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By
Jeff Wilson
IT World Canada
IBM Corp. announced on Tuesday the release of its new
thin-design blade server that will allow six units to fit in an
industry-standard rack, giving it the ability to scale up to 84 two-way
servers in a single rack.
The eServer BladeCenter is based on a plug-and-play design with a
removable card that plugs into a chassis, that
in turn plugs into a rack. It also features Intel’s fast Xeon processor.
The BladeCenter combines
high-performance computing resources and shared infrastructure to create
a cost-effective, high-density solution helping enterprises to meet their
infrastructure needs in a data centre, IBM said.
The blade server can hold 84 two-way servers per rack
that connect to shared resources, such as power, cooling, switching and
management, through the midplane. IBM said it
is aiming to compete with Hewlett Packard’s ProLiant
BL20p system with its offering.
Blade servers offer a lot of benefits for
enterprises, according to Stephen Ibaraki, a North Vancouver-based
information systems professional and Canadian Information Processing
Society (CIPS) member
"Since power consumption can be much less and
they (blade servers) take up less space. These blade servers can reduce
computing costs," he said. "Hundreds of servers can be placed
into the same space where only a few could be placed before, and fewer
fans are needed for heat dissipation."
Ibaraki believes the IBM servers will go "mainstream" from Web hosting to applications.
But, he said, performance and reliability will have to be displayed
before enterprises will jump on board.
"IBM will have to prove that they are reliable
and that the performance is there before companies move more of their
core functionality to this technology. The concept is attractive,"
he said.
The BladeCenter will
support Linux, Microsoft Windows and Novell Netware. The server will be
available worldwide beginning in November at a base price of US$1,879.
According to an International Data Corp. (IDC) study
titled Blade Market Update: The Competitive Landscape in 2002, the
blade server market is set to grow to almost US$3.7 billion by 2006.
IBM can be found at http://www.ibm.com.
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