Cisco announced the UCS B200 M5 and UCS B480 M5 blade servers each supporting the newly announced Intel Xeon Scalable Processor. Below are the highlights of each model. Continue reading
Tag Archives: blade server
HPE Announces New Blade Servers with Intel Xeon SP Processors
Today HPE released details on their next generation blade servers built on Intel’s Xeon Scalable Processor. Below are the highlights of each model. Continue reading
What You Need to Know About Intel Xeon SP CPUs
Today Intel officially launches the next generation rack, tower and blade server CPU – the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor (SP), formerly known as “Skylake.” Before you invest in this next generation compute, there are a few things you need to know. Continue reading
Cisco Blade Servers Enter vSAN Market
Last month, VMware announced a new vSAN Ready Node using the Cisco UCS B-Series blade server. Blade servers aren’t new to vSAN Ready Nodes (see “VMware Virtual SAN Ready Node on a Blade Server“) and Cisco isn’t new to the vSAN business – they’ve had their UCS C-Series rack servers certified since “Ready Nodes” were announced, so why is this announcement interesting? It’s because it is the first vSAN node that only includes 2 drives. Continue reading
Dell EMC PowerEdge M630 Delivers Energy Cost Savings vs HPE
A new finding from the Dell EMC PowerEdge Engineering identified the Dell EMC PowerEdge M630 blade server as being more efficient and offering lower energy costs than the HPE ProLiant BL460 Gen 9. Continue reading
2016 – Year in Review
As I wrap up my 7th year with this blog I wanted to take a minute to pause and say thank you. Without your interest in this blog post, I don’t think I would have stuck with it. I appreciate your ideas and your feedback / comments, even if I may not like what you say. As my final post of the year, I thought I would provide you with some insights on what was popular, what has been searched on, etc. If you don’t see something you’d like to know about, let me know in the comments below. Thanks for your continued interest, and Happy New Year! Continue reading
GPUs and Blade Servers – A Good Idea?
UPDATED 9.23.2016 When looking at the blade server market, the options for GPUs are very limited – in fact only a couple of vendors offer them (more on this later.) So you have to question, is it a good idea to put a GPU in a blade server? Let’s review and find out. Continue reading
Which Embedded Management License Do You Need?
Whether you are looking at Dell or HPE blade servers, one important consideration is the type of embedded management license you need. Too often, I’ve heard of blade server users having to go back to a vendor to get a license upgrade because the current version doesn’t do what you need it to. The charts below are designed to help you proactively determine what license is needed prior to making your purchase. Continue reading
VMware Virtual SAN Ready Node on a Blade Server
UPDATED I recently had to determine the best option for a customer from the Virtual SAN Compatibility Guide / Virtual SAN Ready Node guide and was a bit surprised to see only a single blade server vendor listed. When it comes to choosing a server form factor, there are many reasons to choose blade servers, and several reasons not to choose them (see “5 Reasons You May NOT Want a Blade Server – April 2013.”) If you think blade servers will fit for your infrastructure needs, here are a few options to consider.
Blade Server Comparison – June 2016
With the recent release of the Intel Xeon E5 v4 CPUs, I realized it’s been a year since I’ve updated my blade server comparison chart. Below is an updated chart to help guide you to the best blade server for your project. Continue reading