www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 5
•Reliability — Reliability is increases through redundant components and components are hot-
swappable. Other reliability features include:
– Hitachi ’s mainframe-class memory management
– Redundant switch and management modul es
– Extremely reliable backplane and I/O
– Multi-con figurable power supplies for N+1 or full redundancy options
– Failover protection following the N+M model — there are “M” backup servers for every “N” active
servers, so failover is cascading
– In the event of hardware failure, the system automatically detects the fault and identifies the
problem by indicating the faulty module, allowing immediate failure recovery.
•Configuration Flexibility — BladeSymphony 1000 supports Itanium and/or Xeon processor-
based server blades, Windows and/or Linux, and industry-standard, best-of-class PCI cards
(PCI-X and PCI Express), providing flexibility and investment protection. The system is extremely
expandable in terms of processor cores, I/O slots, memory, and other components.
Data Center Applications
With its enterprise-class features, BladeSymphony 1000 is an ideal platform for a wide range of data
center scenarios, including:
•Consolidation — BladeSymphony 1000 is an excellent platform for server and application
consolidation because it is capable of running 32-bit and 64-bit applications on Windows or Linux,
with enterprise-class performance, reliability, and scalability.
•Workload Optimiza tion — BladeSymphony 1000 runs a wide range of compute-intensive
workloads on either/both Windows and Linux, making it possible to balance the overall data center
workload quickly and without disruption or downtime.
•Resource Optimization — BladeSymphony 1000 enables the IT organization to increase
utilization rates for expensive resources such as processing power, making it possible to fine-tune
capacity planning and delay unnecessary hardware purchases.
•Reduce Cost, Risk, and Complexity — With BladeSymphony 1000, acquisition costs are
lower than traditional rack-mount servers. Enterprises can scale up on demand in fine-grained
increments, limiting capital expenditures. BladeSymphony 1000 also reduces the risk of downtime
with built-in sophisticated RAS features. And with support for industry standards such as Windows
and Linux, Itanium and Xeon processors, and PCI-X and PCI Express (PCIe) I/O modules,
BladeSymphony 1000 is designed for future and protects previous investments in technology.