HP recently announced the industry’s first M.2 SSD for blade servers. If you’re not familiar with M.2 (pronounced M dot 2), it’s a small form factor card and connector supporting applications such as Wi-Fi, WWAN, USB, PCIe & SATA seen mostly in desktop / laptop systems. Adoption of this form factor in Tier 1 vendors is slow coming, which is why this is a big announcement for HP. Since this plugs into the system board, it avoids traversing the SAS mid-plane and allows for connectivity to the system PCIe bus supporting faster speeds (see below for details.) Continue reading
Tag Archives: blade server
5 Modes of the Dell FN IO Module
Dell’s FN I/O Modules (FN IOMs) are integrated devices that sit in the rear of the FX2 chassis and behave like traditional network switches. The FN IOMs provide 8 x 10GbE internal ports to the connected server nodes while offering 4 x 10GbE external links for upstream connectivity. What makes the FN I/O Module unique is that it supports 5 operational modes: Standalone (SMUX), VLT, Stacking, Programmable MUX (PMUX) and Full-switch. Below are details on each of these modes.
How To Back Up the Dell FlexAddress
If you own a Dell blade chassis, you are probably familiar with the FlexAddress feature however you have probably not wondered how to back it up – something that is well documented. Fortunately a few of my Dell peers have put together the steps for a definitive backup method.
Dell MXL Blade Switch Configuration with Explanations
We go through a lot to train our teams on how to configure blade switches however it can be difficult for one to remember everything that a Dell Network Sales Engineer has taught them. As an administrator, you often need to be able to look at an actual configuration in front of you and have each line explained to you in as much detail as is reasonable or “necessary.” Continue reading
Blade Server Comparison – June 2015
Below is the chart for the newest 4 socket blade servers based on the Intel Xeon E5-4600 v3.
Blade Server Comparison – May 2015
Many of the blade vendors made announcements recently featuring the Intel Xeon E7 v3 CPU, so below is an updated chart of current blade servers. Once Intel announces the Xeon E5-4600 v3 I’ll include those as well. Continue reading
Dell VRTX Now Scales Up to 50TB of Shared Storage
A few weeks ago Dell added a 2TB 2.5″ 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS drive to the list of supported drives. This new addition not only increases the shared storage capacity of the Dell VRTX chassis from 48TB to 50TB but it also offers better performance. Continue reading
IDC Worldwide Server Tracker – Q4 2014 Released
IDC released the Q4 2014 Quarterly Server Tracker last night and it revealed that Dell has taken the #2 server spot with 16.7% market share.
Blade Server Comparisons – March 2015
It’s always good to have a single source of comparisons for the Tier 1 blade servers, so here is the updated list. I realize that I should have posted this in December, but I guess it’s better late than never. Continue reading
Questions Answered About Dell’s 2nd PERC in VRTX
I had a reader email me with a few questions about Dell’s PowerEdge VRTX 2nd PERC, so I thought I’d write about it with the intent on helping others. If you have other blade-related questions (whether Dell or not) let me know and I’ll see what I can find.