IBM specifications IBM BladeCenter HX5, Product Overview

Optimized for virtualization and database applications with maximum memory and compute capacity in a blade

Product Guide

August 2010

IBM BladeCenter HX5

Product Overview	Scalable 2-to-4-socket blade server optimized for
	virtualization/consolidation, database, and ERP

CONTENTS

Product Overview

Selling Features

Key Features

Key Options

HX5 Images

HX5 Specifications

The Bottom Line

Server Comparison

For More Information

Legal Information

Suggested uses: Front-end and mid-tier applications requiring high performance (CPU, memory or I/O), enterprise-class availability, and extreme flexibility and power efficiency.

IBM® has been designing and implementing chipsets under the X-Architecture®name since 2001. eX5 technology represents the fifth generation of products based on the same design

1principle IBM began with in 1997: to offer Intel® Xeon® processor-based systems that are

2expandable, offer “big iron” reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features, with extremely competitive price/performance.

6 The eX5 technology is primarily designed around three major workloads: database servers,

13server consolidation using virtualization services, and Enterprise Resource Planning (application and database) servers.

15If you’re using industry-standard servers to run business critical applications, the systems that

16run these applications need the type of technology designed into IBM’s eX5 technology systems. The eX5 chipset represents a $100M+ investment in designing a flagship offering that can

18	harness the power of 4-socket-and-up 64-bit x86 (x64) Xeon processors. The eX5 family
20	includes a scalable performance blade server with the ability to scale from a single-wide blade
	(30mm) to a double-wide blade (60mm). Maybe you’d like to start out with a 2-socket blade and
21	possibly add sockets later, if your needs change. Or perhaps you need more than a 2-socket
	blade, but don’t want to get locked into a monolithic 4-socket blade—again, in case your

21requirements change. With IBM, you can start at 2 sockets and grow to 4 if needed. And if you require a variety of 2- and 4-socket servers in your data center, you only have to qualify one server for all these workloads. This can save much time and effort and speed deployment. You can also save money on software licensing by virtualizing a 4-processor server into many VMs, rather than using multiple 2-processor servers. Huge amounts of memory also enable more or larger VMs, and larger databases (especially databases stored entirely in memory).

Reducing an entire server into a little over .5U of rack space (i.e., up to 14 servers in 9U) does not mean trading away features and capabilities for smaller size. The IBM BladeCenter® HX5 blade server offers features comparable to many 1U rack-optimized full-featured servers, and then some: The HX5 supports up to two of the latest high-performance 8-core,6-core, or 4-coreIntel Xeon 7500 and 6500 Series processors. The Xeon processors are designed with up to 24MB of shared cache and leading-edge memory performance (up to 1066MHz using MAX5, depending on processor model) to help provide the computing power you require to match your business needs and growth. In addition, the HX5 supports up to 128B of registered double data rate III (DDR3) ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) memory in 16 DIMM slots, with multiple

levels of IBM Active Memory™ protection, for the highest levels of performance and availability. Active Memory protection includes IBM Memory ProteXion™, IBM Chipkill™ memory, memory scrubbing, memory rank sparing, and memory mirroring.

Because business requirements change and a 2-socket server that meets those needs today may not meet them in the future, the HX5 was designed to be upgradeable to meet the diverse needs of multiple workloads. For compute-intensive workloads, it can be configured as a 2- wide blade server with up to 4 processors / 32 cores, 32 DIMMs (256GB), 4 PCIe cards, 16 I/O ports, and 4 solid-state drives (SSDs). Conversely, for memory-intensive workloads, the HX5 can be configured as a 2-wide server consisting of 1 blade server and 1 MAX5 memory expansion blades, with up to 40 DIMMs (320GB), or as a 4-wide server comprising 2 blade servers and 2 MAX5 memory expansion blades, with up to 4 processors / 32 cores, 80 DIMMs (640GB), 4 PCIe cards, 16 I/O ports, and 4 SSDs. IBM FlexNode partitioning allows a physical 4-blade configuration to be remotely reconfigured by software into two logical 2-socket servers, as needs change or for daily peak and off-peak workloads.

The HX5 supports VMware ESXi preloaded on a standard USB flash drive. It operates in a diskless configuration, offers a smaller memory footprint, extremely high performance, and stronger security, making getting a system up and running in a virtualized environment faster and easier than ever before.

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

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