IBM Bladecentre-H

[stek]

Just been playing with one at work. Well, the AMM GUI, don't actually know where the box is. I fancy one for the shed-server-stack chez-stek but after checking the PSU's, four of them, they are rated 2980W each! Four of 'em!!

Solar panels maybe? Wind farm in the garden?

[CheeseSlice]

IBM?...where do you plug the green screen terminal?

[stek]

IBM?...where do you plug the green screen terminal?

No! You get to click on stuff now! AMM is a very nice interface actually, much better the HMC one which is well wank...

[bobspud]

Be aware that those lil' beasts use that power as well. I found one hiding in a clients racks not doing very much and even then it was drawing almost the entire rack limit of 6 kva.

Unless you want to burn your shed down I would steer very clear of having that sort of kit at home

[AtW]

Blades is a nice idea but it was born at the time when energy was cheap and data centers were charging for rackspace with power included.

Blades ain't cheap either in the first place - what's the point to pack so much density (and take all risks associated with it) when there is plenty of space in rack to fill it up with cheap low power commodity boxes?

[bobspud]

Blades is a nice idea but it was born at the time when energy was cheap and data centers were charging for rackspace with power included.

Blades ain't cheap either in the first place - what's the point to pack so much density (and take all risks associated with it) when there is plenty of space in rack to fill it up with cheap low power commodity boxes?

The trouble I have found with them is that while you gain the density you still end up buying the same amount of racks as you would if using 2u or 4u boxes because you need the blank floor spaces to even out the power of the one full rack.

[AtW]

The trouble I have found with them is that while you gain the density you still end up buying the same amount of racks as you would if using 2u or 4u boxes because you need the blank floor spaces to even out the power of the one full rack.

Aye - blades also not saving much money and much harder to resell, plus they are not suitable for large IO scenarios where lots of disks are necessary.

Now if 64-bit ARM blades that use a LOT less power could become interesting, but that's a few years away...

[stek]

The trouble I have found with them is that while you gain the density you still end up buying the same amount of racks as you would if using 2u or 4u boxes because you need the blank floor spaces to even out the power of the one full rack.

But the sheer wattage astounded me, an equally capable POWER7 frame surely would use a lot less, assuming POWER here not Intel Blades..

12000W or so!! I'm sure the erstwhile 2k-on-Ebay Sun E10K's didn't use that....

[bobspud]

But the sheer wattage astounded me, an equally capable POWER7 frame surely would use a lot less, assuming POWER here not Intel Blades..

12000W or so!! I'm sure the erstwhile 2k-on-Ebay Sun E10K's didn't use that....

They were three phase commando sockets with leads as thick as your thumb. I had some e4500's (5) for a while but the village kept blowing transformers and i looked at my electric bill

I would like a look at one of these arm super computers that dell took over. They look fairly clever...

[stek]

Aye - blades also not saving much money and much harder to resell, plus they are not suitable for large IO scenarios where lots of disks are necessary.

Now if 64-bit ARM blades that use a LOT less power could become interesting, but that's a few years away...

Aye but disk would be from SAN but then again - i've no idea what the IO is like on Blades, is there fibre, NPIV?

The ones we have are 64-bit POWER6/7 and I hear POWER7 is quite 'green' but I suspect that's marketing bollocks...