Workhorse 2-socket single- or dual-core Intel Xeon blade server
BladeCenter Chassis
IBM offers three choices of chassis in which to use the HS20 blade server. Each chassis serves different customer needs. The original BladeCenter 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 high-performance features. For those customers in need of a ruggedized chassis (for example, government/ military or telcos), BladeCenter T offers special features optimized for those environments. There is a high degree of interchangeability and compatibility of features among the three chassis. Any or all of these chassis can be installed in a rack along with other rack-optimized equipment.
BladeCenter is a 7U chassis that provides:
•Reduced single points of failure — Many major components (either standard or optionally) are hot-swappableand/or redundant. Servers and modules can be configured for automatic failover to backups.
•Forward and backward compatibility — Every blade (but one) and every switch and passthru module released by IBM for BladeCenter since 2002 is supported. New blades and fabric switches released by IBM for BladeCenter H or BladeCenter T will also be supported in the original BladeCenter chassis for the foreseeable future.
•Fourteen 30mm blade slots — These hot-swapslots are capable of supporting up to 14 HS20 or HS21 (Xeon), LS20 (AMD® Opteron®), and JS20/JS21 (IBM PowerPC 970FX/MP) blade servers, or 7 double-wide (60mm) HS40 blade servers or a mixture of 30mm and 60mm blades. It also supports 30mm optional Storage and I/O Expansion Units, Memory and I/O Expansion Units (for HS21), and/or PCI I/O Expansion Unit IIs 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 slots 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 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. Integrated switch modules mean that no extra rack “U space” is required.
•Two module bays for management modules (IBM BladeCenter Management Module or the new 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™ 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. A second Management Module can be added for hot-swap/redundancyand failover.
•Four 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 7 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. Two additional blower modules can be installed when more than 7 blades are used in a chassis.
•Four module bays for Power Modules — BladeCenter 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 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.
•Redundant Midplane connections — By giving each blade two physical connections to the midplane that connects all blades and modules together internally, a failure of one connector 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 light path diagnostic panel contains LEDs that identify which internal components are in need of service.
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