IBM Cuts Price of BladeCenter S SAS Module in Half

February 9, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In case you haven’t gotten the message, small and medium businesses, IBM really wants you to use its entry BladeCenter S chassis as your entire data center and stop buying rack and tower servers and other gear. Now that the BladeCenter S has disk expansion thanks to a new SAS module, this is possible. But it is still pricey.

And so, IBM has announced a special promotion, available for customers who buy directly from Big Blue’s online store, a 50 percent discount off the BladeCenter S SAS RAID controller module. The discount went live on February 3, and will be in effect until April 30.

As we previously reported, the SAS RAID controller module for the BladeCenter S chassis puts together a SAS disk switch and a RAID disk controller and crams them into the same form factor that legacy Ethernet switches inside the BladeCenter chassis have. The module can have two RAID controllers, two SAS switches, and two battery backups for redundancy; it connects to two of IBM’s existing six-disk blade storage enclosures. The integrated SAS switch inside the module has two 4X (3 Gb/sec) SAS switches for linking to the disk enclosures and six 1X (also 3 Gb/sec) SAS links back to the blade server hosts inside the BladeCenter S chassis. Each blade server can be configured with redundant links to the disk modules. The disk module can use a variety of 3.5-inch disks in 10K and 15K RPM speeds and supports mirroring as well as RAID 5 data protection on the disks.

The normal list price for a configured SAS RAID controller module is $3,499, but with the promotional price, that drops to $1,749.50. I was told back in September when the module launched that a bare bones SAS RAID controller module costs $1,069 without any disks. I presume that the $3,499 includes some other electronics or disks; the IBM online site doesn’t really give configuration information, as you can see for yourself. Go figure.

RELATED STORIES

IBM Adds 1 TB Disk to the BladeCenter S Chassis

The BladeCenter S Gets a New SAS RAID Disk Module

Entry Power System i Boxes Compete Well with Windows Boxes

The Power Systems JS12 and JS22 Blades Versus Other i Boxes

The i Edition of the BladeCenter S Finally Launches

Power Systems: The Feeds and Speeds

Power6 Chips Get i Support in New Entry and Blade Machines

IBM Rejiggers System i and BladeCenter Deal One More Time

IBM’s Battle Plan for i5/OS Blade Servers

IBM Cuts i5/OS-Based JS22 Blade Server Prices

Let’s Take a Closer Look at JS22 Blade Servers Running i5OS V6R1

IBM Virtualizes I/O in BladeCenter Servers

Power6 Blades Finally Come to Market from IBM

IBM Tweaks BladeCenter S for the Office, Preps Power6 Blades

HP Beats the System i on Integration for Midrange Shops

HP Engineers New Blade Server Box for SMB Shops

IBM Rejiggers BladeCenter for SMBs

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot

Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 18, Number 6 -- February 9, 2009

CYBER-ATTACKS ON THE RISE. PROTECT WITH THE TRIPLE PLAY.

COVID-19 has not only caused a global pandemic, but has sparked a “cyber pandemic” as well.

“Cybersecurity experts predict that in 2021, there will be a cyber-attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). It is expected that cybercrime will cost the global economy $6.1 trillion annually, making it the third-largest economy in the world, right behind those of the United States and China.”¹

Protecting an organization’s data is not a single-faceted approach, and companies need to do everything they can to both proactively prevent an attempted attack and reactively respond to a successful attack.

UCG Technologies’ VAULT400 subscription defends IBM i and Intel systems against cyber-attacks through comprehensive protection with the Triple Play Protection – Cloud Backup, DRaaS, & Enterprise Cybersecurity Training.

Cyber-attacks become more sophisticated every day. The dramatic rise of the remote workforce has accelerated this trend as cyber criminals aggressively target company employees with online social engineering attacks. It is crucial that employees have proper training on what NOT to click on. Cyber threats and social engineering are constantly evolving and UCG’s Enterprise Cybersecurity Training (powered by KnowBe4) is designed to educate employees on the current cutting-edge cyber-attacks and how to reduce and eliminate them.

A company is only as strong as its weakest link and prevention is just part of the story. Organizations need to have a quick response and actionable plan to implement should their data become compromised. This is the role of cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS).

Data is a company’s most valuable asset. UCG’s VAULT400 Cloud Backup provides 256-bit encrypted backups to two (2) remote locations for safe retrieval should a cyber-attack occur. This is a necessary component of any protection strategy. Whether a single click on a malicious link brings down the Windows environment or an infected SQL server feeds the IBM i, once the data is compromised, there is no going back unless you have your data readily available.

Recovery is not a trivial task, especially when you factor in the time sensitive nature of restoring from an active attack. This leads to the third play of the Triple Play Protection – DRaaS. Companies have myriad concerns once an attack is realized and a managed service disaster recovery allows employees to keep focus on running the business in a crisis state.

The combination of training employees with secure backup and disaster recovery offers companies the best chance at avoiding financial disruption in an age of stronger, more frequent cyber-attacks.

Reach out to UCG Technologies to discuss your company’s security needs and develop a data protection plan that fits you best.

ucgtechnologies.com/triple-play

800.211.8798 | info@ucgtechnologies.com

Admin Alert: Time Gobbling Tasks for a System Upgrade Linoma Refines Data Distribution Tasks with GoAnywhere 2.0

Leave a Reply Cancel reply