Five misunderstandings about blade servers

Misunderstanding 1: the chassis and Middle board will become a "short board"

Today, there are fewer complaints about Blade Server heat dissipation and power supply, replacing it with the chassis and Middle board as a new object of criticism. At the CIO seminar held on a website earlier this year, some users pointed out that the chassis and middle panel (or backpanel) will become the "short board" of the blade server ", because all the server blades (Blade) and switches are connected/inserted on the Middle board, once the Middle board is damaged, the consequences are unimaginable, and the chassis also has similar problems. This concern is actually largely due to subjective inference.

First, the chassis is a shell, which is very likely to be damaged and there is no worries. What really needs to be concerned is the Middle Plate of the blade server. In the middle board Redundancy Design, the IBM and HP methods are different ., This is the Middle Plate of the IBM BladeCenter blade service. We can see that there are 14 signals and power connectors on both sides of the air outlet. The full configuration of the IBM BladeCenter blade service is 7 U14 (7U height, 14 BLADES ).

The Middle Plate of the HP BladeSystem blade server does not adopt this type of up and down Redundancy Design. According to HP engineers, the connection between the Middle Plate and the plug-in such as the server blade does not have any electrical indicator, the connection between them is purely connected to the electrical connection between the connectors through the Controller. They are dual-redundant and can be replaced online. HP engineers pointed out that BladeSystem's Middle board may also be damaged, but as a pure connection plug-in, its probability is very low, which is the conclusion after full lab authentication, the service life can reach several hundred thousand times. He pointed out that if the design adopts up-and-down redundancy, once the side is damaged, or the replacement is not performed, the redundancy protection is lost and the reliability is reduced. If a replacement is performed, there will be only downtime, which is a dilemma for users.

Misunderstanding 2: vendor binding due to missing standards

Standardization is also a hot topic for a long time. Several mainstream blade service providers have different specifications and standards. For example, IBM provides five cabinets, including BladeCenter S, E, H, T, and HT, among them, the mainstream product is BladeCenter E, and its configuration is 7U14; H is 9U14, while H and HT are chassis designed for telecommunication and high performance. The HP BaldeSystem c-Class Series Blade service is divided into C3000 and C7000, of which C3000 is designed for small and medium-sized enterprises and the specification is 7U8; C7000 is 1016. The hp c Series Blade has the distinction between full height and half height, and AMD and Intel blade. It is a dual-Link service product with dual-core and dual-core. The full-height server occupies up and down two slots, mostly an Teng or multi-channel server. Up to now, it can support 4 dual-core an Teng or 4-core Xeon processor blades. In addition, HP provides blade storage and tape drives.

Different Specifications and systems make it impossible for service blades of different manufacturers to be mixed. From the overall perspective of the market, the lack of standards is not conducive to the formation of large-scale consumption, will affect the cost of blade service device consumption. However, this does not directly affect the application of the blade server. No matter which type of Blade Server you use, you can achieve rapid deployment, green energy saving, and easy governance.

The investment of related users will not be protected in the future. For example, if users only purchase a small number of blade servers, when the user's business reaches a certain scale, it may be 2 ~ Three years later, the user will not be able to find the server blade compatible with the chassis, resulting in waste. In fact, this is not a "sin ". For the user scale, you can choose either BladeCenter S or BaldeSystem C3000, or simply choose a domestic blade service device. These blades fully consider the size and usage of small and medium-sized enterprises in the design. Taking BaldeSystem C3000 as an example, it is designed as a 7U8 chip. Eight blades are not a large volume. for small and medium-sized enterprises, multiple servers are required for applications such as email, file sharing, Web, human resources, and finance. In addition, some key applications, such as database applications that require a full-height server and storage and tape drives, do not need to worry about the scale.

Misunderstanding 3: virtual connection is equivalent to Virtualization

Virtual Connection of the blade server. HP is called Virtual Connect, and IBM Implements similar functions through BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager software. A virtual connection is a service blade. For example, if A fails, it should be replaced with A redundant D blade in idle state. With the support of virtual connection, D can directly replace, you do not need to reconfigure any related network or storage parameter configurations. The server blade can be "out-of-the-box". The management between the server blade and the network and storage becomes simple and transparent, this is a virtual connection.

In the industry, virtual connection and virtualization of the blade server are often confused. It should be noted that the blade server does not support virtual connections unconditionally under any conditions. The blade server can support virtual connection only when the network module of HP (switch used for Blade service) is used. If you choose a Cisco, Brocade, or Foundry network module, the blade server does not support virtual connections unless these modules are also provided with corresponding functions.

Misunderstanding 4: Blade changes User Network Structure

Because each server blade in the chassis is connected by a network module (switch), although these network modules are also optional. However, compared with the rack-mounted server, is it difficult to add a network module (switch) layer between the server blade and the LAN switch? In addition, will the network module of the blade server become a new bottleneck.

Related technical engineers pointed out that in most cases, the blade server network module will not become a bottleneck, because it has many options that support Gigabit Ethernet, it can also support 10 Gbit/s, FC, Infiniband, and so on. Its network module also has a 2/3-layer switch function. In addition, for extraordinary applications, you can also achieve transparent transmission of the blade server. For example, the Pass Through module provided by hp c series provides a straight-Through LAN connection for the blade server. One-to-one Nic used for distribution frame connection, providing non-blocking network connection capability.

The flexible networking capability of the blade server provides users with more options. In addition, problems related to expansion, such as connecting applications with multiple NICs, can also meet application requirements through corresponding expansion modules.

Misunderstanding 5: Blade Server heat dissipation Problems

In the design of the blade server, heat dissipation is a key concern, but do not mistakenly think that the blade server will generate more heat and consume more air conditioners for cooling. On the contrary, the refrigerating capacity required by the blade server is reduced by 25% instead of being added to the same number of 1U rack servers.

This conclusion is not difficult to understand. In the interview, the related product manager pointed out that the blade server is not extraordinary in terms of components, the processor, hard disk, and memory used by it are no different from the rack server. There is no such problem as using a laptop hard disk to relieve the heat dissipation pressure. In fact, the Blade in the Blade server can be equivalent to the rack server.

The blade server differs from the rack-mounted server in terms of shared power supply, fan, and chassis. In terms of the number of power supplies and fans, the blade server is reduced, so it is more energy-saving and the heat generated is also reduced. Although different vendors have adopted different heat dissipation solutions, they can all meet the heat dissipation needs of the blade server. In addition, compared with the rack-mounted server, the blade server has a relatively closed space, so its heat dissipation efficiency is higher.