(UPDATED 11.5.2013) I often find myself seeking basic information for competitive blade servers, so I decided to sit down and put together a basic list of blade server details for Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM blade servers. The details provided are based on information publicly available and may be subject to errors. Continue reading
Author Archives: Kevin Houston
BladesMadeSimple Turns 4
It’s hard to believe this site has turned 4 years old already. It seems like just yesterday I was putting this site together with the intent to keep a log of blade server related information that I could easily reference when talking with customers. 
Max Ethernet Connections on 2 Socket Blade Servers
As 10GbE storage connectivity becomes more popular, the number of 10GbE connections you can get on a blade server becomes a consideration. In this blog post, I’ll review the offerings each blade vendor has to help you easily decide which works best for your project.
Intel E5 2600 v2 vSphere Compatibility
One of the first questions I’ve received when I started discussing the new Intel E5 2600 v2 CPU is “will it work with my existing blade server VMware clusters?” The sales answer is YES, of course. The real answer is, it depends.
Intel Unveils 12 Core Xeon CPU
Today at Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel officially announced the next version of the Xeon Family – the E5 2600 v2, aka “Ivy Bridge”.
IDC Worldwide Server Tracker Reports Decline in Q2 2013
IDC came out with their Q2 2013 worldwide server market revenue report on August 27, 2013 which shows blade server revenues decreased 6.2% year over year to $2 billion while accounting for 16.9% of all server revenues reported. x86 server unit shipments decreased .1% year over year in 2Q13 to 1.9 million units as consolidation continued to be a strategic focus for many large and small customers around the globe.
In the blade server market, HP maintained the number 1 spot in the blade server market in 2Q13 with 44.8% revenue share; while Cisco climbed up to take sole ownership of second place with 19.6% and IBM took third place with 17.2% revenue share.
"Even though the overall blade market was down, several of the top vendors experienced positive growth within their converged and integrated system businesses. IDC finds more enterprises adopting integrated systems to increase the agility and efficiency of their IT infrastructure," said Jed Scaramella, research manager, Enterprise Servers at IDC. "Density Optimized servers achieved the highest growth of any segment in the server market. The datacenter build-outs by service providers are driving growth in the industry and represent a strategic opportunity for OEMs, while at the same time IDC is seeing new participants enter the market targeting the hyperscale datacenter segment."
In overall worldwide server systems factory revenue, IBM took top spot with 27.9% market share in Q2113. HP followed in 2nd place with 25.9% and Dell came in third with 18.8% market share.
For the full IDC report covering the Q2 2013 Worldwide Server Market, please visit IDC’s website at http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24285213
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 market.
Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are personal views and may or may not reflect any of the contributors’ employer’s positions. Furthermore, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any employer.
Revenue or Units Shipped? What Should Shares Be Measured With?
A recent CRN article showed that Dell has gained significant shares the server space over HP and IBM, however an IDC representative states that units shipped do not represent accurate market share, and I disagree.
Next Generation Intel Ivy Bridge CPU Details Leaked
Digging around the web tonight, I stumbled upon an interesting Czech web site, ExtraHardware.cz, that appears to offer some details around Intel’s upcoming E5-2600 v2 processor. I’m not sure of the timeline for when the E5-2600 v2 will be released, but I imagine we can expect them to be available sometime in the next few months. Here is a quick summary of what was revealed.
Industry’s First Ever See Through Blade Chassis
Are you one one of those people who feel that blade servers are too complex? Do you have problems understanding what’s going on inside of a blade chassis? If you said yes to either of the above questions, then you’ll want to check this blade chassis out.
One of my peers at Dell, Max Abelardo, recently created a sturdy plexiglass mock up of the Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis to help demonstrate the simplicity of Dell’s blade solution. According to Max, he started pondering the idea with a buddy who is a wood worker and 3.5 weeks later it was done. Yes, this is a working mockup but probably not ideal for a datacenter. Don’t go to your nearest Dell Solutions Center looking for one of these, because you won’t find it. Max only made one and he uses it for his customers. For more details on how this was made, I encourage you to reach out to Max on Twitter at @mabelard.
Enjoy.
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 Sales Engineer covering the Global Enterprise market.
Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are personal views and may or may not reflect any of the contributors’ employer’s positions. Furthermore, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any employer.
PowerEdge VRTX CMC Licensing Details
As I noted in my original posting of the PowerEdge VRTX, the Chassis Management Controller, or CMC, is available with an “Express” license and an “Enterprise” license. To help you determine which would be best suited for your environment, check out the chart below.