Tag Archives: Cisco

HP’s New 32GB DIMMs Too Expensive?

A reader recently commented on my article about HP’s new 32GB DIMM, “At $8039 per DIMM, HP can support 384GB in a BL460c at the cost of $96,000 per server just for the memory! If you filled just one rack with these servers, you would spend $6 million just for the memory. And the memory would run at a paltry 800MHz. Continue reading →

Cisco Releases UCS Firmware 1.4

As I’m sure most of you already know, Cisco has released an anticipated update to the firmware for UCS.  Of the dozens of enhancements that were added or modified, perhaps one of the most interesting is Cisco’s integration of their rack-based “C-Series” line into the UCS Platform.  This provides users with a single interface to manage both their rack and their blade server platforms.  Instead of re-creating the wheel, I encourage you take a few minutes to read up on all the goodness from M. Sean McGee’s site at http://www.mseanmcgee.com/2010/12/cisco%e2%80%99s-stocking-stuffer-for-ucs-customers-firmware-release-1-41/

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A Post from the Archive: “Cisco UCS vs IBM BladeCenter H”

It’s always fun to take a look at the past, so today I wanted to revisit my very first blog post.  Titled, “Cisco UCS vs IBM BladeCenter H”, I focused on trying to compare Cisco’s blade technology with IBM’s.  Was I successful or not – it’s up to you to decide.  This article ranks at #7 in all-time hits, so people are definitely interested.  Keep in mind this post has not been updated to reflect any changes in offering or technologies, it’s just being offered as a look back in time for your amusement.  Here’s how the blog post began: Continue reading →

Cisco UCS vs HP Virtual Connect

My friend, M. Sean McGee, wrote up a great blog post in April that deserves revisiting titled, “The State of Statelessness: Cisco UCS vs. HP Virtual Connect“.  In the write-up, he discusses Cisco how Unified Computing System (UCS) blade servers are “stateless” and use “UCS Service Profiles”.  He identifies 96 server settings that can be handled via the UCS Service Profile vs 12 server settings with HP’s Virtual Connect Server Profile.  It is a great read, so I encourage you to take a few minutes and see if you agree with what he writes.

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Blade Server Q&A

I’ve been getting some questions via email and I’ve seen some questions being asked in my LinkedIn group, “Blade Server Technologies” so I thought I’d take a few minutes in today’s post to answer these questions, as well as get your feedback.  Feel free to post your thoughts on these questions in the comments below. Continue reading →

Cisco Announces 32 DIMM, 2 Socket Nehalem EX UCS B230-M1 Blade Server

 Thanks to fellow blogger, M. Sean McGee (http://www.mseanmcgee.com/) I was alerted to the fact that Cisco announced on today, Sept. 14, their 13th blade server to the UCS family – the Cisco UCS B230 M1. 

This newest addition performs a few tricks that no other vendor has been able to perform. Continue reading →

More Blade Server Rumours

It’s been a while since I’ve posted what rumours I’m hearing, so I thought I’d dig around and see what I can find out.  NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from any vendor about any of this information so this may be false info.  Read at your own risk. Continue reading →

Rumour? New 8 Port Cisco Fabric Extender for UCS

I recently heard a rumour that Cisco was coming out with an 8 port Fabric Extender (FEX) for the UCS 5108, so I thought I’d take some time to see what this would look like.  NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from Cisco so this may be false info.

Before we discuss the 8 port FEX, let’s take a look at the 4 port UCS 2140XP FEX and how the blade servers connect, or “pin” to them.  The diagram below shows a single FEX.  A single UCS 2140XP FEX has 4 x 10Gb uplinks to the 6100 Fabric Interconnect Module.  The UCS 5108 chassis has 2 FEX per chassis, so each server would have a 10Gb connection per FEX.  However, as you can see, the server shares that 10Gb connection with another blade server.  I’m not an I/O guy, so I can’t say whether or not having 2 servers connect to the same 10Gb uplink port would cause problems, but simple logic would tell me that two items competing for the same resource “could” cause contention.  If you decide to only connect 2 of the 4 external FEX ports, then you have all of the “odd #” blade servers connecting to port 1 and all of the “even # blades” connecting to port 2.  Now you are looking at a 4 servers contending for 1 uplink port.  Of course, if you only connect 1 external uplink, then you are looking at all 8 servers using 1 uplink port.

Introducing the 8 Port Fabric Extender (FEX)
I’ve looked around and can’t confirm if this product is really coming or not, but I’ve heard a rumour that there is going to be an 8 port version of the UCS 2100 series Fabric Extender.  I’d imagine it would be the UCS 2180XP Fabric Extender and the diagram below shows what I picture it would look like.  The biggest advantage I see of this design would be that each server would have a dedicated uplink port to the Fabric Interconnect.  That being said, if the existing 20 and 40 port Fabric Interconnects remain, this 8 port FEX design would quickly eat up the available ports on the Fabric Interconnect switches since the FEX ports directly connect to the Fabric Interconnect ports.  So – does this mean there is also a larger 6100 series Fabric Interconnect on the way?  I don’t know, but it definitely seems possible.

What do you think of this rumoured new offering?  Does having a 1:1 blade server to uplink port matter or is this just more