IBM attacks HP's dwarf blade with muffler
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IBM has joined HP in the race to flog short, stumpy blade servers at small- to medium-sized businesses.
Well, in actual fact, IBM has been flogging for several months. Back in June, Big Blue revealed plans for its BladeCenter S chassis. The S is for "smaller firms," and the product delivers on the moniker by plugging into standard 110 volt outlets (220v available as well). In addition, the S system chassis holds only 6 blade server instead of IBM's usual 14 servers with the extra space filled by lots of storage - a must for the SMB set.
When IBM first chatted about the BladeCenter S, it said the product would not ship until the fourth quarter. IBM has now narrowed down that date and provided a Dec. ship target for the new chassis.
But that's not all.
IBM is also promoting a new "Office Ready Kit" for the chassis. The kit is really just a case with wheels that fits around the chassis, allowing customers to run the blade unit as a standalone system rather than putting it in a rack. The case does have some features beyond, er, its frame, including air filters for blocking dust and a noise muffler. And, oh boy, is IBM proud of its muffler.
IBM has a YouTube video, showing how HP's new BladeSystem c3000 - aka "Shorty" - is effectively twice as loud as IBM's squat blade. IBM even hired some acoustics consultants to prove this.
We think it's nothing short of awesome that IBM has issued two news releases touting the BladeCenter S months before the product ships. Perhaps the company can even top today's "Office Ready Kit" addition when the new chassis actually arrives in Dec. We're hoping for a redundant beer-cooling expansion module.
A real cynic would argue that IBM's double-helping of pre-shipment BladeCenter S euphoria stems from feelings of insecurity. HP, as mentioned, just put out a product tailored for SMBs. Even worse, HP has surged well past IBM on the back of its C-class systems as the clear shipment leader in the blade server market.
Those who don't care about these things will want to note that the BladeCenter S takes up 7U of space and will run both Xeon- and Opteron-based blades at first. During 2008, IBM will offer support for Power and Cell blades too, although neither chip proves terribly attractive to SMBs.
The chassis allows you to slot 6 disks on either side of the blade servers, providing quite a bit of storage capacity. IBM reckons most SMBs need that room for data more than they need extra horsepower.
HP's "Shorty" blade system eats up 6U of rack space and can hold 8 half-height servers or 4 full-height servers. It also has both 110 volt and 220 volt options. With HP's box, you are required to use storage blades or the disks on the server blades rather than separate disks.
The BladeCenter S will start at $2,599, according to IBM, while HP's system, shipping now, starts at $4,299. Both prices appear to cover the chassis, power supplies and fans. ®
COMMENTS
Density is not all
Cable reduction is a big deal, especially with SAN. Shared PSUs and fans also make sense. The real point (at least with blades from IBM, HP and Sun) is management and instrumentation that cannot be replicated with traditional servers in sheet-metal racks.
Virtualized I/O, headless, automated deployment, "hot-sparing" all rely on proprietary infrastructure.
VERY good for the vendors who win. VERY bad for the competitors who lose.
Customers give up easy switching between suppliers, but gain a lot from R&D which can only be spent in making vendor-specific features.
Re: 7U for 6 servers doesn't make sense
Once upon a time the idea of blades was more density and less cost (due to shared PSUs etc).
Now they seem to be sold on the basis of less cabling (because it's all built in) and ... I don't know. I've no idea why people buy them - they seem to be slightly bigger and much more expensive than 1U servers, with no killer advantage that I can see.
7U for 6 servers doesn't make sense...
...one could just use six 1U servers instead and save a bundle of money and 1U of space, or even put in the new Supermicro 1U servers that contain two motherboards side by side.
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