THE MOVE TO BLADES
The current industry evolution is a move to blade-based systems which are self-contained scalable computers composed of compute nodes, storage, interconnects, system enclosure (superstructure) and system management software. This technology cycle is nearing "a datacentre in a cabinet" and can even include self-contained cooling which makes the system heat-neutral to the room and substantially reduces acoustic noise.
HP C-CLASS BLADESYSTEM FAMILY
HP’s c-Class BladeSystem award winning technology balances the demand for ever increasing powerful computer servers against space and energy use. A blade server is typically a complete server on a card that contains a hot-plug computer system, includes one or more processors, memory, network connections, and some level of local disk storage with provisions to access external Fibre Channel storage. Multiple blades plug into a chassis that provides shared, redundant infrastructure components such as power, cooling, networking, and cabling.
The benefits are clear :-
- Performance - BladeSystem nodes provide equal, or better, server and I/O performance than rackmount alternatives with a non-stop midplane interconnect capable of an aggregate bandwidth of 5Tbps.
- Environment - BladeSystems offer advantages for power consumption and cooling with HP Thermal Logic and give optimal processor density and floorspace footprint.
- Management/Deployment - BladeSystems are designed to streamline and automate systems monitoring, management and deployment with best-in-class management tools for both Linux and Windows
- Reduced Complexity - the "intelligent" BladeSystem enclosure provides control of power, interfaces and connectivity.
- Scalability - BladeSystems have been designed to be highly scalable and to meet component technology advances for the next 5+ years.
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - BladeSystems have a lower cost of ownership than rackmounted systems whilst offering improved price/performance.
- Choice of Platform - BladeSystems offer processor options of Intel Xeon, Itanium 2 or AMD Opteron multi-core blades housed within a choice of innovative c7000 or c3000 enclosure. Operating system environments are Linux, MS Windows (including CCS / HPC), HP-UX Unix and OpenVMS.
