities are higher.  If you want redundant connections on each blade with HP and Dell, you’ll need to use their “full-height” servers, which decrease HP and Dell’s overall capacity to 8.
  • IBM’s Management Module is lacking graphical features – there’s no graphical representation of the chassis or any images.  From personal experience, IBM’s management module looks like it’s stuck in the ’90s – very text based.
  • The IBM BladeCenter H lacks dynamic power and cooling capabilities.  Instead of using smaller independent regional fans for cooling, IBM uses two blowers.  Because of this, the ability to reduce cooling in specific areas, like Dell and HP offer are lacking.

InfoWorld summarizes the IBM results saying, ” if you don’t mind losing two blade slots per chassis but need some extra redundancy, then the IBM BladeCenter H might be just the ticket.”

Overall, each vendor has their own pro’s and con’s.  InfoWorld does a great job summarizing the benefits of each offering below.  Please make sure to visit the InfoWorld article and read all of the details of their blade server shoot-out.

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IBM BladeCenter H vs Cisco UCS

(From the Archives – September 2009)

News Flash: Cisco is now selling servers!

Okay – perhaps this isn’t news anymore, but the reality is Cisco has been getting a lot of press lately – from their overwhelming presence at VMworld 2009 to their ongoing cat fight with HP. Since I work for a Solutions Provider that sells HP, IBM and now Cisco blade servers, I figured it might be good to “try” and put together a comparison between the Cisco and IBM. Why IBM? Simply because at this time, they are the only blade vendor who offers a Converged Network Adapter (CNA) that will work with the Cisco Nexus 5000 line. At this time Dell and HP do not offer a CNA for their blade server line so IBM is the closest we can come to Cisco’s offering. I don’t plan on spending time educating you on blades, because if you are interested in this topic, you’ve probably already done your homework. My goal with this post is to show the pros (+) and cons (-) that each vendor has with their blade offering – based on my personal, neutral observation

Chassis Variety / Choice: winner in this category is IBM.
IBM currently offers 5 types of blade chassis: BladeCenter S, BladeCenter E, BladeCenter H, BladeCenter T and BladeCenter HT. Each of the IBM blade chassis have unique offerings, such as the BladeCenter S is designed for small or remote offices with local storage capabilities, whereas the BladeCenter HT is designed for Telco environments with options for NEBS compliant features including DC power. At this time, Cisco only offers a single blade chassis offering (the 5808).

IBM BladeCenter H

IBM BladeCenter H

Cisco UCS 5108

Cisco UCS 5108

Server Density and Server Offerings: winner in this category is IBM. IBM’s BladeCenter E and BladeCenter H chassis offer up to 14 blade servers with servers using Intel, AMD and Power PC processors. In comparison, Cisco’s 5808 chassis offers up to 8 server slots and currently offers servers with Intel Xeon processors. As an honorable mention Cisco does offer a “full width” blade (Cisco UCS B250 server) that provides up to 384Gb of RAM in a single blade server across 48 memory slots offering up the ability to get to higher memory at a lower price point.

 Management / Scalability: winner in this category is Cisco.
This is where Cisco is changing the blade server game. The traditional blade server infrastructure calls for each blade chassis to have its own dedicated management module to gain access to the chassis’ environmentals and to remote control the blade servers. As you grow your blade chassis environment, you begin to manage multiple servers. Beyond the ease of managing , the management software that the Cisco 6100 series offers provides users with the ability to manage server service profiles that consists of things like MAC Addresses, NIC Firmware, BIOS Firmware, WWN Addresses, HBA Firmware (just to name a few.)

Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect

Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect

With Cisco’s UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects, you are able to manage up to 40 blade chassis with a single pair of redundant UCS 6140XP (consisting of 40 ports.)

If you are familiar with the Cisco Nexus 5000 product, then understanding the role of the Cisco UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect should be easy. The UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect do for the Cisco UCS servers what Nexus does for other servers: unifies the fabric. HOWEVER, it’s important to note the UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect is NOT a Cisco Nexus 5000. The UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect is only compatible with the UCS servers.

UCS Diagram

Cisco UCS I/O Connectivity Diagram (UCS 5108 Chassis with 2 x 6120 Fabric Interconnects)

If you have other servers, with CNAs, then you’ll need to use the Cisco Nexus 5000.

The diagram on the right shows a single connection from the FEX to the UCS 6120XP, however the FEX has 4 uplinks, so if you want (need) more throughput, you can have it. This design provides each half-wide Cisco B200 server with the ability to have 2

CNA ports with redundant pathways. If you are satisified with using a single FEX connection per chassis, then you have the ability to scale up to 20 x blade chassis with a Cisco UCS 6120 Fabric Interconnect, or 40 chassis with the Cisco UCS 6140 Fabric Interconnect. As hinted in the previous section, the management software for the all connected UCS chassis resides in the redundant Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects. This design offers a highly scaleable infrastructure that enables you to scale simply by dropping in a chassis and connecting the FEX to the 6100 switch. (Kind of like Lego blocks.)

On the flip side, while this architecture is simple, it’s also limited. There is currently no way to add additional I/O to an individual server. You get 2 x CNA ports per Cisco B200 server or 4 x CNA ports per Cisco B250 server.

As previously mentioned, IBM has a strategy that is VERY similar to the Cisco UCS strategy using the Cisco Nexus 5000 product line with pass-thru modules. IBM’s solution consists of:

  • IBM BladeCenter H Chassis
  • 10Gb Pass-Thru Module
  • CNA’s on the blade servers

Even though IBM and Cisco designed the Cisco Nexus 4001i  switch that integrates into the IBM BladeCenter H chassis, using a 10Gb pass-thru module “may” be the best option to get true DataCenter Ethernet (or Converged Enhanced Ethernet) from the server to the Nexus switch – especially for users looking for the lowest cost. The performance for the IBM solution should equal the Cisco UCS design, since it’s just passing the signal through, however the connectivity is going to be more with the IBM solution. Passing signals through means NO cable

BladeCenter H Diagram with Nexus 5010 (using 10Gb Passthru Modules)

BladeCenter H Diagram with Nexus 5010 (using 10Gb Passthru Modules)

consolidation – for every server you’re going to need a connection to the Nexus 5000. For a fully populated IBM BladeCenter H chassis, you’ll need 14 connections to the Cisco Nexus 5000. If you are using the Cisco 5010 (20 ports) you’ll eat up all but 6 ports. Add a 2nd IBM BladeCenter chassis and you’re buying more Cisco Nexus switches. Not quite the scaleable design that the Cisco UCS offers.

IBM also offers a 10Gb Ethernet Switch Option from BNT (Blade Networks) that will work with converged switches like the Nexus 5000, but at this time that upgrade is not available. Once it does become available, it would reduce the connectivity requirements down to a single cable, but, adding a switch between the blade chassis and the Nexus switch could bring additional management complications. Let me know your thoughts on this.

IBM’s BladeCenter H (BCH) does offer something that Cisco doesn’t – additional I/O expansion. Since this solution uses two of the high speed bays in the BCH, bays 1, 2, 3 & 4 remain available. Bays 1 & 2 are mapped to the onboard NICs on each server, and bays 3&4 are mapped to the 1st expansion card on each server. This means that 2 additional NICs and 2 additional HBAs (or NICs) could be added in conjunction with the 2 CNAs on each server. Based on this, IBM potentially offers more I/O scalability.

And the Winner Is…

It depends. I love the concept of the Cisco UCS platform. Servers are seen as processors and memory – building blocks that are centrally managed. Easy to scale, easy to size. However, is it for the average datacenter who only needs 5 servers with high I/O? Probably not. I see the Cisco UCS as a great platform for datacenters with more than 14 servers needing high I/O bandwidth (like a virtualization server or database server.) If your datacenter doesn’t need that type of scalability, then perhaps going with IBM’s BladeCenter solution is the choice for you. Going the IBM route gives you flexibility to choose from multiple processor types and gives you the ability to scale into a unified solution in the future. While ideal for scalability, the IBM solution is currently more complex and potentially more expensive than the Cisco UCS solution.

Let me know what you think. I welcome any comments.

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Cisco, IBM and HP Update Blade Portfolio with Westmere Processor

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 6 core offerings. This processor also provide the option of HyperThreading, so you could have up to 8 threads and 12 threads per processor, or 16 and 24 in a dual CPU system. This will be a huge advantage to applications that like multiple threads, like virtualization. Here’s a look at what each vendor has come out with:

Cisco
Cisco B200 blade serverThe B200 M2 provides Cisco users with the current Xeon 5600 processors. It looks like Cisco will be offering a choice of the following Xeon 5600 processors: Intel Xeon X5670, X5650, E5640, E5620, L5640, or E5506. Because Cisco’s model is a “built-to-order” design, I can’t really provide any part numbers, but knowing what speeds they have should help.

HP
HP is starting off with the Intel Xeon 5600 by bumping their existing G6 models to include the Xeon 5600 processor. The look, feel, and options of the blade servers will remain the same – the only difference will be the new processor. According to HP, “the HP ProLiant G6 platform, based on Intel Xeon 5600 processors, includes the HP ProLiant BL280c, BL2x220c, BL460c and BL490c server blades and HP ProLiant WS460c G6 workstation blade for organizations requiring high density and performance in a compact form factor. The latest HP ProLiant G6 platforms will be available worldwide on March 29.” It appears that HP’s waiting until March 29 to provide details on their Westmere blade offerings, so don’t go looking for part numbers or pricing on their website.

IBM
IBM is continuing to stay ahead of the game with details about their product offerings. They’ve refreshed their HS22 and HS22v blade servers:

HS22
7870ECU – Express HS22, 2x Xeon 4C X5560 95W 2.80GHz/1333MHz/8MB L2, 4x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS, SR MR10ie

7870G4U – HS22, Xeon 4C E5640 80W 2.66GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS

7870GCU – HS22, Xeon 4C E5640 80W 2.66GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS, Broadcom 10Gb Gen2 2-port

7870H2U -HS22, Xeon 6C X5650 95W 2.66GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS

7870H4U – HS22, Xeon 6C X5670 95W 2.93GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS

7870H5U – HS22, Xeon 4C X5667 95W 3.06GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS

7870HAU – HS22, Xeon 6C X5650 95W 2.66GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS, Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter

7870N2U – HS22, Xeon 6C L5640 60W 2.26GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS

7870EGU – Express HS22, 2x Xeon 4C E5630 80W 2.53GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 6x2GB, O/Bay 2.5in SAS

IBM HS22V Blade ServerHS22V
7871G2U – HS22V, Xeon 4C E5620 80W 2.40GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871G4U – HS22V, Xeon 4C E5640 80W 2.66GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871GDU – HS22V, Xeon 4C E5640 80W 2.66GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871H4U – HS22V, Xeon 6C X5670 95W 2.93GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871H5U – HS22V, Xeon 4C X5667 95W 3.06GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871HAU – HS22V, Xeon 6C X5650 95W 2.66GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871N2U – HS22V, Xeon 6C L5640 60W 2.26GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 3x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871EGU – Express HS22V, 2x Xeon 4C E5640 80W 2.66GHz/1066MHz/12MB, 6x2GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

7871EHU – Express HS22V, 2x Xeon 6C X5660 95W 2.80GHz/1333MHz/12MB, 6x4GB, O/Bay 1.8in SAS

I could not find any information on what Dell will be offering, from a blade server perspective, so if you have information (that is not confidential) feel free send it my way.