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switches. (And the integrated switches may be less expensive than external, self-powered
switches.) Plus, the number of power distribution units (PDUs) needed per rack may
be lessened, because there are fewer discrete devices to have to plug in. In addition,
because all the blades are connected to all the switches inside the chassis, there is no
need for external Ethernet or other communication cables to connect the blades
and switches. (Only the few cables needed to connect the switches to the external world
are required.) This not only can save the cost of numerous cables per rack, but also the
clutter and bother of routing that many cables. An added bonus is potentially much freer
airflow behind the rack, due to fewer cables.
BladeCenter HT is a carrier grade, rugged 12U chassis designed for challenging central
office and networking environments. It provides:
• NEBS Level 3/ETSI-tested — Designed for the Network Equipment Provider
(NEP)/Service Provider (SP) environment. Also ideal for government/military, aerospace,
industrial automation/robotics, medical imaging and finance. Certified testing by
Underwriters Laboratories of the BladeCenter HT chassis is in progress; when complete, it
will be covered under a UL-certified NEBS Level 3/ETSI test report.
• Support for Carrier-Grade Linux — Several distributions are supported, include SUSE
and Red Hat.
• Reduced single points of failure — Many major components (either standard or
optionally) are hot-swappable and/or redundant. Servers and modules can be
configured for automatic failover to backups.
• Backward compatibility — Every blade, switch and passthru module released by IBM for
the original BladeCenter chassis since 2002, is supported in the BladeCenter HT chassis.
• High-speed redundant Midplane connections — Based on 4X InfiniBand, the
midplane supports up to 40Gb bandwidth and provides four 10Gb data channels to each
blade. By giving each blade two physical connections to the midplane that connects all
blades and modules together internally, a failure of one connector alone cannot bring
down the server.
• Twelve 30mm blade slots — These hot-swap slots are capable of supporting any
combination of 12 HC10/HS20/HS21/HS21 XM, LS20/LS21, JS20/JS21, and
QS21/QS22 or 10 JS22 blade servers, or 6 double-wide (60mm) LS41 blade servers, or
a mixture of 30mm and 60mm blades. It also supports multiple optional 30mm
Expansion Units in combination with the blade servers, using the same blade slots. Up to
three chassis can be installed in an industry-standard 42U rack, for a total of up to 36
30mm blade servers per rack.
• Up to eight module bays for
communication and I/O switches or bridges — The
modules interface with all of the blade servers in the chassis and alleviate the need for
external switches or expensive, cumbersome cabling. All connections are done internally
via the midplane. Two module slots are reserved for hot-swap/redundant Gigabit
Ethernet switch modules. Two slots support either high-speed bridge modules or
legacy Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand and other switch
modules. Four additional slots are dedicated for hot-swap/redundant high-speed
switch modules. All modules, when installed in pairs, offer load balancing and
failover support.
• Integrated switch and bridge modules mean that no additional rack “U” space is required.
• Two module bays for Advanced Management Modules — The management modules
provide advanced systems management and KVM capabilities for not only the chassis
itself, but for all of the blades and other modules installed in the chassis. The Advanced
Management Module provides capabilities similar to the IBM Remote Supervisor
Adapter II SlimLine used in stand-alone System x rack and tower servers. Features
include concurrent KVM (cKVM), an external Serial over LAN connection, industry-
standard management interfaces (SMASH/CLP/CIM/HPI), USB virtualization, network
failover and backward compatibility with the original Management Module, among others.
The features of the module can be accessed either locally or remotely across a network.
One module comes standard. A second module can be added for hot-swap/redundancy
and failover. The module uses USB ports for keyboard and mouse.
• Four bays for Fan Modules — All four hot-swap/redundant fan modules come
standard with the chassis. These modules replace the need for each blade to contain its
own fans. The high-availability modules are more energy efficient than dozens or
hundreds of smaller fans would be, and there are many fewer points of potential failure.
• Four bays for
Power Modules — BladeCenter HT ships with two high-efficiency hot-
swap/redundant DC or AC (model-specific) power modules (upgradeable to four),
capable of handling the power needs of up to six blade servers. Two additional power
modules are required when more than 6 blades or high-speed switches are installed.
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14.