Dell, IBM, And Sun Ship Blade Servers

By Mitch Wagner, INW
iApplianceWeb
(11/27/02, 01:14:41 AM EDT)

Dell, IBM, and Sun Microsystems have introduced new blades and blade servers, designed to help IT managers cut costs by cramming more computing power into limited space in Internet and telecom data centers.

Server blades are very thin, rack-mounted servers without onboard storage or power supplies. They're designed to save users costs in real estate, power, and by making storage usage more efficient. In addition to Dell, IBM, and Sun, blade servers are also available from Hewlett-Packard, RLX, and Egenera.

The Dell PowerEdge 1655MC is the company's first blade server, a-3U device, and contains six dual-processor server blades running Pentium III processors. The server integrates SCSI hard disk drives, hot-plug redundant power supplies and cooling fans, integrated management card, and redundant Ethernet switches. Because the power supplies, cooling fans, management cards, network switches and other components are shared, hardware costs are nearly 30 percent less than the costs of comparable dual-processor 1U rack servers, Dell said.

The servers are designed to fit into data centers with traditional rack-mounted serves, Dell said.

The servers include OpenManage RemoteInstall software to allow customers to simultaneously install software on hundreds of server blades from any location. Software can also be installed locally through a bootable USB connection. An integrated Embedded Remote4 Access Module monitors chassis and server blade status, providing remote power control and management capabilities.

The server is available immediately, priced starting at $3,298 for an enclosure and one server blade. The server runs Microsoft Windows 2000, and Red Hat Linux.

Dell's server is larger than competitive products from RLX and Hewlett-Packard, and does not pack in as much server management functionality, said analysts Illuminata.

“Dell is betting it can continue to beat the competition based on aggressive equipment pricing and the cost-saving virtues of the blade design itself,” the analysts said in a written statement.

Blade servers have been much discussed, but very few are actually shipping, noted Charles King, analyst with the Sageza Group.

“Tons of people have been talking about these things for the past few months, and it'll be interesting to see what the market things of them,” he said.

Blade servers are likely to be popular in financial services and telecom companies, two areas where Sun has traditionally been strong.

“The ability to consolidate lots of hardware in small places will be particularly valuable in data-center environments,” King said.

IBM is shipping the eServer BladeServer running dual Xeon processors. The overall BladeCenter system will incorporate the server, storage, and networking blades. The BladeCenter can hold up to 84 blades per rack, and supports optional fibre switches to connect the servers to storage area network. The servers also support Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. The blade servers, running Linux, Windows, and Novell NetWare, are priced starting at $1,879.

Sun's Netra CT cPCI Telecom Blade Server is NEBS-certified for use in telecom data centers. The Netra CT 410 and 810 servers and two blades, the Netra CP2140 and CP2160, include high-availability software.

The blade servers are ruggedized and support up to 16 processor blades per shelf, and 48 processor blades per rack. The blades run UltraSPARC Iii 6,509-MHz processors. The CP2140 functions as a system slot controller blade with dual 10/100 Ethernet and SCSI, one PMC slot and up to 4 Gbytes of RAM.

The Netra CP2160 cPCI blade works with the CP2140 and functions as a satellite processor blade. The CP2160 has two PMC slots, front and rear I/'O and 10/100 Ethernet, 8 Mbytes of User Flash and 3 Gbytes of memory.

The blade servers are priced starting at $19,195; the Netra CP2140 blade is priced starting at $3,995; and the CP2160 blade is priced starting at $4,395 and will be available early next year.

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