Tag Archives: IBM

Still Confused About Cisco’s Blade Market Share

I recently received a comment  on my previous post concerning Cisco’s market share (“What’s the Truth About Cisco’s Market Share“) which has me more confused.  The comment admits that Cisco has not released any market share data to IDC, but that when you look at the Cisco Q1 2010 Earnings Call and compare it to IDC’s findings of the overall industry you should be able to derive conclusions from there.  That’s where it gets confusing. Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

IBM to Acquire BLADE Network Technologies

IBM announced on Sept. 27, 2010 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), a privately held company based in Santa Clara, CA. BLADE specializes in software and devices that route data and transactions to and from servers. The acquisition is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory reviews. Financial terms were not disclosed.

To read the full press release, continue reading.

REVISED HP Loses Blade Market Share in Q2

Revised 9/29/2010 – I previously titled this blog post, “HP Loses Blade Server Market Share to IBM…” however I have since re-thought that statement. The report from IDC does not specify where HP’s blade server market share went from Q1 2010 – it only provides Q2 2010 market share numbers. I regret any confusion I may have caused.
Continue reading →

New Study Shows Dell M1000e Chassis Most Power Efficient Chassis

A white paper released today by Dell shows that the Dell M1000e blade chassis infrastructure offers significant power savings compared to equivalent HP and IBM blade environments. In fact, the results were audited by an outside source, the Enterprise Management Associates (http://www.enterprisemanagement.com). After the controversy with the Tolly Group report discussing HP vs Cisco, I decided to take the time to investigate these findings a bit deeper. 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 →

(UPDATED) The Best Blade Server Option Is…[Part 1 – A Look at Cisco]

Updated on 9/13/2010 with link to Sean McGee’s I/O Card Blog Post
 
One of the questions I get the most is, “which blade server option is best for me?” My honest answer is always, “it depends.” The reality is that the best blade infrastructure for YOU is really going to depend on what is important to you. Based on this, I figured it would be a good exercise to do a high level comparison of the blade chassis offerings from Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM. If you ready through my past blog posts, you’ll see that my goal is to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to talking about blade servers. I’m going to attempt to be “vendor neutral” with this post as well, but I welcome your comments, thoughts and criticisms. Continue reading →

Shared I/O – The Future of Blade Servers?

Last week, Blade.org invited me to their 3rd Annual Technology Symposium  – an online event with speakers from APC, Blade Network Technologies, Emulex, IBM, NetApp, Qlogic and Virtensys.  Blade.org is a collaborative organization and developer community focused on accelerating the development and adoption of open blade server platforms.   This year’s Symposium focused on “the dynamic data center of the future”.   While there were many interesting topics (check out the replay here), the one that appealed to me most was “Shared I/O” by Alex Nicolson, VP and CTO of Emulex.  Let me explain why.  Continue reading →