IBM BladeCenter- An Overview
The move to a bladed environment should be about more than merely a change in form factor. IBM released BladeCenter in November 2002, quickly changing the industry and taking mindshare technology leadership with its ingenious modular design. So instead of focusing solely on your next server, consider a new architecture built on BladeCenter. Its unique, modular design delivers simplification, control and flexibility.
Not every solution can run on the same processor so BladeCenter allows you to choose from different 2 processor and 4-processor offerings featuring high performance Intel® Xeon® Processors, IBM POWER™ processors, AMD Opteron processors or the Intel Xeon Processor MP. All provide computing power to meet varied solution requirements and diverse computing workloads.
Ideal applications include collaboration and compute-centric applications, commerce or database applications and High Performance Computing applications. BladeCenter is the platform that can run them all.
With the arrival of BladeCenter H, the BladeCenter portfolio now has three different chassis offerings. Each brings unique environmental or performance attributes to help businesses meet the diverse needs they place on IT. Other hardware vendors may have offerings to meet one or two of these unique requirements but only BladeCenter can meet all these needs using a single set of blades and switches. From small to large, pristine conditions or rugged, ultra high performance or simply IT, BladeCenter delivers.
Think of BladeCenter as an IT building block capable of building a complete IT foundation. Its simplicity, commonality and flexibility is incredibly powerful. IBM went well beyond improving density with the BladeCenter design. A blade that is merely a repackaged 1U server will not help overcome the problems that businesses face today. The true value of BladeCenter is about much more than its form factor.
Providing a wide selection of integrated switching options, BladeCenter helps you lower total cost of ownership (TCO) by eliminating the need to purchase additional external KVM, Ethernet and Fibre Channel switches, or the cumbersome and expensive cabling they require. BladeCenter is an industry leader in providing flexibility and choice—excelling at integrating into your current infrastructure while delivering a comprehensive blade solution. Not having to change current business practices, management techniques, and fabric vendors will simplify the move to a bladed environment and reduce the likelihood of production delaying problems.
IBM has made public the design specifications for BladeCenter allowing numerous companies to easily design hardware, appliances and solutions for the platform. The open BladeCenter design specifications are intended to harness the development power of the industry to deliver an even more comprehensive solution for customers. This industry cooperation means that hundreds of companies want to see BladeCenter succeed. With all these relationships, the application you want to run on a blade is likely supported.
As solution size and complexity have grown, customers asked how they could keep pace with IT sprawl.
BladeCenter was engineered to reduce complexity by reducing the number of tools and access points needed to manage the solution. Why manage hundreds of servers, dozens of switches, and networking devices when you could manage just a handful of BladeCenters. In addition, integrated management tools like IBM Director and IBM Remote Deployment Manager help simplify administration to help lower overall costs and improve control of the data centre.
BladeCenter’s superior density and feature set are made possible by its innovative chassis architecture. Because BladeCenter uses super energy-efficient components and shared infrastructure architecture, clients can realize lower power consumption when compared to most comparable alternatives, including major competitive blade designs. Less power consumption can mean BladeCenter delivers more computing power per watt.
BladeCenter’s smart architecture was designed to make better use of limited data centre resources like air conditioning, air handling equipment, floor space and racks. BladeCenter can even reduce floor weight loading which is a major issue for older data centres not designed to accommodate today’s ultra-dense, tightly packaged servers. BladeCenter can help you get more from every square foot of data centre space.
As your IT infrastructure grows, more is expected of your IT professionals. It is essential to reduce unnecessary visits to the rack and the data centre while increasing uptime and enhancing equipment availability. These are the goals that IBM had in mind for BladeCenter—fewer moving parts, more hot-swap redundant components and easier access to key components.
The first BladeCenter chassis produced, now three years ago, can house the latest processor blades, switch fabrics and options. This continuity delivers results. First, less change over time means less risk when adopting new technology. Second, knowing BladeCenter was designed to accommodate change allows great freedom for those looking to pre-deploy chassis and switching environments in preparation for future growth. Just install what’s needed when it’s needed. Finally, continuity across the three BladeCenter chassis means that no matter how or where you want to use it, BladeCenter fits the need.
The integrated design of BladeCenter brings all aspects of the solution together into a single box. This revolutionary approach changed the direction of the blade industry. This simplicity means IT installations take minutes instead of hours or days—requiring a handful of cables instead of hundreds, and everything can be managed from a single access point.
Today’s marketplace is requiring you to become an on-demand business. And BladeCenter can help you answer the call, delivering an easy-to-use, integrated platform with a high degree of flexibility, scalability and manageability - all helping you keep your focus where it should be - on your business. If you are considering the move to blades, remember that blades are about much more than density.
