Abstract

The HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure is the next generation in an evolution of the entire rack- mounted infrastructure. The c3000 Enclosure is designed for remote sites, small and medium-sized businesses, and data centers with special power and cooling constraints. This technology brief provides an overview of the HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure, including a comparison with the enterprise-class HP BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure, Thermal Logic power and cooling technologies, and interconnect options.

This technology brief assumes the reader is familiar with HP ProLiant server technology and has some knowledge of general BladeSystem architecture. For more information about the infrastructure components, see the HP website at www.hp.com/go/bladesystem/.

Overview of HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure

The HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure, announced in September 2007, is the newest enclosure implemented using the BladeSystem c-Class architecture. While the c7000 Enclosure is optimized for enterprise data center applications, the c3000 Enclosure is optimized for other computing environments, such as remote sites or small businesses. More information on c-Class architecture and the c7000 Enclosure is available on the HP technology website at www.hp.com/servers/technology.

The c3000 Enclosure fits into standard size HP and third-party racks, and accommodates c-Class form-factor server/storage blades and interconnect modules. It has the flexibility to scale from a single enclosure holding up to 8 server blades, to a rack containing 7 enclosures holding up to 56 server/storage blades total. It is optimized for data centers with special power and cooling constraints, such as DC powered racks, or data centers with low power and cooling capacities (under 4000 watts per rack). The c3000 Enclosure is designed for use with management devices such as local KVM switches for local administration.

The HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure has a fully redundant design with redundant signal paths between servers and interconnect modules. The enclosure is available with a single-phase power subsystem. It can be populated with the following components:

•Up to 4 full-height (FH) server blades or up to 8 half-height (HH) server and/or storage blades per enclosure

•Up to 4 interconnect modules simultaneously supporting a variety of network interconnect fabrics such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel (FC), InfiniBand (IB), Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI), or Serial-attached SCSI (SAS)

•Active Cool fan kits for a maximum of 6 fans

•Up to 6 power supplies, accepting either low-line (100 to 120 volts alternating current [VAC]), or high-line (200 to 240 VAC) power input

•Onboard Administrator (OA) management module

•Optional DVD drive

•Optional KVM enclosure module for connecting the c3000 to a in-rack KVM switch

Both c-Class enclosures have common critical components such as servers, interconnects, mezzanine cards, storage blades, power supplies, and fans. Table 1 lists components supported by the c3000 and c7000 Enclosures.