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Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
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replacing the older parallel PCI and PCI-X buses. A x16 PCIe adapter offers approximately eight
ttimes the maximum throughput of a 133MHz PCI-X adapter
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. (A x1 adapter offers throughput
similar to a 66MHz PCI-X slot.)
There is a built-in riser card in x3550 M2 that provides a PCIe connector (x8 connector wired with
x4 lanes) for an internal RAID card ( MR10i plus one USB connector reserved for an internal
USB Flash memory key to support Hypervisor.. There is no internal Tape drive support in x3550
M2.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet Controllers
The x3550 M2 includes two integrated Broadcom 5709 Gigabit Ethernet controllers for up to
10X higher maximum throughput than a 10/100 Ethernet controller, as well as support for Jumbo
Frames and TOE (TCP Offload Engine).
Jumbo Frames—those larger than the standard frame (packet) size of 1,500 bytes—can be
more efficient, dramatically increasing network performance and reducing server CPU overhead.
TOE helps improve overall system performance by offloading TCP/IP protocol processing from
the system microprocessor to the onboard Ethernet TOE processor. There is no additional
charge for this capability.
It also supports highly secure remote power management using IPMI 2.0, plus Wake on LAN
®
and PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) flash interface. Optional PCI adapters offering failover
and load balancing between adapters are available for added throughput and increased system
availability.
Integrated Quad GbE Ports via Broadcom 5709 GbE Controller.
• Up to four (4) GbE ports ideal for virtualization and I/O intensive workloads
• 2 ports standard plus two additional ports optional via adapter card
• Improves system performance by offloading protocol processing from CPU to a separate TOE
engine
• Primary performance improvement for data copying (CPU) where CPU utilization is 90-100%
• The embedded NIC/TOE supports software iSCSI using a Microsoft iSCSI initiator
• Using a software initiator enables offloading the processing of TCP frames with the TOE
engine in the adapter card but the processing of iSCI packets themselves is not hardware
offloaded at the Broadcom NIC
• Broadcom hardware offloaded iSCSI (using TOE engine) of the iSCSI frames
• iSCSI and RDMA are not supported
Two Broadcom 5709 Gigabit Ethernet Controllers (one on-board and one on optional daughter
card) provide four Gigabit ports supporting IEEE 802.3 for 1000Base-T, 100Base-TX, and
10Base-T applications (802.3, 802.3u, 802.3ab) through a RJ-45 connector to an Ethernet
network over a CAT 5 twisted-pair cable. This controller supports PXE 2.0 remote boot, TCPIP
Offload Engine (TOE), Internet SCSI (iSCSI), Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), and jumbo
frames (9KB). License key will be required to enable iSCSI and RDMA feature. There are two
green LEDs on the connector: Activity LED on the upper left side and Link Status LED on the
upper right side (viewed facing the connector). TOE support on Windows is available today. But it
requires Windows Scalable Network Pack (SNP) installation. Linux has no plan to support TOE at
this time. Please refer to TOE_RDMA_iSCSI.doc for technology details. Internet Protocol version
6 (IPv6) is supported.
Ultra-Efficient Cooling
Strategically located fans, combined with efficient airflow paths, provide highly effective system
cooling for the x3550 M2, known as Calibrated Vectored Cooling. The base server with one
power supply includes six hot-swap fan packs for redundant cooling. Each pack includes two
back-to-back fans with counter-rotating blades for a total of 12 fans. In addition, each power
supply also contains a fan.
The system contains three cooling zones. Zone 1 (incorporating two fan packs) cools all 16
DIMM sockets, Zone 2 (two fan packs) cools the primary processor, and Zone 3 (one or two fan
packs) cools the second processor (if installed).
The fans automatically adjust speeds in response to changing thermal requirements depending
on the zone and internal temperatures. When the temperature inside the server increases, the
fans speed up to maintain the proper ambient temperature. When the temperature returns to a
normal operating level, the fans return to their default speed. In addition, the Bosch BMP085
altimeter works in conjunction with IMM to govern fan rotation. At high altitudes the air is thinner
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Actual throughput will depend on the adapter vendor’s implementation.