IBM will soon begin shipping upgraded models of its HS20
and JS20 blade servers, including a new SCSI option for the HS20
that will double the number of SCSI blades that users can fit into
a single chassis.
The computer maker also announced new management software for
the servers designed to make them cooler and easier to manage.
Five new dual-processor models of the HS20 will ship with an
updated version of the 64-bit-capable Xeon processor, code-named
Nocona. With the new models, customers will now be able to include
SCSI-based hard drives in the blade systems so IBM's BladeCenter
will be able to house 14 HS20's.
The processors on the new HS20 models will come with clock
speeds ranging from 2.8GHz to 3.6GHz, and will feature a faster,
800MHz front-side bus, said Tim Dougherty, director of IBM eServer
BladeCenter.
They will also include new power management software, called
PowerExecutive, that will take advantage of Intel's SpeedStep
technology to give customers the option of slowing down the
processor clock speed on blades that are demanding excessive
amounts of power.
PowerExecutive "calculates all the power that's going to be
drawn for the BladeCenter," Dougherty said. "It also tells you who
are the power hogs for that group. It'll lower the performance that
they're getting, but at least they'll stay up."
Customers are still beginning to understand how to manage the
heat generated by blade systems, which pack a much larger number of
processors into a smaller space than conventional servers, said Jon
Enck, research vice-president, server and directory services, with
Gartner.
"Trying to figure out how to integrate them into the datacentre
is often challenging," he said. "Any relief that the suppliers can
provide in this area is always helpful to clients."
PowerExecutive will be available for the new HS20 systems when
those begin shipping 12 November. The software will be ported to
the JS20 in early 2005, Dougherty said.
IBM will begin shipping an upgraded version of its Power-based
JS20 blade server, with a 2.2GHz processor, on 29 October. The JS20
will now also support IBM's AIX 5L V5.2 operating system in
addition to Linux. The JS20 uses the same PowerPC 970 processor
that Apple Computer uses in its Power Mac G5 computers.
IBM was the number two blade supplier in 2003, behind
Hewlett-Packard, with 31% of the market, when measured by units
shipped, according to Enck.
But the BladeCenter design used by IBM, and jointly developed
with Intel, has gained some traction in the market since it was
conceived two years ago, he said. "There are quite a few of Intel's
white box suppliers that have picked up BladeCenter," he said.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service