IBM Revives BladeCenter Chassis Giveaway

July 11, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

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.