Blade Server

The BladeSystem c7000 enclosure has had multiple versions, the first version of which was announced in June 2006. In 2007 there was a minor update to the first version that included a larger Onboard Administrator display (3 inches, up from 2 inches). The next update (second version) was in 2009 and brought RoHS compatibility, increased backplane speed (5Tbit/s, up from 4Tbit/s), 1Gbit/s Onboard Administrator connectivity, and increased blade connectivity options like: 2x 10Gbit/s Ethernet support, 4x QDR or 1x FDR InfiniBand port support, and 6Gbit/s SAS. The third version of the c7000 enclosure, called the c7000 Platinum Enclosure was released in February 2013. It features location discovery services, thermal discovery services and redesigned backplane. The new backplane increased aggregate bandwidth 40% from 5 to 7 Tbit/s to allow use newest high-speed interconnect modules (such as 16Gbit/s FC and multiple ports of 56Gbit/s FDR InfiniBand). Also the new Platinum Plus rating power supplies were announced with higher efficiency than previous Gold Plus rating power supplies.^[8]

All versions of the enclosure occupy 10 rack units and can accommodate up to 16 half-height blade servers. It includes space for 6 power supplies (single-phase, three-phase or a −48V DC), 10 cooling fans, 8 single-wide (such as 1/10Gbit/s Ethernet or 8/16Gbit/s FC) or 4 double-wide (such as 40Gbit/s Ethernet or Infiniband) interconnect modules (that allows for up to 4 redundant interconnect fabrics)

Outstanding efficiency and performance per watt.Enhance data center efficiency with the shared power, cooling, networking and management infrastructure of the PowerEdge M1000e Blade Enclosure.

The IBM® BladeCenter® 7873F2U server is a blade server based on the fifth generation of the Enterprise X-Architecture®, delivering innovation with enhanced scalability, reliability, and availability features to enable optimal performance for databases, enterprise applications, and virtualized environments.

The IBM BladeCenter HX5 supports up to two processors, using latest "EX" generation of Intel Xeon E7-4800 and E7-2800 series processors. Two HX5 servers can be connected together for a high-performance single image with four processors and up to 512 GB of RAM in a blade form factor. For applications that need to maximize available memory but that do not need four processors, a single HX5 server can be attached to a MAX5 memory expansion blade to form a single image with two processors and up to 1.25 TB of RAM. This level of processing and memory capacity is ideal for large-scale database or virtualization requirements.

The SN550 is a highly capable compute node that is part of Lenovo’s Flex System blade server architecture. Blade server systems allow for the pooling of system resources; power, cabling, management, networking, and cooling resources are all shared as a function of the blade chassis (see Lenovo Flex System Enterprise Chassis). The blade architecture saves on OPEX costs and allows for optimal server density, positioning Flex System well for both resource- and space-constrained environments.