IBM BladeCenter Chassis User Manual

IBM BladeCenter S

Distributed, small office,

easy to configure

IBM BladeCenter T

Ruggedized

IBM BladeCenter H

High performance

IBM BladeCenter E

Best energy efficiency,

best density

IBM BladeCenter HT

Ruggedized,

high performance

IBM BladeCenter Chassis

Product Guide

September 2008

Table of Contents

Overview 3
BladeCenter Chassis Positioning 4
IBM BladeCenter Chassis 6
BladeCenter I/O Modules 30
Rack vs. Blades Positioning 33
Citrix Solution 37
Virtualization Solution 38

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

2.

Overview

You need to make IT decisions that will drive business success. You face management challenges and technological
complexity such as space constraints, power and cooling limitations, heterogeneous environments and I/O connectivity
issues. IBM brings together the widest choice of compatible chassis, blade servers, storage and networking offerings and
solution providers in the industry to help you build an open and flexible IT environment. And regardless of the size of your
business, you want to be up and running 24/7. With built-in redundancy, innovative power and cooling and the latest I/O
and management tools, IBM BladeCenter is easy to own—so you can focus on your business demands and stay ahead of
the competition.

The RIGHT choice, tailored to fit your diverse needs.

• It’s flexible and modular. As needs evolve, a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work.
– Meet your needs with BladeCenter: everything from a high-performance data center to a small office with limited IT

skills—IBM has you covered

– Get flexibility w ith 5 compatib le chassis and 5 blade types supporting multiple I/O fabrics, all managed from a common

point

• It’s robust and reliable, providing redundancy throughout and the information you need to keep your business up and running.
– Provide redundancy for no single point of failure with I BM BladeCenter
– Preserve application uptime w ith IBM Predictive Fa ilure Analysis
– Make decisions based on accurate data for quick pro blem diagnosis with First Failure Dat a Capture

OPEN and innovative, for a flexible business foundation.

• It’s comprehensive, providing broad, fast, and reliable networking and storage I/O with BladeCenter Open Fabric.
– Match your data center needs and t he appropriate interconnect using a common management point, and 5 I/O fabrics to

choose from

– Extract the most from y our third-party management solutions by utilizing the BladeCenter Open Fabric Manag er

• It’s collaborative, enabling you to harness the power of the industry to deliver innovation that matters.
– Get flexibility from a my riad of solutions created by Bla de.org members and industry leaders that ha ve downloaded our

open specification

EASY to deploy, integrate and manage.

• It enables efficient integrated management, which allows you to minimize costs with the tools y ou need for effective
management.

– Automate OS inst allation and BIOS updates remotely w ith IBM Director tools
– Administer your blades at the chassis or rack level with the Advanced Management Module
– Plug into y our enterprise management software

• It enable deployment simplicity without tradeoffs by speeding the deployment of new hardware in minutes rather than
days, using BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager

– Get significantly faster deployment of servers and I/O than from rack solutions
– Reduce costly downtime with integrated failover capability
– Manage from a single point of contr ol via the Advanced Management Module
– Use with virtually all IBM switche s, blades and chassis

GREEN today for a better tomorrow.

• It offers control via powerful tools that help you optimize your data center infrastructure so you can be respon sive.
– Understand your power requirements with IBM Pow er Configurator
– Monitor, control and virtua lize your power with IBM Systems Director A ctive Energy Manager for x86
– Reduce data center hot spots w ith the IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger
– Optimize and futur e-proof your data center with IBM Data Center Energy Efficiency services

• Our eco-friendly servers and services can help you be environmentally responsible.
– Become more energy efficient with IBM expertise

®

and light path diagnostics

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

3.

BladeCenter Chassis Positioning

Which BladeCenter Chassis is Right for You?

IBM offers five different BladeCenter chassis built across a consistent architecture. The chassis are targeted to meet your
unique requirements, yet all encompass the same commitment to excellence. Remember, BladeCenter blades and
switches can be seamlessly moved between chassis. This offers investment protection and incredibly flexible, mix-and­match deployment choices.

IBM BladeCenter S

BladeCenter S is the chassis designed specifically for the mid-market such
as small offices, and remote branch locations.. Features include:

• Configurable “business in a box” foundation combines sharable integrated
storage with blades and switches

• Comes standard with the BladeCenter Start Now Advisor, which enables
easy set up , with “select and click” configurability

• Up to 6 blades, 7U design (convertible to floor-standing configuration using
the BladeCenter Office Enablement Kit)

• Up to 12 SAS and/or SATA 3.5-inch HDDs, for an all-in-one chassis
containing up to 3.6TB of SAS or 12TB of SATA enterprise-class storage

• Auto sensing 110V or 220V power

• Lowest IT staff requirements

• Lowest total power consumed

• Lowest total heat output

IBM BladeCenter E

BladeCenter E is the core chassis, perfect for mainstream applications, SMBs, data centers and remote sites.

• Up to 14 blades, 7U design

• Highest rack density

• Best energy efficiency per blade

• Best heat efficiency per blade

• Low airflow requirement

• Supports 10Gb Ethernet uplinks and 4Gb Fibre Channel

• Planned availability through 2011

IBM BladeCenter H

BladeCenter H is right for clients looking for next-generation, high-speed I/O—
whether InfiniBand

• Up to 14 blades, 9U design

• Highest available I/O performance

• Greatest I/O flexibility with up to 8 switch bays

• Hardware-based I/O virtualization

• Supports 30mm blades with up to 8 I/O ports

• Supports 10Gb Ethernet and 4X InfiniBand

• Planned availability through 2011

IBM BladeCenter T

BladeCenter T is a NEBS 3-compliant, ruggedized chassis ideal for telecom, military
and medical-imaging applications.

• Up to 8 blades, 8U design

• Non-traditional enviroment support—NEBS 3/ETSI

• Ruggedized chassis

• AC and DC power input

• Planned availability through 2011

™

, Fibre Channel or 10Gb Ethernet

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and

information.

4.

IBM BladeCenter HT

BladeCenter HT is a new telecommunications-optimized version of IBM
BladeCenter H. It delivers outstanding core network performance and high-speed
connectivity.

• Up to 12 blades, 12U design

• Non-traditional environment support—NEBS 3/ETSI (planned)

• Greatest I/O flexibility with up to 8 switch bays

• Supports 30mm blades with up to 8 ports

• Supports 10Gb Ethernet and 4X InfiniBand

• Ruggedized chassis

• AC and DC power input

• Planned availability through 2011

Compare all this flexibility to what HP has to offer:

Customer Need IBM Answer HP Answer
Small office or remote location: BladeCenter S BladeSystem c-Class 3000
High-efficiency data center: BladeCenter E BladeSystem c-Class 7000
Maximum system density: BladeCenter E BladeSystem c-Class 7000
Maximum application performance: BladeCenter H BladeSystem c-Class 7000
Ruggedized: BladeCenter T NA
Telecom NGN: BladeCenter HT NA
Back-end database: System x3850 M2/x3950 M2 BladeSystem c-Class 7000

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

5.

Product Overview

CONTENTS

Product Overview 6
Selling Features
Key Features
Key Options
BladeCenter S Images
BladeCenter S Specs
BladeCenter E Images
BladeCenter E Specs
BladeCenter H Images
BladeCenter H Specs
BladeCenter T Images
BladeCenter T Specs
BladeCenter HT Images
BladeCenter HT Specs
Side-by-Side Comparison 26
Chassis/Module/Blade

Compatibility
I/ O Module Compatibility

15
16
18
19
20
20
21
22
23
23
25
25

28
28

IBM BladeCenter Chassis

Today’s data center environment is tougher than ever. You are looking to reduce IT cost,
complexity, space requirements, power consumption and heat output, while increasing
flexibility, utilization and manageability. Moving to innovative IBM
IT foundation can help you accomplish all of these goals.

The IBM BladeCenter family tightly integrates servers, storage, networking, I/O and
applications, allowing you to build a flexible IT infrastructure that is robust, integrated and
virtualized using common building blocks. This modular technology integrates Intel

®

, as well as IBM POWER™ or Cell Broadband Engine™ (Cell/B.E.) processor-

AMD

based blade servers, supporting many operating systems.

7

All BladeCenter chassis offer impressive features and an extreme degree of compatibility
with one another. For example, a single BladeCenter E or BladeCenter H chassis
supports up to 14 hot-swappable 30mm-wide blade servers in only 7U (BladeCenter E)
or 9U (BladeCenter H) of rack space, up to 8 hot-swappable blades in the rugged 8U
BladeCenter T chassis, or up to 12 in the 12U BladeCenter HT high-speed
telecommunications chassis. In addition to the blade servers, these chassis also hold up
to 4 switches (BladeCenter E/BladeCenter T), up to 10 switches/bridges (BladeCenter
H), or 8 switches/bridges (BladeCenter HT) internally. The BladeCenter S, designed for
SMB and mid-market customers, takes integration to a new level, combining up to 12 hot­swap SAS/SATA HDDs with 6 blade servers and 4 switches. Using a BladeCenter E
chassis, up to 84 blade servers (168 processors with multiple cores per processor) can
be installed in one industry-standard 42U rack.

Not only can this degree of integration save significant data center space (and therefore
the cost of floor space and rack hardware) compared to 1U servers, but consolidating
switches/bridges and cables reduces complexity and helps lower cabling costs, and it
allows clients to manage everything in the solution as one. But the value of BladeCenter
extends far beyond high-density data center environments. For small and medium
businesses, as well as remote branch offices with significant computing needs, the
compact 7U BladeCenter S houses up to 6 30mm blades, along with 12 3.5-inch hot-
swap SAS or SATA HDDs, and 4 switches in one chassis. And the setup wizard;
BladeCenter Start Now Advisor makes it extremely easy to get started.

The various BladeCenter chassis are designed to monitor environmental conditions in the
chassis and each blade and send alerts to the administrator. Advanced standard features
help maintain system availability with increased uptime. These features include

Predictive Failure Analysis
supplies and blower/fan modules with Calibrated Vectored Cooling™; IPMI 2.0

support with highly secure remote power control; text-console redirect over LAN,
and an Advanced Management Module (upgradeable with a redundant AMM).

If you need a highly manageable, power-efficient, highly compatible family of blade
enclosures, BladeCenter is the ideal choice.

™

, light path diagnostics, hot-swap redundant power

®

BladeCenter® as your

®

and

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

6.

Selling Features Price/Performance

• The extremely high degree of integration in the various BladeCenter chassis reduces
the need for server components, replacing numerous fans, KVM and Ethernet cables,
power supplies, external switches and other components with fewer shared hot­swap/redundant components in the BladeCenter chassis themselves. This integration also
can greatly reduce the amount of power consumed and heat produced, relative to an
equivalent number of 1U servers—or competitive bade systems. This can sign ificantly
reduce a data center power bill. The reduced datacenter footprint can also save on
infrastructure cost.

• BladeCenter Virtual Fabric delivers a flexible, open, connected infrastructure to help
optimize application performance. BladeCenter supports many different fabrics, including
Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, iSCSI, and a new SAS fabric, providing an easy
transition to diskless, stateless servers. This helps cent ralize storage, offering boot
capability, which can dramatically reduce the likelihood of a disk outage. Dual SATA­attached solid state drives can greatly improve drive availability.

• Blade servers communicate directly to switch modules inside the BladeCenter
Virtual Fabric via redundant Ethernet links to help increase the speed and efficiency
of data transfers across blade servers and networks. In addition, the midplanes used
in all chassis provide high-speed blade-to-blade (via high-availability firmware) and
module-to-module communications internally as well as externally. The midplane used
in the BladeCenter H and HT provides four 10Gb data channels to each blade, and
supports 4X InfiniBand (HT only) and 10Gb Ethernet high-speed switch modules.

• IBM Cool Blue technology’s web-based Power Configurator accurately predicts the
power and cooling required for specific configurations, thereby enabling realistic planning
of the correct power and cooling infrastructure. The IBM Systems Director Active
Energy Manager for x86 (formerly known as PowerExecutive) tool tracks actual power
usage, temperatures and heat emitted, and plots trends over time so you can actively
manage power and cooling with real information. Active Energy Manager also will manage
through power incidents (e.g., brownouts or supply failures.) to help users avoid outages
due to power and cooling issues. IBM’s Rear Door Heat Exchanger can help address hot
spots in the data center. Cool Blue’s Active Energy Manager also provides an industry ­unique capability to virtualize power (capping) and move it from one server to another, as
required. This capability helps maximize server usage within a restricted power envelope.

• The IBM BladeCenter family features the industry’s most energy-efficient design. The
various BladeCenter chassis use ultrahigh efficiency power supplies. Most industry­standard servers use power supplies that are between 65-75% efficient at converting
power from AC wall current to the DC power used inside servers. BladeCenter power
modules are up to 91% efficient
power input you are paying for is used for processing, rather than released into the data
center as waste heat.

• BladeCenter also reduces the number of parts required to run the system. Sharing
fans, systems management, floppy devices and media means fewer parts to buy and
maintain, and fewer items that can fail and bring the solution down.

. This helps save even more money, as more of the

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

Flexibility/Durability

• Every HS/LS/JS blade server ever released by IBM is supported in BladeCenter H and
BladeCenter HT, and most are supported in every BladeCenter chassis ever released,

going back to 2002. Every switch module released by IBM is equally compatible. (Ask HP
and Dell how far back their compatibility goes.) Future blades and fabric switches are
expected to continue to be compatible with previous chassis for the foreseeable future.

• The optional Multi-Switch Interconnect Module (MSIM) installs in a high-speed switch
module bay of a BladeCenter H chassis and doubles the number of Gigabit Ethernet and
Fibre Channel connections to every blade in the chassis (up to 8 or 12 ports, depending
on the switch).

• A blade server has access to as many as 10 communication switches/bridges in a
BladeCenter H or 8 in a BladeCenter HT chassis. (Up to 4 sw itches in a BladeCenter or
BladeCenter T chassis.) And the switches can be Ethernet, InfiniBand, Fibre Channel,
Myrinet, or anything else designed and ServerProven for BladeCenter use. Switche s,

bridges and interface cards are currently available from such vendors as Brocade, Cisco,

®

, Nortel/Blade Network Technologies, QLogic, Cisco and others, in addition to IBM.

Intel

• Nearly 100 vendors are offering options for the BladeCenter family.

Manageability

• IBM System Director provides powerful, intelligent solutions management for the
BladeCenter family, for rock-solid reliability. System Director exploits the hardware’s

7.

capabilities by “surfacing” pertinent information about your blade server. The easy-to-use
Deployment Wizard also provides step-by-step installation instructions and offers
automated deployment capabilities.

• Each BladeCenter chassis includes an Advanced Management Module (AMM). The
AMM boosts
help reduce costs, improve overall productivity and make administration easier. Unlike
traditional servers and some competitive blades with a myriad of separate management
tools, this management module provides a single point of control for the solution and
supports many industry-standard, open protocols. The AMM provides systems
management capabilities, including Web-based out-of-band control; virtual floppy and CD-

ROM support; Windows “blue screen” error capture; LDAP and SSL support; and remote
redirection of video, text, keyboard and mouse for the chassis and the components

installed in the chassis.

• IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager for x86, an IBM-exclusive, is designed
to take advantage of new system power management features, by monitoring actual
power usage and providing power consumption capping features. More accurate power
usage data helps with data center construction planning and the sizing of power and
cooling needs, as well as allowing you to use available power more efficiently.

• IBM System Director is included for proactive sy stems management and works with both
the blade’s internal BMC and the chassis’ management module. It comes with a portfolio
of tools, including IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager for x86, Management
Processor Assistant, RAID Manager, Update Assistant, and Software Distribution. In
addition, IBM System Director offers extended systems management tools for additional
server management and increased availability. When a problem is encountered, IBM
System Director can issue administrator alerts via e-mail, pager, and other methods.

• BladeCenter provides real-time hardware event monitoring with IBM Service Manager.
Service Manager simplifies operations for remote branch users and beginner BladeCenter
users by automating notification of service and support so that users will be contacted w ith
resolutions to problems when they occur.

administrator productivity and reduces skill level requirements, w hich can

Availability and Serviceability

• BladeCenter chassis are designed for operation with greatly reduced potential for
single points of failure. Most aspects of operation, from blade servers to communication
modules, to management modules, to power and blower/fan modules, are hot­swappable and redundant. The midplane connections are redundant and other features

can be made so, when used in pairs.

• Environmentally tuned blower/fan modules in the chassis 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 blowers/fans
produce less ambient noise in the data center than if they were constantly running at full
speed.

• A standard three-year (parts and labor) limited onsite warranty
mind and greater potential investment protection.

BladeCenter Chassis

IBM’s blade architecture offers five choices of chassis in which to use various blade
servers. Each chassis serves different customer needs. The new BladeCenter S is a
small, entry-level chassis that offers compatibility and interoperability with the other
chassis. The original BladeCenter E chassis offers maximum density, great flexibility and
a wide variety of expansion options at an entry-level price. The next-generation
BladeCenter H chassis offers all of BladeCenter’s capabilities, and adds new high­performance features. If you need a ruggedized chassis (for example,
government/military or telcos), BladeCenter T offers special features optimized for those
environments. The next-generation BladeCenter HT is a high-performance ruggedized
telecommunications platform. There is a high degree of interchangeability and
compatibility of features among the chassis. Any or all of these chassis can be installed in
a rack along with other rack-optimized equipment.

1

affords you peace of

1

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.

8.

BladeCenter S provides:

• A choice of installation methods — Designed for either rack or deskside use with the
optional Office Enablement Kit, it’s ideal for offices or remote/branch locations.

• Integrated compute blades, SAN storage, and switches in one chassis — In addition
to six blade servers, the BladeCenter S also supports 12 shared hot-swap 3.5-inch

SAS, SATA, or Nearline SAS HDDs, and four integrated sw itches (two Ethernet, plus
two Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, or RAID SAS Controllers, which can enable true

shared storage).

• Six 30mm blade slots — These hot-swap slots are capable of supporting any
combination of 6 HC10/HS12/HS20/HS21/HS21 XM (Intel Xeon), LS2 0/LS21/LS22 (AMD

®

Opteron

), and JS12/JS21/JS22 (IBM PowerPC® 970FX/MP) blade servers, or 3 double­wide (60mm) LS41/LS42 blade servers or a mixture of 30mm and 60mm blades. It also
supports multiple optional 30mm Expansion Units in combination with the blade servers,
using the same blade slots. Up to six chassis can be installed in an industry-standard 42U
rack, for a total of up to 36 30mm blade servers and 72 HDDs per rack, plus switches, with
full power redundancy.

• Standard office 110V power or 220V power — Don’t have a data center, but still want to
consolidate many servers into a few? No problem. BladeCenter S runs on standard office
power (as well as 220V), using an auto-sensing power supply.

• Simplified setup and configuration — BladeCenter S’s configurable “business in a box”
foundation offers the BladeCenter Start Now Advisor, a wizard-based installation tool on a
DVD that is shipped standard with every chassis. You can be up and running in minutes. A
user can literally plug the blade servers into the system, plug the sy stem into a power
outlet, and launch a management tool that enables easy select-and-click configuration via
an "express" install. For businesses operating branch offices—such as retailers or financia l
institutions—IT administrators at headquarters can easily pre-configure hundreds of blade
systems to operate in the same manner and ship them out the door knowing an office
employee will be able to simply plug a system in and power it up.

• Forward and backward compatibility — Most blades, and every switch and passthru
module released by IBM for BladeCenter E since 2002, are supported. Many new blades
and 1X fabric switches released for IBM BladeCenter E, BladeCenter H, BladeCenter T, or
BladeCenter HT are also supported in the BladeCenter S chassis.

• One module bay for hot-swap Advanced Management Module — The management
module provides advanced systems management and KVM capabilities for not only the
chassis itself, but for all of the blades and other modules installed in the chassis. The
management module provides capabilities similar to the IBM Remote Supervisor
Adapter II used in stand-alone IBM System x

™

or IBM eServer™ xSeries® rack and tower
servers. The features of the management module can be accessed either locally or
remotely across a network. One module comes standard.

• One module bay for hot-swap Serial Passthru Module — This module provides six
RJ45 serial ports (one per blade). The ports are numbered 1 through 6, and correspond to
blade slots 1 through six.

• Two bays for hot-swap Storage Modules — Each module supports up to 6 hot-swap
SAS, SATA, or Nearline SAS drives (12 total), for an internal capa city of up to 3.6TB

(using 300GB SAS HDDs) or 12TB (using 1TB SATA drives). The drives can be mixed
within a Storage Module. The drives can be shared by one or more blades. If any drives
are installed, one or two (for redundancy) SAS Connectivity Modules or the SAS RAID

Controller Modules must be installed in switch bays 3 and/or 4. (In addition, if you have
BladeCenter Storage and I/O Expansion Unit blades, which attach to the HS and LS

blades, these are supported as well.)

• Four module bays for hot-swap communication and I/O switches — The modules
interface with all of the blade servers in the chassis and eliminate the need for external
switches or expensive, cumbersome, and error-prone cabling. All connections are done
internally via the midplane. All modules, when installed in pairs, offer load balancing and
failover support. Integrated switch modules mean that no extra “U space” is required in
the rack. The first two bays support Ethernet switches only (one comes standard). The
other two bays support Ethernet, Fibre Channel, or SAS switches. Either one or two of a
kind is required in Bays 3 and 4. (No mixing and matching between the pair.)

• Four module bays for Fan Modules — Four hot-swap/redundant blower modules
come standard with the chassis. (Each module contains two fans.) They are capable of
providing efficient cooling for all blades, switches and storage devices. These modules
replace the need for each blade to contain its own fans. The four fan modules are more
energy efficient than dozens or hundreds of smaller fans would be, and they offer many
fewer points of potential failure.

• Four module bays for hot-swap Power Modules — BladeCenter S ships with two 950W

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

9.

/ 1400W high-efficiency hot-swap/redundant power modules (upgradeable to four),

r

capable of handling the power needs of the entire chassis. Many servers use power
supplies with an efficiency level of approximately 65-75%. Because BladeCenter S uses
power supplies that are at least 90% efficient, much less power is wasted as heat. Not
only is more power available for chassis use, there is less power wasted as excess heat
output. Two additional power modules must be installed when the second Storage Module
is used.

• Redundant midplane connections — Each chassis contains a midplane that connects
all blades and modules together internally. The midplane provides two physical
connections to each blade; therefore, a failure of one connector alone cannot bring down
the server.

• A hot-swappable Media Tray containing a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive, two USB 2.0 port,
two BBU module bays, and a light path diagnostic panel—the media tray is shared by

all the blades in the server. This eliminates unnecessary parts (and reduces the number of
parts than can fail). In the event of a failure of the Media Tray the tray can be swapped for
another. While the tray is offline, the servers in the chassis can remotely acce ss the Media
Tray in another chassis. The diagnostic LEDs indicate chassis status.

It is extremely important to include all infrastructure costs when comparing a
BladeCenter S solution to a competitor’s offering, not just the cost of the chassis and the
blades. The high density and level of integration of the BladeCenter chassis greatly
reduces the cost of the overall solution. For example, because up to six chassis will fit in
a rack, this means that up to 24 switches can be installed per rack without having to
reserve any “U” space for the switches, unlike the competition. (And the integrated
switches may be less expensive than external, self-powered switches.) Plus, the number
of power distribution units (PDUs) needed per rack may be reduced, because there
are fewer discrete devices to have to plug in. In addition, because all the blades are
connected to all the switches inside the chassis, there is no need for external Ethernet
or other communication cables to connect the blades and switches. (Only the few
cables needed to connect the switches to the external world are required.) This not only
saves the cost of numerous cables per rack, but also the clutter and bother of routing that
many cables. An added bonus is potentially much freer airflow behind the rack, due to
fewer cables.

BladeCenter E is a 7U chassis that provides:

• Reduced single points of failure — Many major components (either standard or
optionally) are hot-swappable and/or redundant. Servers and modules can be
configured for automatic failover to backups.

• Forward and backward compatibility — Most blades, and every switch and passthru
module released by IBM for BladeCenter E since 2002, are supported. Many new blades
and fabric switches released for IBM BladeCenter H, BladeCenter T, or BladeCenter HT
are also supported in the BladeCenter E chassis.

• Fourteen 30mm blade slots — These hot-swap slots are capable of supporting almost
any combination of 14 HC10/HS12/HS20/HS21/HS21 XM, LS20/LS21, and

JS12/JS20/JS21, or QS20 (Cell/B.E) blade servers, or 7 double-wide (60mm) HS40 or
LS41 blade servers or a mixture of 30mm and 60mm blades. (Note: The QS20 blade
cannot be mixed with other blades.) It also supports multiple optional 30mm Expansion
Units in combination with the blade servers, using the same blade slots. Up to six chassis

can be installed in an industry-standard 42U rack, for a total of up to 84 30mm blade
servers per rack, with full power redundancy.

• Four module bays for communication and I/O switches — The modules interface with
all of the blade servers in the chassis and eliminate the need for external switches or
expensive, cumbersome, and error-prone cabling. All connections are done internally via
the midplane. Two module slots are reserved for hot-swap/redundant Gigabit Ethernet
switch modules. The other two bays support additional Gigabit Ethernet modules, or Fibre
Channel, InfiniBand, and other switch modules or pass-through devices. All modules,
when installed in pairs, offer load balancing and failover support.
modules mean that no extra “U space” is required in the rack.

• Two module bays for management modules (IBM BladeCenter Management Module
or the newer Advanced Management Module, depending on the model of the BladeCenter
chassis) — The management module provides advanced systems management and
KVM capabilities for not only the chassis itself, but for all of the blades and other modules
installed in the chassis. The management module provides capabilities similar to the IBM
Remote Supervisor Adapter II used in stand-alone IBM System x

®

rack and tower servers. The features of the management module can be

xSeries
accessed either locally or remotely across a network. One module comes standard. A
second management module can be added for hot-swap/redundancy and failover.

• Two module bays fo

Blower Modules—Two hot-swap/redundant blower modules

Integrated switch

™

or IBM eServer™

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

10.

come standard with the chassis. They are capable of providing efficient cooling for up to 14
blades. These modules replace the need for each blade to contain its own fans. The two
blowers are more energy efficient than dozens or hundreds of smaller fans would be, and
they offer many fewer points of potential failure.

• Four module bays for Power Modules — BladeCenter E ships with two 2000W high-
efficiency hot-swap/redundant power modules (upgradeable to four), capable of

handling the power needs of the entire chassis. Many servers use power supplies with an
efficiency level of approximately 65-75%. Because BladeCenter E uses power supplies
that are at least 90% efficient, much less power is wasted as heat. Not only is more power
available for chassis use, there is less power wasted as excess heat output. Two
additional power modules must be installed when more than 6 blades are used in a
chassis.

• Redundant midplane connections — Each chassis contains a midplane that connects
all blades and modules together internally. The midplane provides two physical
connections to each blade; therefore, a failure of one connector alone cannot bring down
the server.

• A hot-swappable Media Tray containing a DVD-ROM drive, a floppy drive, one USB

1.1 port, and a light path diagnostic panel — The media tray is shared by all the blades

in the server. This eliminates unnecessary parts (and reduces the number of parts than
can fail). In the event of a failure of the Media Tray the tray can be swapped for another.
While the tray is offline, the servers in the chassis can remotely access the Media Tray in
another chassis. The diagnostic panel contains LEDs that indicate chassis status.

• IBM Airborne Contaminant Filter, which helps protect the blade server’s vital
components in non-data center environments.

It is extremely important to include all infrastructure costs when comparing a
BladeCenter E solution to a competitor’s offering, not just the cost of the chassis and the
blades. The high density and level of integration of the BladeCenter chassis greatly
reduces the cost of the overall solution. For example, because up to six chassis will fit in
a rack, this means that up to 84 blade servers/processors can be installed. (Some
competitive blade offerings would require a second rack for this many blades.) Also,
because up to four Ethernet, Myrinet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or other switches can be
installed per chassis, up to 24 switches can be installed per rack without having to
reserve any “U” space for the switches, unlike the competition. (And the integrated
switches may be less expensive than external, self-powered switches.) Plus,
of power distribution units (PDUs) needed per rack may be reduced, because there
are fewer discrete devices to have to plug in. In addition, because all the blades are
connected to all the switches inside the chassis, there is no need for external Ethernet
or other communication cables to connect the blades and switches. (Only the few
cables needed to connect the switches to the external world are required.) This not only
saves the cost of numerous cables per rack, but also the clutter and bother of routing that
many cables. An added bonus is potentially much freer airflow behind the rack, due to
fewer cables.

the number

BladeCenter H is a high-performance 9U chassis, designed for compute-intensive

environments, such as Earth/Life Sciences, commercial analytics and next-generation
network (NGN) applications. Think of it as BladeCenter E’s big brother, with more speed
and more features. It provides:

• Reduced single points of failure — Many major components (either standard or
optionally) are hot-swappable and/or redundant. Servers and modules can be
configured for automatic failover to backups.

• Forward and backward compatibility — Every blade, switch, and passthru module
released by IBM for the original BladeCenter E chassis since 2002 is supported in the
BladeCenter H chassis.

• High-speed redundant midplane connections — Based on 4X InfiniBand, the
midplane supports up to 40Gb bandwidth and provides four 10Gb data channels to each
blade. By giving each blade two physical connections to the midplane that connects a ll
blades and modules together internally, a failure of one connector alone cannot bring
down the server.

• Fourteen 30mm blade slots — These hot-swap slots are capable of supporting any
combination of 14 HC10/HS12/HS20/HS21/HS21 XM, LS20/LS21, JS20/JS21/JS22, and

QS21/QS22 (Cell/B.E), or 7 double-wide (60mm) HS40 or LS41 blade servers, or a
mixture of 30mm and 60mm blades. It also supports multiple optional 30mm Expansion
Units in combination with the blade servers, using the same blade slots. Up to four

chassis can be installed in an industry-standard 42U rack, for a total of up to 56 30mm
blade servers per rack.

• Up to ten module bays for communication and I/O switches or bridges — The

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

11.

modules interface with all of the blade servers in the chassis and alle viate the need for
external switches or expensive, cumbersome, and error-prone cabling. All connections are
done internally via the midplane. Two module slots are reserved for hot-swap/redundant
Gigabit Ethernet switch modules. Two slots support either high-speed bridge modules
or legacy Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet , Fibre Channel, InfiniBand and other switch
modules. Two slots are dedicated for bridge modules. Four additional slots are dedicated
for hot-swap/redundant high-speed switch modules. All modules, when in stalled in
pairs, offer load balancing and failover support.

• Integrated switch and bridge modules mean that no additional rack “U” space is
required.

• Two module bays for Advanced Management Modules — The management modules
provide advanced systems management and KVM capabilities for not only the chassis
itself, but for all of the blades and other modules installed in the chassis. The Advanced
Management Module provides capabilities similar to the IBM Remote Supervisor
Adapter II SlimLine used in stand-alone System x rack and tower servers. Features
include concurrent KVM (cKVM), an external Serial over LAN connection, industry­standard management interfaces (SMASH/CLP/CIM/HPI), USB virtualization, network
failover and backward compatibility with the original Management Module, among others.
The features of the module can be accessed either locally or remotely across a network.
One module comes standard. A second module can be added for hot-swap/redundancy
and failover. The module uses USB ports for keyboard and mouse.

• Two module bays for Blower Modules — Two hot-swap/redundant blower modules
come standard with the chassis. They are capable of providing efficient cooling for up to 14
blades. These modules replace the need for each blade and switch to contain its own
fans. The blowers are more energy efficient than dozens or hundreds of smaller fans
would be, and they offer many fewer points of potential failure. BladeCenter H also
includes up to four additional hot-swap/redundant fan packs to cool the power supplies
and high-speed switch modules.

• Four bays for Power Modules — BladeCenter H ships with two 2900W high-efficiency
hot-swap/redundant power modules (upgradeable to four), capable of handling the

power needs of the entire chassis, including future higher-wattage processors. Each
power module includes a customer-replaceable hot-swap/redundant fan pack (3 fans) for
additional cooling capability.

• A hot-swappable Media Tray containing an optional DVD/CD read only or CVD/CD
multi-burner drive, two USB 2.0 ports, and a light path diagnostic panel — The media

tray is shared by all the blades in the server. This reduces unnecessary parts (and reduces
the number of parts than can fail). In the event of a failure of the Media Tray the tray can
be swapped for another. While the tray is offline, the servers in the chassis can remotely
access the Media Tray in another chassis. The light path diagnostic panel contains LEDs
that indicate chassis status.

• Multi-Switch Interconnect Module (MSIM) — When installed in a BladeCenter H high-
speed switch bay, the optional IBM Multi-Switch Interconnect Module (MSIM) doubles the
number of ports available to any blade server in the chassis. Depending on the switch, this
can mean up to 8 or 12 Gigabit Ethernet or Fibre Channel ports per blade.

• A serial breakout port with optional cable — This provides a direct serial connection to
each blade server installed in the chassis, as an alternative to Serial over LAN. (Note: This
applies only to newer blades that include this capability.)

• It is extremely important to include all infrastructure costs when comparing a
BladeCenter H solution to a competitor’s offering, not just the cost of the chassis and the
blades. The high density and level of integration of the BladeCenter H chassis can greatly
reduce the cost of the overall solution. For example, because up to four chassis will fit in a
rack, this means that up to 56 blade servers can be installed. Also, because up to 10
(1Gb or 10Gb) Ethernet, Myrinet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or other bridges and switches
can be installed per chassis, up to 40 switches and bridges can be installed per rack
without having to reserve any “U” space for the switches, unlike the competition. (And the
integrated switches may be less expensive than external, self-powered switches.) Plus,
the number of power distribution units (PDUs) needed per rack may be reduced,
because there are fewer discrete devices to have to plug in. In addition, because all the
blades are connected to all the switches inside the chassis, there is no need for external

Ethernet or other communication cables to connect the blades, bridges and
switches. (Only the few cables needed to connect the switches to the external world are

required.) This not only saves the cost of numerous cables per rack, but also the clutter
and bother of routing that many cables. An added bonus is potentially much freer airflow
behind the rack, due to fewer cables.

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

BladeCenter T is a carrier grade, rugged 8U (20-inch deep) chassis designed for
challenging central office and networking environments. It provides:

12.