The Washington Post has a nice article today from Logan G. Harbaugh of PC World about blade servers. In the article, Logan takes the discussion of blade servers back to the basics. The piece covers the pro’s and con’s of blade servers as well as some good comparisons between blade and rack servers.
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Author Archives: Kevin Houston
(UPDATED) The Best Blade Server Option Is…[Part 1 – A Look at Cisco]
Updated on 9/13/2010 with link to Sean McGee’s I/O Card Blog Post
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 to do a high level comparison of the blade chassis offerings from Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM. If you ready through my past blog posts, you’ll see that my goal is to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to talking about blade servers. I’m going to attempt to be “vendor neutral” with this post as well, but I welcome your comments, thoughts and criticisms. Continue reading
Dell M910 Blade Server Achieves #1 VMmark Score
The VMware VMmark web site was recently updated to show Dell’s PowerEdge M910 blade server in the #1 slot (for blades) in the 16 core space. I think the PowerEdge M910 is very intriguing, so I thought I’d spend some time highlighting the features. Continue reading
A Plea to VMWorld Attendees
As VMworld 2010 is right around the corner, I wanted to take a few minutes to make a plea to all attendees.
This year, IF you receive a bag or backpack that you just don’t want, please don’t throw it away, but instead take it home, go to the dollar store and fill the backpack with pencils, crayons, paper and erasers and donate it to your local school system. You would be AMAZED to find out the numbers of children who don’t get backpacks and whose familes can not afford the costly school supplies that are required each year. You will be making some family happy and you’ll get the name “VMware” marketed throughout the schools, getting the next generation of techno geeks ready to learn all about virtualization.
Thanks for the consideration!
(UPDATED) 4TB SAN, 3 ESX Hosts for only $32,000? YES, It’s Real!
(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. Continue reading
Tech Field Day 2010 – Seattle Begins
Over the next two days, I will have the opportunity to participate in Gestalt IT’s 3rd Field Day. Over the next few days, I’ll be stepping outside of my “blades only” discussion and I’ll be blogging about this event. So that you will appreciate the posts, let me give you some background on this event. Continue reading
What Does it Take to Design an HP Blade Server?
What’s the process to design an HP blade server? Find out on my interview with Gary Thome, Chief Blade Architect for HP. Thanks to the friends at SDR News, I was able to talk with Gary at the HP Tech Forum last month in Las Vegas. In the video below, Gary discusses the steps it takes for HP to design the next generation blade and he discusses the latest blade servers announced at the HP Technology Forum. Continue reading
My Interview with HP Vice President of Converged Infrastructure, Doug Oathout
One of the biggest things revealed at HP Technology Forum in Las Vegas last month was the introduction of the HP VirtualConnect FlexFabric Module. According to HP, this new module allows for “one module” to access “any data or storage network” and is a key piece of HP’s Converged Infrastructure. Thanks to my friends at SDR News, I had the opportunity to discuss HP’s converged infrastructure with the guy in charge of designing HP’s strategy, Doug Oathout,Vice President of Converged Infrastructure at HP. Continue reading
LEFT BEHIND in The Venetian Casino Data Center (Really!)
They make it look so complicated in the movies. Detailed covert operations with the intent to hack into a casino’s mainframe preceeded by weeks of staged planned rehearsals, but I’m here to tell you it’s much easier than that.
This is my story of how I had 20 seconds of complete access to The Venetian Casino’s data center, and lived to tell about it.
New BL465c G7 and BL685c G7 (New Features)
Along with the Intel blade server announcements, Tuesday HP also announced two new AMD based blades, the BL465c G7 and BL685G7. Although originally viewed as a refresh of their existing AMD blade servers, while at the HP Tech Forum in Las Vegas, I found there were a few interesting facts. Let’s take a look. Continue reading