Tag Archives: HP

Intel E5-4600 v2 CPU Announced

Intel announced the refresh of their 4 socket E5 line taking the CPU up to 12 cores, and 30MB of shared cache and supporting memory speeds up to 1866 MTS DDR3 DIMMs.

 

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I’ve updated the current blade server comparison list to include the E5-4600 v2 offering:

 

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Direct link to PDF (117kb): BladesMadeSimple_Blade_Server_Comparison_3.12.14

If you see anything missing or incorrect, let me know.

 

 

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 17 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 Enterprise 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.

Sneak Peek at HP ProLiant BL660c E5-4600 v2 Offerings

It appears someone at HP slipped up and posted Intel E5-4600 v2 specs for the HP ProLiant BL660c Gen 8 blade server a few weeks ahead of Intel’s announcement later in Q1.  HP has since removed the details, but customers looking at the 4 socket blade server may be interested to know what HP will be offering, so check out Google’s cache of the HP QuickSpec at: 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-Uh2au2-GvMJ:h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/14394_ca/14394_ca.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Not a new product, just an update in the CPU offering.  When Intel officially releases the E5-4600 v2 CPU, I’ll make sure to provide details along with the other blade server vendors offering.  I’ll also update the blade comparison document, so please make sure to check back often.

 

 

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 17 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 Enterprise 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.

Blade Server Comparisons – Feb 2014

 

This update includes blade servers with the Intel Xeon E5-2400 v2 CPU.  I’ll add the E7 v2 once they begin shipping (and I have some data).

 

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Link: BladesMadeSimple_BladeServer_Comparison_updated2.26.14

 

Kevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has over 17 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 Enterprise 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.

Blade Servers Preferred Over Rack Servers (Based on Q3 2013 Report by TBR)

In October, Technology Business Research (TBR) released a report titled, “Corporate IT Buying Behavior & Customer Satisfaction Study x86-based Servers” in which they discussed several topics around customer satisfaction such as Sales and Setup, Server Hardware and Service and Support.  Although the report (linked below) is 109 pages, below are a couple of key topics which I found interesting.

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Comparison of x86 Blade Servers

(UPDATED 11.5.2013) I often find myself seeking basic information for competitive blade servers, so I decided to sit down and put together a basic list of blade server details for Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM blade servers. The details provided are based on information publicly available and may be subject to errors.  Continue reading →

IDC Worldwide Server Tracker Reports Decline in Q2 2013

IDC came out with their Q2 2013 worldwide server market revenue report on August 27, 2013 which shows blade server revenues decreased 6.2% year over year to $2 billion while accounting for 16.9% of all server revenues reported.  x86 server unit shipments decreased .1% year over year in 2Q13 to 1.9 million units as consolidation continued to be a strategic focus for many large and small customers around the globe.

In the blade server market, HP maintained the number 1 spot in the blade server market in 2Q13 with 44.8% revenue share; while Cisco climbed up to take sole ownership of second place with 19.6% and IBM took third place with 17.2% revenue share.

"Even though the overall blade market was down, several of the top vendors experienced positive growth within their converged and integrated system businesses. IDC finds more enterprises adopting integrated systems to increase the agility and efficiency of their IT infrastructure," said Jed Scaramella, research manager, Enterprise Servers at IDC. "Density Optimized servers achieved the highest growth of any segment in the server market. The datacenter build-outs by service providers are driving growth in the industry and represent a strategic opportunity for OEMs, while at the same time IDC is seeing new participants enter the market targeting the hyperscale datacenter segment."

In overall worldwide server systems factory revenue, IBM took top spot with 27.9% market share in Q2113.  HP followed in 2nd place with 25.9% and Dell came in third with 18.8% market share.

 

For the full IDC report covering the Q2 2013 Worldwide Server Market, please visit IDC’s website at http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24285213

 

 

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 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 Q1 2013

IDC came out with their Q1 2013 worldwide server market revenue report on May 29, 2013 which shows blade server revenues decreased 2.9% year over year to $1.9 billion while accounting for 17.7% of all server revenues reported.  According to the report, this is the fifth time in the previous six quarters that the server market has experienced a year-over-year decline in worldwide revenue. Server unit shipments decreased 3.9% year over year in 1Q13 to 1.9 million units as consolidation continued to be a strategic focus for many large and small customers around the globe. Continue reading →

Gartner Blade Server Quadrant (April 2013)

Gartner_Magic_Quadrant_April_2013

Gartner released the annual Magic Quadrant for blade servers last month and it shows significant changes across the leaderboard within the top 4 leading blade server vendors. 

The Magic Quadrant is a tool Gartner uses to visually define a given market segment showcasing technology vendors who are leading the market in 4 areas:

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Blade Server Networking Options

If you are new to blade servers, you may find there are quite a few options to consider in regards to managing your Ethernet traffic.  Some vendors promote the traditional integrated switching, while others promote extending the fabric to a Top of Rack (ToR) device.  Each method has its own benefits, so let me explain what those are.  Before I get started, although I work for Dell, this blog post is designed to be an un-biased review of the network options available for many blade server vendors.

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