Category Archives: Cisco

Best Practices for Using the Dell Force10 MXL in Cisco Nexus Environments

One of the best offerings that Dell has within their blade server I/O portfolio is the Dell Force10 10/40 GbE MXL Switch Module.  You can check out the full details on my earlier blog post, but at a high level, this switch provides 32 x 10GbE ports downstream to the blade servers while offering up to 6 x 40GbE ports up stream.  In addition, up to (6) MXL switch IOMs can be stacked using ring or daisy-chain topology giving it a stacking bandwidth upstream of 320G all while providing intra-chassis communication allowing servers to talk to each other without going out to the Access layer.  But, if you have a Cisco network, will this work?  Believe it or not, Dell and Cisco can play nice together.

The engineers at Dell recently released an easy-to-use guide of recommended basic deployment practices for the Dell Force10 MXL in the access layer of a Cisco Nexus network environment.  I have to warn you though – it’s not for the faint at heart, as it includes detailed command line verbage on how to set it up.  If you know what the command ” # feature enable vpc” does within NX-OS, you’ll appreciate this document.  The guide is broken up topically as follows:

  • the and concepts of MXL switch deployment
  •  introduction to the Force10 MXL hardware and its connectivity and management options
  • the first steps of MXL deployment (including a rapid introduction to some common MXL initial deployment tasks)
  • downlink (server-side) configuration options
  • Link Aggregation Group Configuration
  • Uplink configuration options to the Cisco Nexus network environment: running PVST with discreet LAGs nd running PVST with a single LAG connected across two top-of-rack switches that are using a Multi-chassis LAG

Sample Network Topology for Dell Force10 MXL and Cisco Nexus NetworkIf you have a Cisco Nexus network, take a few minutes to see how easy it is to add a Dell Force10 MXL into your environment.    You might just be surprised at what you find.

Download the complete whitepaper titled, “Deploying the Dell Force10 MXL into a Cisco Nexus Network Environment” at http://bit.ly/DellMXLonNexus

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 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.

IDC Worldwide Server Tracker for Q2 2012 Shows Blades Continue to Grow

IDC came out with their Q2 2012 worldwide server market revenue report on August 28, 2012 which shows that a 4.3% drop in server revenues worldwide, marking the third straight quarter of decline. Continue reading →

Test Report: Power Efficiency Comparison of Dell and Cisco High Memory Capacity Blade Servers

Dell recently published a new whitepaper that compares the performance and power efficiency of four of the Dell PowerEdge M710HD and M620 blades vs. four of the Cisco B250 M2 blade servers.  Here is a summary of the key findings:

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Cisco To Launch Next Generation UCS Blade Servers on March 6, 2012

According to a recent event posting by Cisco, the 3rd generation of Cisco UCS blade servers will be revealed on March 6, 2012.  The server launch event advertises that Cisco will announce the B200 M3 blade server, and C220 M3, and C240 M3 rack servers on March 6th, 2012. These soon-to-be-announced servers are 2 socket servers built on Intel’s upcoming E5-2600 Romley processors and Patsburg chipsets.

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.

Cisco Announces Field Replacement of B440 Blade Servers

Cisco announced on Jan. 26, 2012 a field replacement program for Cisco UCS B440 Blade Servers.  Cisco Field Notice FN – 63430 describes the problem as a failure of a MOSFET, or Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor, power transistor on the blade server that can cause the component to overheat and emit a short flash which could lead to complete board failure.  According to Cisco.com, Cisco is directly contacting UCS B440 Blade Server customers and will replace UCS B440 Blade Servers currently deployed at customer sites.  Cisco is making UCS B440 Blade Server hardware modifications, and a hardware replacement program has been launched.

To identify the affected systems and any available workaround, please visit the Cisco Field Notice at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/ts/fn/634/fn63430.html

 

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.

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Q3 2011 IDC Worldwide – Steady as She Goes

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.

A Look at Intel’s Cloud Builders Initiative

In case you haven’t heard, “cloud” discussions are here to stay and everyone has their own recommendations for you to start building your cloud environment, but which is best for you?  Intel has created the “Intel® Cloud Builders” program aimed at making it easier for you to build, enhance and operate cloud infrastructure.

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Another Free Chassis Offering – Is Cisco Driving These Offers?

I was recently on one of those calls from HP “checking in”. If you are an HP customer you may know these calls start off with something like “We know you spent money on HP last quarter so how many people from this company will have to pester you until you buy more stuff from us?” One of the things the HP rep mentioned towards the end the process, however, is that until October HP is now offering a free blade enclosure with the purchase of four HP BL460’s.  Continue reading →