Optimized for virtualization and database applications with maximum memory and compute capacity in a blade
IBM’s eX5 technology-based systems are the ideal solution for scale-up database-serving applications on Microsoft® Windows® with Microsoft SQL Server® or IBM DB2®, as well as Linux® with Oracle or DB2. Database hosting demands ultimate server reliability features, and once installed, they tend to grow and grow, requiring ever greater levels of availability. eX5 servers provide exactly that degree to availability.
Another strong application area for the eX5-based systems is enterprise server consolidation activities workloads, including SAP and Oracle. eX5 systems can offer considerable savings over UNIX deployments, using our certified solution stacks on either Windows or Linux.. Larger servers need more processor, memory and I/O resources, which make maximum use of any applicable virtual machine software licensing fees and deliver superior system utilization levels. The name of the game in consolidation activities is to deploy the fewest new servers possible and help IT staff manage more images with the same or fewer overall people.
An integrated dual-port Gigabit Ethernet1 controller is standard, providing high-speed data transfers and offering TOE (TCP Offload Engine) support, load-balancing and failover capabilities. Via optional expansion cards, each blade can also connect to additional Ethernet, 10Gb Ethernet, SAS, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, InfiniBand™, and other high-speed communication switches housed in the chassis. This blade is designed with power management capability to provide the maximum uptime possible for your systems. In extended thermal conditions or power brownouts, rather than shut down completely, or fail, the HX5 automatically reduces the processor frequency to maintain acceptable thermal and power levels.
All HX5 models offer impressive features at an equally impressive price, including up to two 1.8- inch fixed solid-state drives (SSDs) with RAID-0/1support, and one optional internal USB flash drive (for embedded hypervisor]. Additional direct-attach storage is available via the BladeCenter S chassis. Moreover, the HX5 is optimized for diskless operation, offering each blade server access to essentially unlimited external storage capacity via Fibre Channel, SAS, or iSCSI.
A single BladeCenter H chassis supports up to 14 hot-swappable30mm-wide HX5 blades in only 9U (BladeCenter H) of rack space, 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 10 (BladeCenter H) or 8 switches/bridges (BladeCenter HT) internally. The BladeCenter S, designed for SMB and mid-market customers, takes integration and affordability to a new level, combining up to 12 hot-swap SAS/SATA HDDs (with optional SAS card) and up to 6 blade servers and 4 switches. Not only can this save significant data center space (and therefore the cost of floor space and rack hardware) compared to 1U servers, it also consolidates switches/bridges and cables for reduced complexity and lower cabling costs, and it allows clients to manage everything in the solution as one. Using a BladeCenter H chassis, up to 56 HX5 servers (112 processors/896 cores) can be installed in one industry-standard 42U rack; but the value of BladeCenter extends far beyond high density data center environments.
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, such as Active Memory, Predictive Failure Analysis, light path diagnostics, hot-swap redundant SSDs and HDDs, power supplies and blower modules with Calibrated Vectored Cooling™; IPMI 2.0 support, including highly secure remote power control; text-console redirect over LAN, next-generation BIOS (UEFI), an Advanced Management Module (upgradeable with a redundant AMM), IBM Systems Director management software including IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager™. Remote Deployment Manager and IBM ServerGuide™ help maintain system availability with increased uptime.
If you need scalable, highly manageable, high-performance virtualization in a space- or power- constrained environment, the HX5 is the ideal system.
Selling Features | Price/Performance |
•There is an HX5 model to fit all budgets. The HX5 offers a choice of high-performance 4-, 6-, and 8- core Xeon processors with dual integrated memory controllers, clock rates of 1.86GHz to 2.26GHz,
and 12MB, 18MB or 24MB of integrated Level 3 cache. Xeon 7500 series processors offer up to 3X better performance2 than the previous-generation 7400 series processors and up to 10X better performance than the single-core processors of a few years ago that you may still be using.
•Up to 128GB of registered DDR3 ECC memory per blade operates at 800MHz to 1066MHz (depending on the system configuration), for high performance and wide memory bandwidth.
•By scaling to 2 blade servers, the HX5 can support up to 256GB of memory—enough for even the most demanding virtualization, database, or ERP needs. If even that’s not enough memory, using two blade servers and two MAX5 memory expansion blades, the HX5 can scale to 640GB.
1Actual data transfer speed will vary and is often less than the maximum possible. Gigabit Ethernet transfer speed requires support on both system and server, and appropriate network infrastructure.
2Based on Intel measurements.
