IBM Revives BladeCenter Chassis Giveaway
July 11, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
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It’s baaaaaaack. . . . IBM‘s BladeCenter chassis first-in-location giveaway deal, I mean. Not aliens from the other side in the television. Last week, in announcement letter 311-087, Big Blue revived an on-again, off-again freebie BladeCenter chassis deal, which gives customers a freebie enclosure when installing blade servers for the first time in a location inside their company. The intent is to cushion the blow on moving from tower or rack servers to blades, which offer all kinds of integration and management benefits but which are also more expensive than tower or rack servers of equivalent oomph and capacity. Under the current BladeCenter deal, customers can get a free BladeCenter H chassis with two 2,980 watt power supplies, which sells for $5,079 on IBM’s website and which holds 14 blade servers in a rack-based configuration. You can also get a BladeCenter S chassis, which is designed for office environments and which holds six blade servers, under the giveaway deal. The BladeCenter S chassis sells for $2,699 in a barebones configuration with two 1,450 watt power supplies. The two BladeCenter E enclosures, which are designed for lower-powered server blades and therefore more energy-efficient setups, can be used under the deal. The BladeCenter E costs $3,639 when configured with two 2,000 watt power supplies and $3,975 when equipped with two 2,320 watt supplies. Clearly, this deal offers the best value for those buying the H-class chassis, but the S chassis is probably the one that most IBM i shops would consider. The BladeCenter chassis giveaway deal can be used for multiple sites within a company, but IBM caps the deal at a maximum of five different sites per company. The deal runs through January 4, 2012. RELATED STORIES IBM Doubles Up Power7 Blade Sockets, Cranks Power 750 Clocks IBM Discounts BladeCenter 10 GE Switches Bought Online Sundry Power Systems and BladeCenter Announcements IBM Bundles RAID into BladeCenter S i Edition, Adds Lots of Networking IBM Deals on Blade Chassis, Tivoli Provisioning Manager BladeCenter S Express i Edition Gets a Power7 Upgrade 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 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 IBM Kills Free Blade Deal for i Shops, Discounts Blade Chassis and Switches The BladeCenter S Gets a New SAS RAID Disk Module The i Edition of the BladeCenter S Finally Launches IBM Rejiggers BladeCenter for SMBs
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