IBM 250000, 190000 User Manual
Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
Product Guide
March 2009
Product Overview
CONTENTS
Product Overview 1
Selling Features 2
Key Features 4
Key Options 12
x3550 M2 Images 14
x3550 M2 Specifications 15
The Bottom Line 17
Server Comparison 18
For More Information 19
Legal Information 19
IBM System x3550 M2
Outstanding innovation in only 1U
Suggested Uses: All sectors requiring highly available, energy-efficient, rack-optimized solution
for physical and virtual intensive commercial environments like eBusiness/eCommerce,
collaboration, virtualization, database, and enterprise resource planning applications.
Your challenge is to do more with less—serve more Web pages, handle more secure
connections, support more e-mail users. You need to reduce the costs of doing business and
improve the service you deliver to your customers while lower your overall risk. The dual-socket
®
System x3550 M2 can reduce your costs with its new energy smart design. It can improve
IBM
service with reduced operational complexity and increased management functionality. It will lower
your IT risk with the resiliency that comes from no single point of failure. And like all IBM servers,
the x3550 M2 offers you the trust that comes from the IBM global reach, service and support.
The x3550 M2 is not simply an upgrade to a previous server. It is one of our new generation of
X-Architecture servers. It is a game-changing, completely redesigned rack server using
significantly less power with unified systems management tools, leadership reliability, availability,
serviceability features and broad systems flexibitliyt housed in a compact 1U mechanical
package.
The x3550 M2 features Intel
cache, to help provide you with the computing power you need to match your business needs
and growth. This new line of Intel processors delivers unprecedented intelligent performance with
features like adaptive performance for applications and environments, turbo boost and hyperthreading technology, and integrated power gates and automated power management.
The x3550M2 uses up to 16 DIMMs with 128GB of registered 1333MHz DDR3 memory with
™
Chipkill
For even higher levels of availability, the x3550M2 also offers online memory mirroring. Up to 4
integrated high-speed Gigabit Ethernet controllers with TOE (TCP Offload Engine) and Jumbo
Frame support are available, as are two high-performance adapter slots (PCIe x16). The
x3550M2 offers an optional embedded hypervisor to manage your virtual workloads.
The x3550 M2 offers a choice of up to six high-performance hot-swap hard disk drives with an
internal storage capacity of 1.8TB (six 2.5-inch hot-swap Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) or SATA
HDDs)
offer up to 300GB of storage.
controllers which provide broad levels of hardware-based RAID solutions. The ultradense 1U
form factor allows businesses to increase their computing power and spread their workload
without outgrowing their current data center. Up to 42 of these 1U servers can be installed in a
single 42U rack, for a total of up to 84 processors and 336 processor cores, offering tremendous
deployment flexibility. Optional Advanced Connectivity Technology (ACT) interconnect cabling
reduces cable clutter and cost and minimizes installation time when interconnecting many rackmounted servers.
Standard in the x3550 M2 is the Integrated Management Module (IMM) that enables the user to
manage and control the server easily—both locally and remotely. In conjunction with the IMM, the
x3550 M2 comes with an altitude sensor (altimeter), which governs fan rotation based on
altitude to help lower your energy consumption. The IMM offers a high level of manageability that
is designed to keep costs down and the system up—even when network usage increases. IBM’s
innovative pop-out/drop-down light path diagnostics panel enables quick servicing of the
system if a problem develops. These advanced features help maximize network availability by
increasing uptime, as do hot simple-swap solid-state drives; hot-swap/redun dan t S AS or
SATA HDDs, redundant ultra-efficient power supplies and fans; Active Memory
RAID; temperature-controlled fans with Calibrated Vectored Cooling
including highly secure remote power control and Serial over LAN; as well as text-console
redirect over LAN.
Another improvement with the new generation of X-Architecture is the replacement of old BIOS
ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) protection—for high performance and reliability.
Optional solid-state drives are also available to keep power low and improve resiliency and
®
Xeon® 5500 Series Processors and either 8MB or 4MB of shared
The server supports a choice of four IBM ServeRAID® storage
™
™
; IPMI 2.0 support,
; integrated
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
1
Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
with a new generation United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). UEFI provides a more
intuitive user interface and understandable event logs and better management.
With the inclusion of unique IBM service and support features such as the IMM, light path
diagnostics, IBM Systems Director 6.1, IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager, IBM
ServerGuide
x3550 M2 is designed for superior uptime.
If you need highly manageable, dual-socket/multi-core computing power in a rack-dense
package, the x3550 M2 is the ideal system.
™
and support for the optional Virtual Media Key for remote presence capability, the
Selling Features
Price/Performance
The x3550 M2 offers numerous features to boost performance and reduce costs:
• Up to two 4-core Xeon 5500 Series processors and 8MB or 4MB of shared cache per
processor, offer superior performance capable of tackling the toughest jobs. 64-bit
extensions provide the flexibility to run 32-bit and 64-bit applications concurrently. Xeon 5500
series processors offer up to 225% better performance than the previous-generation 5400
series processors and up to 900% better performance than the single-core processors of a
few years ago that you may still be using.
• Low-voltage processors draw less energy and produce less waste heat than high-voltage
processors, thus helping to reduce data center energy costs. Some 4-core Xeon 5500 Series
processors use only 60W. This is less than half the wattage consumed by older 130W
processors.
• Sixteen DIMMs of ultra-fast registered 1333MHz DDR3 ECC memory with Chipkill
protection (using x8 DIMMS) provides speed, high availability, and a memory capacity of up
128GB.
• Optional 32GB and 50GB solid-state drives (SSD) use only 2W of power per drive, vs. 9-
10W for 2.5-inch HDDs. This is as much as 80% less power than a 2.5-inch HDD would use
(with a corresponding reduction in heat output).
• The x3550 M2 is a leader in server resiliency. With hot-swap power supplies, fans, and
storage, the x3550 M2 has no single point of failure.
• The altimeter works in conjunction with IMM to govern fan rotation. which can help save
money at lower altitudes because the fans do not have to spin at high speed.
• Two high-speed PCIe x16 adapters (Gen 2) slots offer investment protection by supporting
high-performance adapters, such as 10Gb Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand™ cards,
none of which will run in older 33MHz and 66MHz conventional PCI slots.
• Integrated ServeRAID-BR10i provides RAID-0/1/10 support without consuming a valuable
adapter slot. RAID-0/1/10 offers improved disk performance via data striping; RAID-1 offers
disk mirroring for high availability, and RAID-10 combines the benefits of speed and
availability. The x3550 M2 also supports full RAID-0/1/10/1E/5/6 using the optional
ServeRAID-MR10i card. It also offers higher performance, due to the 256MB battery-backed
onboard cache.
• Up to six 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS hard disk drives offer high-performance with high
availability. The SAS controller provides full-duplex (bi-directional 300MBps) data transfers
for SAS drives.
• The integrated dual Gigabit Ethernet controllers with IPMI 2.0 support provide high-speed
network communications. Jumbo Frames offer higher efficiency transfers for large data
packets. Two more NICS can be supported on the planar with an additional Dual Port GbE
daughter card.
• The TCP Offload Engine (TOE) feature offers higher performance for TCP/IP traffic, with less
overhead on the system processor.
• A high degree of device integration—including SAS/SATA or SSD, multiple ServeRAID
options, up to four Gigabit Ethernet ports, systems management and video controllers—
lowers costs and frees up valuable adapter slots.
1
error
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All models require Chipkill-enabled DIMMs (provided standard) for Chipkill protection.
Flexibility
The x3550 M2 has the ability to grow with your application requirements, thanks to
• A choice of quad-core or dual-core processors with 1.86 to 2.93GHz clock rates, up to 6.4
gigatransfers per second, Turbo Boost and Hyper-threading technology, and 60W to 95W
maximum power draw.
• Up to 128GB of high-speed fully-buffered DDR3 system memory.
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
2
Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
• Two available high-performance PCIe x16 adapter slots in all models. Optionally, if desired,
the riser card containing one of the PCIe slots can be exchanged for a riser containing a PCI-
X/133 adapter slot.
• Installing the ServeRAID MR10i option upgrades the basic ServeRAID functionality
controller with 256MB of low-cost, battery-backed cache to enable even higher-performance
hardware RAID support, and allows the x3550 M2 to offer six RAID levels: RAID-0, 1, 10, 1E,
5 and 6. The optional ServeRAID MR10M controller supports up to four IBM System
™
Storage
storage.
• The four USB 2.0 ports (two front, two rear) are up to 40X faster
This provides speedy access to external HDDs (non-arrayed), optical drives, tape drives, and
other USB devices. Two ports are on the front of the unit and two are on the back.
• A choice of up to six 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA HDDs or solid-state drives or eight 2.5-
inch drives and one internal tape drive offer a variety of storage options. The SAS and SATA
models provide a maximum of 1.8GB of internal hot-swap storage.
• Alternatively, iSCSI or Fibre Channel-attached storage can be attached using IBM System
Storage™ servers.
EXP3000 expansion units containing up to 48 SAS HDDs and 14.4TB of external
2
than older USB 1.1 ports.
Manageability
Powerful systems management features simplify local and remote management of the x3550 M2:
• The x3550 M2 includes the IMM to monitor server availability, perform Predictive Failure
Analysis, etc., and trigger IBM Systems Director alerts. The IMM enables service personnel to
use sophisticated diagnostic tools, such as light path diagnostics, to resolve problems quickly.
• Integrated industry-standard Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) next-generation
BIOS. New capabilities include:
Human readable event logs – no more beep codes
Complete setup solution by allowing adapter configuration function to be moved into
UEFI
Complete out-of-band coverage by Advance Settings Utility to simplify remote setup
• Integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 support.
• Integrated IPMI 2.0 support alerts IBM Systems Director to anomalous environmental factors,
such as voltage and thermal conditions. It also supports highly secure remote power
control using data encryption.
• IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™, an IBM-exclusive, is designed to take
advantage of new system power management features, by providing power monitoring and
power capping features.
• Text Console Redirection support allows the administrator to remotely view x3550 M2 text
messages over Serial or LAN.
• The completely redesigned IBM Systems Director is included for proactive systems
management. IBM Systems Director comes with a portfolio of tools, including Management
Processor Assistant, Rack Manager, RAID Manager, Update Assistant and Software
Distribution. In addition, IBM Systems Director offers extended systems management tools for
additional server management and increased availability. When a problem is encountered,
IBM Systems Director can issue administrator alerts via e-mail, pager, and other methods.
• An optional Virtual Media Key provides additional systems management capabilities, including
Web-based out-of-band control; virtual floppy and optical drive support; Windows “blue
screen” error capture; LDAP and SSL support; and remote redirection of PCI video, text,
keyboard and mouse. And it does all this without consuming a valuable adapter slot.
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Data transfer rates may be less than the maximum possible.
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Chipkill protection is supported with x4 DDR-3 DIMMs, but not x8 DIMMs.
Availability and Serviceability
The x3550 M2 provides many features to simplify serviceability and increase system uptime:
• x3550 M2 servers use Chipkill ECC memory protection
than standard ECC memory at correcting memory errors. This can help reduce downtime
caused by memory errors.
• The x3550 M2 offers selectable memory mirroring for redundancy in the event of a non-
correctable memory failure
• Toolless cover removal provides easy access to upgrades and serviceable parts. Similarly,
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. Chipkill memory is up to 16X better
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
3
Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
Key Features
the Virtual Media Key and the ServeRAID-BR10i controller can be installed and replaced
without tools. This means less time (and therefore less money) spent servicing the x3550 M2.
Similarly, hot-swap/redundant HDDs, fans and power supplies, as well as online mirrored
memory, mean greater system uptime while these components are being serviced.
• New toolless slides ship with the server, together with a Cable Management Arm (CMA),
that allows the rack server to easily slide into place
• IBM Thermal Diagnostics allows the administrator to evaluate thermal data on the server
without taking the hardware offline. This can provide greater server uptime.
• The drop-down light path diagnostics panel and individual light path LEDs quickly lead the
technician to failed (or failing) components. This simplifies servicing, speeds up problem
resolution and helps improve network availability.
• Integrated RAID-1 disk mirroring and RAID-10 striped mirrored arrays standard enable
the server to keep operating in the event of a failure to any one drive.
• IPMI 2.0 supports highly secure remote system power control using data encryption. This
allows an administrator to restart a server without having to visit it in person, saving travel time
and getting the server back up and running quickly and securely. It also adds new features to
those provided by IPMI 1.5, including VLAN support, Serial over LAN, enhanced
authentication and encryption algorithms (RMCP+, SHA-1, AES) and a firmware firewall.
• Altitude- and temperature-controlled fans adjust to compensate for changing thermal
characteristics. At the lower speeds they draw less power and suffer less wear. Equally
important in a crowded data center, temperature-controlled fans produce less ambient noise in
the data center than if they were constantly running at full speed.
• The three-year (parts and labor) limited onsite warranty
and greater investment protection than a one-year warranty does.
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helps afford you peace of mind
High-Performance Xeon 5500 Series Processors
The x3550 M2 supports up to two high-performance Intel Xeon processors, allowing you to
upgrade to a second processor as your business needs require. The x3550 M2 offers a choice of
processor clock rates, memory access speeds and energy efficiency, including:
• 95W quad-core Xeon 5500 Series Processor advanced performance models X5570, X5560,
or X5550 at 2.93, 2.8, 2.66GHz respectively running 6.4GT (gigatransfers/second) with 8MB
of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, and Intel Turbo Boost technology.
• 80W quad-core Xeon 5500 Series Processor standard performance models E5540, E5530,
or E5520 at 2.53, 2.4, 2.26GHz respectively running 5.8GT with 8MB of L3 processor cache,
1066MHz memory access, and Intel Turbo Boost technology.
• 80W quad-core Xeon 5500 Series Processor basic models E5506 and E5504 at 2.13 and
2.0GHz running 4.8GT with 4MB of L3 processor cache and 800MHz memory access.
• 60W quad-core Xeon 5500 Series Processor low-voltage models 5520, L5506 at 2.26,
2.13GHz respectively running 5.8GTand 4.8GT with 8MB and 4MB of L3 processor cache,
1066MHz memory access, and Turbo Boost technology.
• 80W dual-core Xeon 5500 Series Processor model E5502 at 1.86GHz running 4.8GT with
4MB of L3 processor cache and 800MHz memory access.
With the Xeon 5500 Series processors, Intel has diverged from its traditional Symmetric
Multiprocessing (SMP) architecture to a Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture. The
Xeon 5500 processors are connected through a serial coherency link called QuickPath
Interconnect (QPI). QPI is capable of 6.4, 5.6 or 4.8 GT/s (gigatransfers per second), depending
on the processor model.
Dual-core Xeon processors contain two complete processor cores; quad-core processors,
similarly, contain four cores. Some processors contain one unified cache shared by all cores,
while other processors have multiple independent caches (one per pair of cores). The shared
cache is dynamically allocated between the cores as needed. The multiple cores appear to
software as multiple physical processors. The dual-core processors offer considerably higher
performance than a same-speed Xeon processor with a single core. Likewise, quad-core
processors offer considerably higher performance than a same-speed Xeon processor with dual
cores.
Turbo Boost Technology dynamically turns off unused processor cores and increases the clock
speed of the cores in use, by up to two model frequencies. For example, with three cores active,
4
For terms and conditions or copies of the IBM Statement of Limited Warranty, call 800-772-2227 in the U.S. In Canada call 800-
426-2255. Telephone support may be subject to additional charges. For warranties including onsite labor, a technician is sent after
IBM attempts to resolve the problem remotely. International warranty service is available in any country in which this product is
sold.
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
4
Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
a 2.26GHz processor can run the cores at 2.4GHz. With only one or two cores active, the same
processor can run those cores at 2.53GHz. Similarly, a 2.93GHz processor can run at 3.06GHz
or even 3.33GHz. When the cores are needed again, they are dynamically turned back on and
the processor frequency is adjusted accordingly.
Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T) 64-bit extensions allow the Xeon processor to
use large memory addressing when running with a 64-bit operating system. This in turn lets
individual software processes directly access more than 4GB of RAM, which was the limit of 32bit addressing. This can result in much higher performance for certain kinds of programs, such as
database management and CAD. Additional registers and instructions (SSE3) can further boost
performance for applications written to use them. Contact your software provider to determine
their software support for EM64T.
Intelligent Power Capability powers individual processor elements on and off as needed, to
reduce power draw.
Execute Disable Bit functionality can help prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow
attacks when combined with a supporting operating system.
DDR-3 Registered Memory with Chipkill ECC Protection
The x3550 M2 ships with registered double data rate III (DDR-3) memory and provides Active
Memory features, including advanced Chipkill memory protection (optionally), for up to 16X
better error correction than standard ECC memory. In addition to offering better performance than
DDR-2 or fully-buffered memory, DDR-3 memory also uses less energy. DDR-2 memory alread y
offered up to 37% lower energy use than fully buffered memory. Now, a generation later, DDR-3
memory is even more efficient, using 22% less energy than DDR-2 memory.
The x3550 M2 supports up to 128GB of memory in sixteen DIMM slots. Redesign in the
architecture of the Xeon 5500 series processors bring radical changes in the way memory works
in these servers. For example, the Xeon 5500 series processor integrates the memory
controller inside the processor, resulting in two memory controllers in a 2-socket system. Each
memory controller has three memory channels. Depending on the type of memory, population of
memory, and processor model, the memory may be clocked at 1333MHz, 1066MHz or 800MHz.
Xeon 5500
Processor 0
Memory Controller
QPI
Memory Controller
Xeon 5500
Processor 1
Ch1Ch0 Ch2 Ch1 Ch0 Ch2
7
4
1
8
D1
5
D2
2
D3
1-16: DIMM population sequence , D1-D16: DIMM slot assignments
D4
D5
D6
6
D7
3
D8
15
12
9
D9
D10
D11
16
13
10
D12
D13
D14
14
D15
11
D16
Note: If only one processor is installed, only the first eight DIMM slots can be used. Adding a
second processor not only doubles the amount of memory available for use, but also doubles the
number of memory controllers, thus doubling the system memory bandwidth. If you add a second
processor, but no additional memory for the second processor, the second processor has to
access the memory from the first processor “remotely,” resulting in longer latencies and lower
performance. The latency to access remote memory is almost 75% higher than local memory
access. So, the goal should be to always populate both processors with memory.
The X55xx models support up to 1333MHz memory clock speed, while the E55xx-and-up and
L55xx-and-up models support up to 1066MHz clock speed, and the E550x models support
800MHz clock speed. Using 1333MHz memory (where supported) versus 1066MHz offers up to
9% better performance, while 1066MHz memory produces up to 28% better performance than
800MHz memory.
Xeon 5550 series processors access memory with almost 50% lower latency than the previous
generation 5400 series processors. That can result in faster processing of latency-sensitive
workloads.
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
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Leadership enterprise server with significantly lower cost of ownership in a highly available and
expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket server
This new processor design comes with some trade-offs in memory capacity, performance, and
cost: For example, greater memory capacity comes with lower memory speed. Alternatively, it
is possible to achieve the same memory capacity at lower cost but at a lower memory speed.
Regardless of memory speed, the Xeon 5500 platform represents a significant improvement in
memory bandwidth over the previous Xeon 5400 platform. At 1333MHz, the improvement is
almost 500% over the previous generation. This huge improvement is mainly due to the dual
integrated memory controllers and faster DDR-3 1333MHz memory. Throughput at 800MHz is 25
gigabytes per second (GBps); at 1066MHz it’s 32GBps; and at 1333MHz it’s 35GBps. This
improvement translates into improved application performance and scalability.
Memory interleaving refers to how physical memory is interleaved across the physical DIMMs. A
balanced system provides the best interleaving. A Xeon 5500 processor-based system is
balanced when all memory channels on a socket have the same amount of memory.
A memory rank is simply a segment of memory that is addressed by a specific address bit.
DIMMs typically have 1, 2 or 4 memory ranks, as indicated by their size designation.
• A typical memory DIMM description is 2GB 4Rx8 DIMM
• The 4R designator is the rank count for this particular DIMM (R for rank = 4)
• The x8 designator is the data width of the rank
It is important to ensure that DIMMs with appropriate number of ranks are populated in each
channel for optimal performance. Whenever possible, it is recommended to use dual-rank
DIMMs in the system. Dual-rank DIMMs offer better interleaving and hence better performance
than single-rank DIMMs. For instance, a system populated with six 2GB dual-rank DIMMs
outperforms a system populated with six 2GB single-rank DIMMs by 7% for SPECjbb2005. Dualrank DIMMs are also better than quad-rank DIMMs because quad-rank DIMMs will cause the
memory speed to be down-clocked.
Another important guideline is to populate equivalent ranks per channel. For instance, mixing
one single-rank DIMM and one dual-rank DIMM in a channel should be avoided.
Note: It is important to ensure that all three memory channels in each processor are populated.
The relative memory bandwidth decreases as the number of channels populated decreases. This
is because the bandwidth of all the memory channels is utilized to support the capability of the
processor. So, as the channels are decreased, the burden to support the requisite bandwidth is
increased on the remaining channels, causing them to become a bottleneck.
For increased availability, the x3550 M2 offers an additional (but mutually exclusive) level of IBM
Active Memory protection: online memory mirroring..
Memory mirroring works much like disk mirroring. The total memory is divided into two channels.
Data is written concurrently to both channels. If a DIMM fails in one of the DIMMs in the primary
channel, it is instantly disabled and the mirrored (backup) memory in the other channel becomes
active (primary) until the failing DIMM is replaced. One-half of total memory is available for use
with mirroring enabled. (Note: Due to the double writes to memory, performance is affected.)
Mirroring is handled at the hardware level; no operating system support is required.
DDR-3 memory is available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB DIMMs. DIMMs are installed individually
(not in pairs).
Drive Bays
The x3550 M2 contains six drive bays in all. Hot-swap drives may be inserted or removed
through the front of the server without powering off the system. Simple-swap solid-state drives
can be inserted or removed through the front of the server as well; however, the system power
must first be turned off.
For additional storage, a direct-attach, NAS or SAN external expansion option can be added,
using an optional controller.
A 24X/24X/24X/8X
ships standard in all x3550 M2 servers. No diskette drive is supplied with any model; an external
USB floppy drive may be used, if needed.
5
Variable read rate. Actual playback speed varies and is often less than the maximum possible.
Disk Controllers
All SAS-equipped x3550 M2 models include an integrated hardware based ServeRAID-BR10i
SAS/SATA controller. This controller supports up to six internal SAS, SATA or solid-state
drives.
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
5
speed (ultraslim, 0.5”) CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo drive with an IDE interface
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