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Rack vs. Blades Positioning
Businesses of all sizes continue to struggle with the overwhelming complexity created by the rapid growth of their IT
environments. They are running out of room and exceeding power thresholds in their computer rooms and data centers.
And, they are increasingly being asked to do more with less. Blade infrastructures offer ways to simplify your IT, increase
density and decrease power requirements while lowering total costs.
With BladeCenter
®
, IBM has held the leading full-year market share in the blade segment from 2003 through 2006. (IDC
Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, December 2006.) As the market leader, IBM has helped many clients migrate from
racks to blades and has the experience to help lead a successful transition.
Why Convert from Rack Servers to Blades?
Unlike a stand-alone server that needs multiple power supplies and fans, individual systems management, numerous
cables and a lot of space, IBM BladeCenter is compact and simple. The blade contains all the necessities to run an
application––processors, memory, I/O and storage. Components that are duplicated in rack If I have to, I’ll publish servers
are removed from the individual blade and placed in the BladeCenter chassis instead. Shared N+N redundant power,
shared N+N hot-swap cooling, optical media, integrated Ethernet, storage, switching and consolidated powerful
management. The beauty of the BladeCenter architecture is that now everything needed for the solution can be housed
and managed from a single point of control.
With the BladeCenter Advanced Management Module and IBM Director software, which are both included with a
BladeCenter chassis purchase, clients can interact with all the hardware technology within the BladeCenter chassis, so it
can be controlled from a single interface—often even if the server is powered down or otherwise non-responsive. The
ability to have a single interface to blades, storage and switching is a big advantage for any administrator, but it can be
especially helpful to small businesses that might not have dedicated IT staffs.
BladeCenter is an ideal way to replace many uni-, two- or four-socket servers to save space while often reducing power
and cooling requirements compared to rack servers. For example, 14 two-socket 1U rack servers can be replaced by 14
two-socket blade servers in a BladeCenter chassis—saving 7U of rack space, helping you save on power and cooling
costs and simplifying management. BladeCenter offers higher density and potentially lower total cost of ownership with no
sacrifice in performance.
Clients can now combine the IBM BladeCenter Storage and I/O Expansion Blade with any HS21, JS21, LS21 or LS41
blade for a hard-to-beat alternative to many 2U servers. The Storage and I/O Expansion Blade doubles your I/O
connectivity, adds hot-swap drive capability and provides the option of adding full RAID-5 capability with battery-backed
cache. The resulting blade is 60mm wide, allowing you to install seven inside a BladeCenter E chassis for a solution that
uses half the space of seven comparable HP or Dell 2U rack servers.
Discrete Benefits of Blade Servers over Rack Servers
IBM BladeCenter integrates servers, storage and networking to help you reduce complexity, simplify IT management and
reduce costs, through a flexible and highly scalable design. Many features and functions found in BladeCenter can deliver
significant advantages over typical rack servers and solutions from competing vendors. Consider the many benefits of
moving from rack-based servers to IBM BladeCenter:
Benefit Description
Infrastructure
simplification
Environments today can be very complex. You have to manage and install a variety of servers, switches, storage, cables
and management tools. By simplifying IT architecture and integrating these components in a single BladeCenter solution
(with up to 14 enterprise blades per chassis), you can significantly reduce the requirements for space, chassis, switches,
cables, racks, power supplies and PDUs. This helps you save on power and cooling costs, simplify and speed up
deployment and management, and lower IT staff costs. Additionally, a simple infrastructure can mean fewer parts to fail
and less time spent at the rack making repairs––freeing your IT staff for other projects.
Investment
protection
When you need to upgrade, you don’t have to take apart your foundation and reinvest in infrastructure each time
technology changes. Instead, your can add a blade or new storage functionality as your needs change or as new
technology arrives. BladeCenter blades and switches can be seamlessly moved between chassis. This offers you
investment protection and incredibly flexible, mix-and-match deployment choices.
Space
savings
BladeCenter can save up to 50% of the floor space of an equivalent rack solution, without sacrificing application
performance. This can be a tremendous benefit in power- or cooling-constrained environments, allowing you to fit more
processing power into existing power and thermal envelopes.
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