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
Category Archives: IBM
Will the New VMware vSphere 5 Licensing Affect Blade Vendors?
As you no doubt heard by now, VMware has announced a new version of vSphere along with some new or improved features however, this post will not highlight these features. In this post, I want to talk about what did not improve – the licensing. Continue reading
Blade Chassis I/O Diagrams
Many people get confused as to why so many I/O modules are needed within a given blade chassis. The basic concept is simple (in most cases) – for each port you need on a given blade server, you need to have a corresponding I/O module. For example, if you need 4 NICs, you’re going to need 4 Ethernet modules (in most cases.) In today’s post, I thought I would keep it simple and publish the I/O diagrams of Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM chassis. Of course, I am human and “have been known to make mistakes – from time to time” so please feel free to correct me on any errors you see. Enjoy.
(Updated 8/3/2011 – fixed Dell M1000e Full Height I/O Diagram)
IBM Offers FREE Blade Chassis Through December (No Purchase Required)
IBM once again is promoting is striving to increase market share by offering customers the chance to get a “free” IBM BladeCenter chassis. The last time they promoted a free chassis was in November, so this year they kicked in the promo effective July 5, 2011. The promotion is for a free chassis – without any purchase, however a chassis without any blades or switches is just a metal box. Regardless, this promotion is a great way to help offset some of the cost to implementation of your blade server project. Continue reading
Comprehensive List of Blade Server Web Site Links
If you are like me, you are constantly referring to manufacture web sites for product specs, available options, etc. Today, I’ve put together a list of web sites that will help streamline your search. Since links change and new ones get added, I’ve put out a “helpful links” tab at the top of my blog as well for you to reference and bookmark. As I get recommendations from my readers, I’ll update the “helpful links” tab, so be sure to add it to your favorites. Continue reading
Cisco Finally Releases UCS Market Share Numbers
May 24, 2011 – IDC came out with their 1Q 2011 worldwide server market revenue report today showing that Cisco has finally entered the market standings with a 3rd place standing at 9.4% factory revenue share . IDC’s findings also showed that both HP and IBM decreased their blade server market share from Q4 2010. Continue reading
Dell To Introduce A New Mini-Chassis for Blades?
It’s been a little quiet in the blade market place over the past few weeks, but I found some information that may peak some interests. Continue reading
Intel Announces New Xeon 4 Socket CPU (E7); Dell, HP and IBM Slated to Refresh Blades
UPDATED 11:30 a.m. EST (4/6/11) – Intel announced today the next version of their 4 socket chipset, known as “E7”. Previously known with the codename of Westmere EX, the newly released Xeon 7600 will be rebranded as the Intel Xeon E7. Continue reading
A Look at the Dark Side of the Force
When I go to San Francisco, I head over to the west side of town to peer through the closed gates of the hidden campus of Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) dreaming of catching a glimpse of the magic. Recently Arik Hesseldahl, from All Things Digital, accomplished my dream and had a peek behind the curtains of what makes ILM run. Arik interviewed ILM’s CIO, Kevin Clark and then toured the ILM data center. Continue reading
4 Socket Blade Servers Density: Vendor Comparison (2011)
Revised with corrections 3/1/2011 10:29 a.m. (EST)
Almost a year ago, I wrote an article highlighting the 4 socket blade server offerings. At that time, the offerings were very slim, but over the past 11 months, that blog post has received the most hits, so I figured it’s time to revise the article. In today’s post, I’ll review the 4 socket Intel and AMD blade servers that are currently on the market. Yes, I know I’ll have to revise this again in a few weeks, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Continue reading