• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • BladeCenter S Express i Edition Gets a Power7 Upgrade

    August 23, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Since May 2008, IBM has been bundling up different configurations of its Power6-based blade servers with the i5/OS V5R4 and i 6.1 operating system, a slew of features, and giving the whole shebang a discounted price that puts a blade-based i setup closer to the price of an entry Power 520 rack or tower server that is the workhorse of the i market. As part of last week’s Power7 entry and high-end server rollouts, this i Edition Express for BladeCenter S configuration was tweaked to include Power7 blades.

    As was the case with the prior i Edition bundles on the BladeCenter S chassis–that’s the small one with room for six blades and suitable for an office environment, not the 14-blade BladeCenter H chassis that is really intended for data centers–customers cannot just use any Power-based blade they want in this bundle. The prior bundle was restricted to the single-socket, dual-core Power6 processor in the JS12 blade server running at 3.8 GHz. Two processors were activated with one processor having an i 6.1 license for 10 users, and IBM tossed in a 4 GB of memory, two 146 GB 10K RPM SAS drives, and a SAS expansion card, plus the BladeCenter S chassis, a six-disk storage module, two 146 GB disks for that, and a bunch of other doo-dads for $13,244, about $2,000 lower than the components as individually purchased. In November 2009, IBM took out a SAS disk module from the JS12-i bundle and popped in two RAID disk controllers and modules for SAS drives, and the price went up to $18,852.

    Now that we are in 2010 and IBM is shipping eight-core Power7 processors on the PS700, PS701, and PS702 blades, customers are going to be getting some raw processor upgrades. The PS700 blade, you will remember from its launch in April, has four cores spinning at 3 GHz, each of which yields more oomph on RPG and Java workloads compared to the 3.8 GHz Power6 processor thanks to the embedded DRAM cache that is on the Power7 chip. (The Power4 through Power6+ processors all had off-chip but in-package L3 caches.)

    The latest BladeCenter S Express i Edition bundle comes in two flavors, one with a SAS switch module for linking blades to disk modules in the chassis and another that has a RAID-protected SAS switch module. Obviously, the RAID version will cost more.

    For the plain vanilla SAS storage version, IBM takes the BladeCenter S chassis and plunks in an ultraslim SATA CD/DVD burner, a six-disk storage module, a SAS connectivity module, a copper pass-thru module, two 146 GB, 15K RPM SAS disks, two 950/1450 watt power supplies, and two power cords. Inside this blade box IBM slides a PS700 Express blade server with two processor entitlements and two freebie processor entitlements (that’s the Express part of the deal) for a total of four activated Power7 cores. The blade gets 8 GB of memory (the Web page says 16 GB, but it is wrong) and two 300 GB disks (again, the Web page says one 300 GB disk, and it is wrong), a 3 Gb/sec SAS pass-thru, and a single processor’s worth of i 6.1.1 or i 7.1 for 10 users and the PowerVM Express Edition hypervisor on all four cores. This setup costs $15,751, or $495 per month on a 36-month lease from IBM Global Services. (Pricing details are here.) The 10-user i 7.1 license will run you $2,500 per user on top of the one core of i 7.1 that is configured onto the blade setup.

    If you want to go with RAID data protection on your i blades, then the BladeCenter S Express i Edition puts one six-disk module and two SATA RAID controller modules in the chassis and three 146 GB, 15K RPM disks. The two disk drives on the PS700 blade are removed and the operating system is stored on the RAID SAS modules. The software licensing is exactly the same. Pricing for this configuration was not available as The Four Hundred went to press.

    Both variants of the new PS700 BladeCenter S Express i Edition will be available on August 27. You can see IBM’s pretty brochure on the offering here. And the pricing of all of the different Power7 blade servers running i can be found here. As you can see, there are Express configurations using the more powerful PS701 and PS702 blades and the larger BladeCenter H chassis, if you want that.

    In a related announcement, IBM has brought the Broadcom 2/4-port Ethernet expansion card for its BladeCenter blade servers back from the dead. This card, feature 8291, is back in the catalog as of August 17 for JS12 and JS22 blade servers (the old Power6 ones) and will be available for the Power6+ JS23 and JS43 blades and the PS700 (single-socket, four-core), PS701 (single-socket, eight-core), and PS702 (two-socket, 16-core) Power7 blade servers starting September 17. This feature will be supported with AIX 6.1 and 7.1 as well as with i 6.1 and i 7.1. It costs $629.

    RELATED STORIES

    IBM Rounds Out Entry Power7 Server Lineup

    Some Details and Thoughts About Impending Power7 Machines

    Let’s Take Another Stab at Power7 Blade Bang for the Buck

    IBM’s Power7 Blades Pack a CPW Punch

    IBM Peddles Baby BladeCenter PS700 Express Blade Box

    IBM Bundles RAID into BladeCenter S i Edition, Adds Lots of Networking

    IBM Deals on Blade Chassis, Tivoli Provisioning Manager

    Power-BladeCenter Combo Gets Tweaks for i Shops

    IBM Cuts Price of BladeCenter S SAS Module in Half

    One Less Headache: IBM Preconfigures i 6.1 and VIOS on Blades

    The BladeCenter S Gets a New SAS RAID Disk Module

    The i Edition of the BladeCenter S Finally Launches

    IBM Rejiggers System i and BladeCenter Deal One More Time



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

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 19, Number 30 -- August 23, 2010

    Sponsored by
    LaserVault

    Integrate Virtual Tape For Better Backups, Faster Recovery, And More Flexibility

    Virtual tape and virtual tape libraries offer a way to both simplify and strengthen backup and recovery operations. By incorporating virtual tape technology, automation of backups becomes possible resulting in hundreds of hours saved annually for IT departments and personnel.

    LaserVault ViTL is a virtual tape and tape library solution developed specifically for use with IBM Power Systems (from AS/400 to iSeries to Power 9s). See a demo and get a $50 gift card.

    With ViTL you can:

    • Replace physical tape and tape libraries and associated delays
    • Automate backup operations, including the ability to purge or archive backups
    • Remotely manage your backups – no need to be onsite with your server
    • Save backups to a dedupe appliance and the cloud
    • Recover your data at lightspeed greatly improving your ability to recover from cyberattacks
    • And so much more

    “The ViTL tapeless solution has truly made my job easier. It has given me more confidence in our full system recovery ability – but at the same time I hope it is never needed.” IBM i Administrator at a financial services company

    Sign-up now to see a ViTL online demo and get a $50 Amazon e-gift card when the demo is complete as our way of saying thanks for your time. Plus when you sign-up you’ll receive a free facts comparison sheet on using virtual tape vs tape so you can compare the functionality for yourself.

    LaserVault.com

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    The Power System Malware Problem, and a ‘Perfect’ Solution PHP and JavaScript Come Together in Zend Studio 8

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 19 Issue: 30

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • IBM Ducks i Pricing on Most Entry Power7 Servers
    • BladeCenter S Express i Edition Gets a Power7 Upgrade
    • The Power 795: Cheaper Performance, Expensive Software
    • As I See It: The Once and Future HP Way
    • An Encryption Horror Story
    • IBM Makes i Solution Editions From Power 720 and 740 Servers
    • Dataram Delivers Memory for Power7 Servers
    • Unemployed Developers Eligible for Education Grant
    • IBM Cuts Power Systems Shops a Linux Price Break
    • IBM Ships Fat Memory for Power 770 and 780 Systems Early

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • COMMON Set for First Annual Conference in Three Years
    • API Operations Management for Safe, Powerful, and High Performance APIs
    • What’s New in IBM i Services and Networking
    • Four Hundred Monitor, May 18
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 20
    • IBM i 7.3 TR12: The Non-TR Tech Refresh
    • IBM i Integration Elevates Operational Query and Analytics
    • Simplified IBM i Stack Bundling Ahead Of Subscription Pricing
    • More Price Hikes From IBM, Now For High End Storage
    • Big Blue Readies Power10 And IBM i 7.5 Training for Partners

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2022 IT Jungle

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.