Why Blade Servers; Blade Server Benefits - IBM 8677 - BladeCenter Rack-mountable - Power Supply Planning And Installation Manual
Installation guide
Hide thumbs
Also See for 8677 - BladeCenter Rack-mountable - Power Supply:
- Installation and user manual (104 pages) ,
- Installation and user manual (72 pages) ,
- Hardware maintenance manual and troubleshooting manual (150 pages)
Table of Contents
Advertisement
Why blade servers?
As organizations look to physically consolidate servers, they are looking to replace
bulky server towers with 1U or 2U rack systems. These systems take less space
and put the enterprise server infrastructure within easy reach of the administrator.
However, these rack systems also introduce additional problems.
Each 1U or 2U server requires its own infrastructure, including power cables,
Ethernet or Fibre Channel switches, systems management, power distribution units
(PDUs), and keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) switches. A rack of 42 1U servers can
have hundreds of cables strung throughout the rack, making it difficult to determine
where cables are attached and increasing the complexity of adding or removing
servers from the rack.
A blade server is a rack-optimized server architecture designed to provide the
consolidation benefits of 1U and 2U rack systems while eliminating the
complications associated with these systems. A server blade is an independent
server containing one or more processors, memory, disk storage, and network
controllers. A server blade runs its own operating system and applications.
Each server blade is inserted into a slot at the front of the BladeCenter unit and
connects to the midplane. The midplane provides a connection to shared
infrastructure components that includes, power, blowers, CD-ROM and diskette
drives, integrated Ethernet and Fibre Channel switches, and the management
module.
Blade server benefits
The BladeCenter architecture is an efficient solution for adding scalability and
capacity in a data center. Benefits of the blade server architecture include:
v Modular scalability. Unlike traditional 8-way or 16-way servers, blade servers are
v Versatility. Unlike conventional server designs, blade design does not impose a
v Performance. You can get the same processing power found in 1U servers, but
4
BladeCenter Type 8677: Planning and Installation Guide
designed to scale out rather than up. Adding a new server typically involves
simply sliding a new single or dual-processor blade into an open bay in a
BladeCenter unit. There is no need to physically install and cable individual
servers.
Option modules allow shared infrastructure features, such as Gigabit Ethernet
switches and Fibre Channel switches, to be included inside the BladeCenter unit
rather than externally attached. Power modules are also integrated into the unit
eliminating many of the power cables and power distribution units that
conventional servers require. This design along with its support for Network
Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Networks (SAN) allows the
BladeCenter to integrate into a scalable storage solution with enhanced
manageability features.
limit of only one type of processor per server. Advanced chassis designs with
sophisticated cooling and power technologies can support a mix of blades
containing different types and speeds of processors. Each blade is a
self-contained server, running its own operating system and software. This
flexibility eliminates the need for standalone servers to perform specific functions.
You can consolidate your workloads in one BladeCenter unit, regardless of
whether an application requires a high-performance 64-bit processor or a 32-bit
processor.
obtain up to twice the rack density at a potentially lower cost. Blades can be
used for collaboration applications (Lotus
®
™
®
Notes
Microsoft
Exchange), Web
Advertisement
Table of Contents
