Computer Merchants » Blade Servers

IBM BladeCenter S – The Benefits Can Add Up

Computer Merchants — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:20:52 +0000

IBM BladeCenter S

So simple and productive – designed to save costs.

If you’re driving your IT strategy to be more effective you should think about IBM BladeCenter. IBM BladeCenter is the next generation solution, offering a simple, cost-effective alternative. Now’s the time to switch to the blade solution that uses less floor space and less energy without sacrificing performance.

It may just be the missing piece.

Introducing the IBM BladeCenter HS22 powered by Intel®Xeon® processor 5500

A no-compromise blade with breakneck speed, the all new IBM BladeCenter HS22 is a highly affordable and manageable blade optimised for power and cooling. It is ideal for most enterprise applications including virtualisation, hosted client and SAP.

Among other features, the HS22 with Intel Xeon Processor automatically and intelligently adjusts server performance according to your application needs, while at the same time providing three times as much memory and performing twice as many transactions per minute than its predecessor. And all at a price that can make sense for your business.²

The value of Computer Merchants and IBM

Computer Merchants is one of IBM’s leading hardware business partners. Since 1979, Computer Merchants has forged a reputation as the most proactive, customer focused and service driven ICT partner in the country. As per our Plain English Terms and Conditions, we guarantee you will be happy with the end result.

It Can Add Up To Big Returns

Cash in with our BladeCenter S SAN-in-a-box offer:

Purchase a BladeCenter S chassis and two SAS RAID controller modules before 26 June 2009 and receive a disk storage subsystem, four NearLine SAS 750GB HDD’s and a server connectivity module at no extra cost*³.

Plus, you could be eligible for a 30% tax deduction.

Under the draft Federal Government’s Investment Allowance, if you purchase any eligible asset by June 2009 and install it by 30 June 2010, you will be entitled to a bonus tax deduction of 30% of the cost of the asset**.

Get a customised quote

Call 1300 852 282 and cite promotional offer 7380, or REGISTER FOR YOUR QUOTE ONLINE >>

For full terms and conditions and trademarks, visit www.campaignx.com.au/computermerchants. © Copyright IBM Australia Limited 2009. ABN 79 000 024 733. © Copyright IBM Corporation 2009. All rights reserved. “Business Partner” is used informally and does not imply a legal partnership. TRADEMARKS: IBM, the IBM logos and BladeCenter are trademarks of IBM Corp registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Other company, product and services marks may be trademarks or service marks of others. IMPORTANT PRIVACY INFORMATION: If you would like to request access to or correction of your details or if your organisation would prefer not to receive further information on Computer Merchants, please unsubscribe to info@computermerchants.com.au. **Draft legislation, Tax Laws Amendment (Small Business and General Business Tax Break) Bill 2009, introducing the Investment Allowance was tabled in the House of Representatives on 19th March. IBM makes no representation as to whether this legislation will be enacted. 2 RRP=$4,129 AUD (Inc GST). 3 RRP= $13,629 AUD (Inc GST).

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10 Things You Should Know About IBM BladeCenter S

Computer Merchants — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:05:48 +0000

Designed for your business.
Easily consolidate multiple servers, towers and racks into one scalable and manageable solution.
Run your entire business.
It supports many applications your company might run including Windows®, AIX®, IBM i and Linux® when you add IBM Blade Servers.
Easier to manage.
With server, storage, networking and management tools integrated into a single chassis, it’s more efficient to install, and with IBM Director 6.1, easier to run and upgrade your IT environment.
Grows with you.
BladeCenter S is configured with 6 blades, so you have fantastic scalability, yet don’t pay for more servers than you need.
No server room needed.
It’s small enough to fit under your desk, very quiet and plugs into a standard power socket – we’ve even put the whole thing on rollers.
Save money.
Server consolidation with VMware on BladeCenter S can allow companies to reduce cost, improve service, and manage risk. This single-box solution may support 75 workloads with full VMware Vmotion support.
Superb performance.
With the IBM Blade HS22 inside your BladeCenter S chassis, your new system can adapt to your application demands, intelligently scaling energy use and offering superior virtualisation.
Easy-to-use-tools.
Predictive Failure Analysis® and Light Path Diagnostics™ make it easier to resolve potential issues before they become disruptive.
Mix-and-match.
Slot in your choice of the industry’s most diverse set of blades including the HS22, HS12 or JS12.
One size does not fit all.
IBM offers great flexibility in chassis, blades, storage, availability, legacy support and more.

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IBM Active Energy Manager

Computer Merchants — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:22:50 +0000

Actively Manage your Energy with IBM’s Active Energy Manager

Active Energy Manager (formally IBM Director PowerExecutive) measures, monitors, and manages the energy components built into IBM systems enabling a cross-platform management solution. Active Energy Manager is an extension of IBM Director that supports BladeCenter, POWER Systems and System x servers.

It also provides a source of energy management data that can be exploited by Tivoli enterprise solutions such as Tivoli Monitoring and Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager. Active Energy Manager is a key component of IBM’s Cool Blue portfolio within Project Big Green.

This solution helps customers monitor energy consumption to allow better utilization of available energy resources. The application software enables customers to trend actual energy consumption and corresponding thermal loading of IBM Systems running in their environment with their applications.

Active Energy Manager has other advantages as well

It’s the only energy management software tool that can provide a single view of the actual power usage across multiple platforms
It increases energy efficiency by controlling power use across the data centre
It can limit server power consumption by capping maximum power consumption
It can improve energy efficiency resulting in substantial savings and cost reductions
It offers out of the box management for single IBM systems while being able to provide a cross environment view of power and thermal usage within an IT shop
Plan for the future by viewing trends of power usage over time
Monitor and report actual power usage and thermal information
Use power trending to assist in better data centre decision making.

Active Energy Manager is a cornerstone of IBM’s Project Big Green initiative.

Learn more about IBM Active Energy Manager (including their 60 day free trial download).

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IBM BladeCenters – Open, Easy And Green

Computer Merchants — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:38:50 +0000

Here at Computer Merchants we, like IBM, have noticed the growth over time in the Blades and BladeCenter market.

Many of you have heard about blades, in fact, many of you are probably running blades. However for those of you wanting to know more about this new technology, please read on!

What is a BladeCenter Blade Server?

The term Blade Server refers to a thin, ultra dense enclosure that houses microprocessors, memory, disk, networking and other features. Multiple blade servers are inserted into a rack mounted chassis called the BladeCenter.

Normally with a typical server you would find power supplies, ethernet connections, cooling, media optical drives and other ports. The BladeCenter provides this functionality as well as a connection between the blades to achieve redundancy, high reliability and increased density.

Importantly, the IBM BladeCenter offers energy efficient designs and powerful IBM “cool blue” tools to help plan, monitor, control and allocate power consumption and cooling.

Chassis

BladeCenter S

The IBM BladeCenter S is designed for small and medium sized offices with limited IT skills needs. Its target is to be simplistic and economic. It does this by being small enough to fit under a desk and its ability to run by plugging into an average wall power socket. One of the main advantages of this chassis is that it offers disk storage (up to 12 disks) so that no separate external disk storage needs to be purchased.

BladeCenter E

The IBM BladeCenter E is tailored towards space and power constrained data centres. This chassis holds up to 14 blade servers and is 7U high. The BladeCenter E has an extremely dense design and is up to 11% more efficient in power and cooling than its main competition.

BladeCenter H

The H Chassis is IBM’s high performance blade. The 9U rack houses 14 blades and is fully compatible using the same blades and switches with the entire family of BladeCenter systems. It also supports industry standard I/O switches from Cisco, Brocade and others so you are able to have more choice and flexibility for your environment.

It achieves high speed connectivity through 4 x10GB ethernet and rich telecom functionality. It also has the ability to increase bandwidth and throughput for demanding applications such as IPTV, VoD, IMS and security.

BladeCenter T

This model was designed by IBM to meet the rugged needs of the telecom industry. The T chassis is NEBS 3/ETSI compliant and meets standards for electromagnetic compatibility, thermal robustness, fire resistance, earthquake and office vibration resistance and airborne contaminant resistance!

Another feature is optional hot-swappable redundant AC or DC power supplies and cooling and built-in systems management resources in a 20″ deep chassis. The chassis is 8U rack optimised and houses up to 8 Blade Servers.

BladeCenter HT

This is IBM’s Telco version of the BladeCenter HT and is the correct choice for the ultimate combination of high performance and durability in telco, military, medical, government and industrial scenarios. Again this model is available with AC or DC power as well as high speed switching with multi terabit networking, 10Gbps switch fabric.

The BladeCenter HT is the largest in size being 12U, it houses 12 Blade Servers.

Blade Servers

The most common blade servers available from IBM are split into 3 areas:

Intel Based,
AMD Based, and
Power Based.

Below is a quick overview of some of the Blade Servers available.

Intel Based

HS12 – 1-socket single, dual or quad-core Intel® Xeon®
HS21 – 2-socket dual-core or quad-core Intel® Xeon

AMD Based

LS21 – 2-socket dual-core AMD Opteron
LS22 – 2-socket quad-core AMD Opteron
LS41 – 4-socket dual-core AMD Opteron
LS42 – 4-socket quad-core AMD Opteron

POWER Based – Runs AIX , OS/400 and Linux for Power

JS12 – 1-socket dual-core 64-bit IBM POWER6^TM with AltiVec^TM SIMD accelerator
JS21 – 2-socket single-core or dual-core 64-bit IBM PowerPC® 970MP with AltiVec SIMD accelerator
JS22 – 2-socket dual-core 64-bit IBM POWER6^TM with AltiVec^TM SIMD accelerator

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IBM Power System Quick Links

Computer Merchants — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:30:24 +0000

IBM Power Systems – the next generation systems for UNIX, IBM i and Linux clients

Servers

IBM Power Blade servers
IBM Power 520
IBM Power 550
IBM Power 570
IBM Power 575
IBM Power 595
All IBM Power Systems (including earlier System i and System p models)

Software

IBM Power Systems Solutions

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Introducing IBM Power Systems

Computer Merchants — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:33:11 +0000

The IBM System i and System p have been replaced with a new range of Servers called IBM Power Systems

Power systems – with POWER6™ processor technology have the ability to run AIX®, IBM i, and Linux® operating systems simultaneously. In fact, regardless of which operating systems you are using the actual hardware will be the same.

To accompany the new announcement, I5 OS has a been given a name also, it will now be referred to as simply IBM i.

Included in the family of the new Power Systems comes two new blades to run IBM i. These are designed to be installed into the BladeCentre S and BladeCentre H chassis.

In summary the Power Systems that will be available to run IBM i are:

JS12 Blade 2-core cpw = 4000 – 7100
JS22 Blade 4-core cpw = 4000 – 13800

Power 520 1/2 way, cpw = 4300 – 8300
Power 550 1/4 way, cpw = 4800 – 18000
Power 570 2-16 way, cpw = 8150 – 76900
Power 595 1-64 way, cpw = TBA

More Information

IBM Announces IBM Power Systems: The New Power Equation For The New Enterprise Data Center

IBM Power Systems: the next generation systems for UNIX, i and Linux clients

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Quick Recap Of How We Can Help You

Computer Merchants — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:03:53 +0000

Here’s a quick summary of services we offer our customers either here at Computer Merchants or onsite.

IBM System i has been a great part of our business, but these days we are also seeing lots of BladeCenter services coming through.
We have installed IBM System i, System p, System x, BladeCenter, HMC and Sun hardware, as well as OS installs and upgrades on these machines.
We have performed health checks on hardware, OS, cumulative patches and peripherals.
We have trained customers in the use of Query400, and have assisted them with setting up basic admin tasks such as TCP/IP, and also in programming using RPG, and CL languages.
Being a certified installer, we have implemented the *noMAX High Availability software for some customers.
Logical Partitioning (LPARs) is another of our specialties.

We would like to thank our customers who have used our services

And if you haven’t already done so, please give us a go at assisting you. For further enquiries don’t hesitate to contact your Computer Merchants Sales Rep on 1800 777 111.

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Tip – When Powering Up IBM Blades…

Computer Merchants — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:18:59 +0000

When powering up IBM Blades in the IBM BladesCenters, you may notice that the lights on the keyboard flash. If the lights do not stop flashing, re-seat the management module. This module is hot swappable.

Tip – don’t hit any keys until the lights stop flashing.

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Computer Merchants Monthly Specials

Computer Merchants — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:24:52 +0000

Monthly Hardware Specials

As many of you would have already seen, Computer Merchants have introduced monthly specials across IBM, HP and Sun hardware.

These specials are unique to Computer Merchants as we are dedicated to working with our suppliers to provide specials meeting your requirements and budgetary needs.

Timely And Flexible

These specials are timely hot offers, however we can be flexible as we have the ability to make minor alterations to the configuration to suit your individual requirements.

Our previous IBM xSeries, BladeCentre and Storage Specials have proven to be extremely successful with many of you taking up on the opportunity to complete those necessary upgrades or even making some additions to your existing infrastructure.

Specials Links

Current Specials – these change monthly
Historical List of Specials

Call your Computer Merchants Sales Representative on 1800 777 111 for more details.

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EchoStream And EchoCluster, High Availability for AIX

Computer Merchants — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:04:35 +0000

Over the past 6 weeks we have created a storm in the market over EchoStream – a Continuous Data Protection for AIX systems – and EchoCluster, the complementary product for High Availability fail over. Both have been met with so much enthusiasm from the AIX community.

It seems that both these types of products have been lacking from the AIX market space

EchoStream, from Vision Solutions, is a true continuous data protection solution that delivers any point-in-time data recovery at the push of a button. Instantly reverse accidental or malicious data corruption without the time and labour required for recovery from tape.

This is a truly a unique product that is not application or database aware and has a very light footprint on your network. So it is suitable for nearly all applications from intense ERP applications to light peripheral applications. It can make recovery from a small or large disaster very simple as you can recover a single file, an application or complete LPAR’ed servers.

To talk about EchoCluster we first have to define a couple of terms:

High Performance Clustering
- A cluster with nodes running software to implement parallelism, often with high performance network infrastructure
High Availability Clustering
- A cluster with nodes running software to implement automatic takeover in cases of failure

EchoCluster is an implementation of High Availability clustering on AIX

This product, by using a heartbeat between servers, can manage automated or manual failover of single applications or complete servers in the event of a failure. It also manages the syncronisation of data back to the production server and fail back once the problem has been repaired.

If you would like to know more about this exciting product set, talk with your Computer Merchants rep, or call us on 1800 777 111.

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VMware And Virtualisation

Computer Merchants — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:56:59 +0000

What Is Virtualisation?

Modern computer hardware was originally designed to run on a single operating system and a single application. Virtualisation breaks that bond – making it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same server at the same time. This solution increases server utilization (typically from 5-15%, to 60-70%) and flexibility and decreases operational costs.

Currently 7% of companies run virtualization, and it is predicted that by 2010, this figure will have grown to 40%!

Who Are VMware?

VMware were founded in 1998 and have grown to 5000+ employees. Every single company in the Fortune 100 list uses VMware products. On top of that there are another 100,000+ companies using VMware. They are a US based company and have offices in over 35 countries.

How Can VMware Help Me?

VMware and their virtual infrastructure solutions can really assist your company’s bottom line, and make your life easier as well. Companies that have implemented VMware typically see a 30- 70% reduction in total cost of ownership for their IT infrastructure.

VMware has a wide range of products and services covering four main solution areas:

Infrastructure Optimization Solutions – By creating a Virtual Infrastructure, companies can consolidate hardware assets, increase utilization rates and automate IT processes for maximum availability, performance and scalability. The decrease in server numbers also saves in power and cooling costs, and reduced footprint.
Virtual Lab Automation – Streamline software development and testing, reduce provisioning time and improve software quality, because you can spend more time testing.
Business Continuity – VMware technology enables organizations to increase uptime and meet high availability and disaster recovery objectives. This is done through load balancing and live migration of virtual machines across servers.
Enterprise Desktop Solutions – With VMware, customers can increase deployment speed, administer desktops from a central system, provide remote assistance to end users and allow for better management of desktop systems.

For more info, visit the VMware website, or call your Computer Merchants rep on 1800 777 111.

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IBM’s Project Big Green

Computer Merchants — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:06:44 +0000

IBM has announced their new “PROJECT BIG GREEN“. IBM will be redirecting $1 billion per year across its businesses, mobilising the company’s resources to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in IT.

This was established after IBM observed that businesses are beginning to face real challenges with regard to energy consumption and costs. A Google researcher predicts hardware costs could soon be overtaken by the cost of power. Analyst firms agree and have speculated that 2010 will be the year when the cost of power could overtake the price of hardware.

Gartner Research have added to the discussion by predicting that energy costs alone could soon represent more than half the cost of running a data centre – if servers continue to consume electricity at their current rate.

The IBM initiative includes a new global “green team” of more than 850 energy efficiency architects from across IBM. This team is making refinements in lower CPU power consumption, new multi-core processors and advanced power management technologies that can boost the containment of energy consumption and cost.

But the most dramatic effect that can be realised is reduction in your overall number of servers. Power consumption savings can be even greater when storage consolidation is also taken into account (storage resources are among the biggest consumers of energy in a data centre).

Among the potential benefits of resource virtualisation are higher rates of resource utilisation for servers, storage, and networks. As a result, fewer physical resources may need to be turned on. Furthermore, that potential reduction in power consumption may occur without any additional capital expenses.

IBM System p and System i servers present a dramatic picture of the potential to utilise resources more efficiently and increase energy efficiency. What is compelling about these servers is the ability to create multiple logical servers supporting processor allocations as fine as a tenth of a CPU via IBM POWER5 microprocessors.

Similar savings can be gained with the IBM BladeCenter, which provides a central chassis for sharing power among a number of server blades. Whether AMD, Intel, or Power CPU modules are used, blades can provide a savings of up to between 19% and 24% when compared to rack-mounted servers. The BladeCenter can be especially advantageous when used to centralise desktop computing with virtual PCs using a virtual client solution.

Talk to us here at Computer Merchants if you want more information about making power consumption savings in your data centre. We can help you reduce costs and have a positive impact on the environment at the same time.

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The New IBM BladeCenter S Is Here!

Computer Merchants — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:44:51 +0000

The IBM BladeCenter S is a new, completely integrated server infrastructure platform with a high degree of flexibility, scalability and manageability. It’s ideal for small and medium sized businesses, or for branch offices of bigger companies.It offers a powerful, yet simple IT infrastructure. You simply plug the BladeCenter S into the standard office outlet, and plug the integrated Ethernet switch into a Cable Modem or DSL line. Follow the step-by-step installation wizard, and choose one of the pre-selected configurations for quick deployment. Now you are free to focus on what matters most, running your business.

One main benefit of the IBM BladeCenter S is how it meets the growing demands of smaller organisations who are looking for enterprise grade solutions at a fraction of the cost.

The unit integrates a broad range of servers, storage and networking options into a single chassis to simplify infrastructure complexity and manageability while lowering total cost of ownership.

The chassis uses standard office power plugs and no complex wiring is required. The product leverages advanced, integrated technology that allows your infrastructure to expand as your business grows.

And like all IBM BladeCenter systems, BladeCenter S is designed to be “GREEN”, offering up to 25% better energy efficiency than rack or tower servers of comparable performance and capacity.

The IBM BladeCenter S addresses these challenges:

growing storage requirements
management of servers
cooling issues
file and print servers and storage
mail servers and associated storage
application servers
terminal servers

See our IBM Blade Servers page for more information, or contact us.

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Discounts On IBM Education Packs

Computer Merchants — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:48:00 +0000

Previously, we’ve talked about the IBM Jumpstart program. We received a great response regarding the FREE System-i half day course and the more in depth three day course.

Well, in addition to the Jumpstart courses, IBM Education has introduced customised training for whatever your company’s IT department requires. These come in the form of education packs, or ED Packs. You can purchase pre paid ED Pack vouchers of $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 and when purchasing through Computer Merchants you will receive a 5, 8 or 10% discount respectively.

Did you know IBM offers onsite custom education courses tailored to your needs?

Here’s what you get when you pre pay for an ED Pack:

You have up to 12 months to use your education pack
IBM comes to your premises if required, or you can choose a venue that works for you
You can talk with tutors beforehand to help design the course that fits best for you
You can have many in a class environment or one on one training if preferred
IBM has a comprehensive range of courses relating to all aspects of their hardware and software products

IBM Education has over 2000 technical training courses

Below is a snapshop of selected courses:

System x

XTR01AAU – System x Technical Principles – 2 days – FREE
XTR43AU – Managing IBM System x and BladeCenter Servers with IBM Director V5.2 – 3 days – $2,070 per student (ex GST)
XTR15AAU – IBM BladeCenter H Workshop – 2 days – $1,380 per student (ex GST)

System i

AS433AU – Administer your New System i for Windows IT Professionals – 3 days – $2,100 per student (ex GST)
OE14AU – IBM Query for AS/400 Workshop – 1 day – $800 per student (ex GST)
AS24AU – i5 and System i System Operator Workshop – 3 days – $2,000 per student (ex GST)
AS27AU – Advanced System Operator Workshop for System i – 3 days – $2,000 per student (ex GST)
OE98AU – Introduction to IBM eServer and System i for New Users – 1 day – $800 per student (ex GST)

System p

AU13AU – AIX 5L Basics – 5 days – $3,400 per student (ex GST)
AU14AU – AIX 5L System Administration I : Implementation – 5 days – $3,420 per student (ex GST)
AU16AU – AIX 5L System Administration II : Problem Determination – 5 days – $4,000 per student (ex GST)
AU73AU – System p LPAR and Virtualization I : Planning and Installation – 5 days – $4,250 per student (ex GST)
AW18AAU – AIX 5L Jumpstart for UNIX Professionals – 5 days – $4,250 per student (ex GST)

IBM Storage

SN70AU- An Introduction to Storage Networking – 2 days – $1,500 per student (ex GST)
SS77AU – Hands on Technical Training for DS4000 – 3 days – $2,070 per student (ex GST)
SS79BAU – IBM DS4000 Advanced Workshop Lecture Only – 3 day – $2,070 per student (ex GST)
SN82AU – SAN Volume Controller Planning and Implementation – 2.5 days – $1,850 per student (ex GST)

Training is also available on DS6000 and DS8000.

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Will You Be The 1 In 6 Buying Blades?

Computer Merchants — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:01:35 +0000

There has been lots of talk around the water coolers about Blade technology

This article is for those of you who have missed all the talk because you haven’t been drinking your recommended 8 glasses a day.

The blade server market is projected to grow over 300% to $11 billion by 2010. It is expected that 1 in 6 servers sold in 2010 will be blades. Although blades aren’t suitable in all situations, if you are looking at consolidating half a dozen or more servers you would be crazy not to consider the option.

Some of the benefits of this high density option:

Increase manageability
Reduce points of failure
Reduce TCO
Drive out cable complexity
Reduce Power requirements
Speed of deployment
Less costly to cool
Increase density
Reduce weight
Current and future fabrics
Increase usable space
Virtualisation

IBM’s strength in the market can be largely attributed to its ability to update blade technology while ensuring servers are backwards compatible. This vendor specific road map protects customer investment. Customers who purchased IBM blade technology back in 2001 can add current blades to their chassis.

A situation where a company would normally write off their infrastructure after a 3 year period has now had a life of 6 years and is still going strong.

Another of IBM’s strengths in the Blade server market is the ability to have multiple operating systems and blade types all resident in the one chassis. This Includes Windows, Linux and AIX.

It is also rumoured that soon OS/400 blades will be available and maybe even zOS blade servers in the future.

A spin off advantage that some customers have noticed is the lower cost of SAN switch ports in a Blade Centre as compared with external SAN switch ports.

Give us a call for more information on how blade can work in your infrastructure:

1800 777 111 in Australia
09 307 0520 in New Zealand

We can show you blade technology in action and book time for you in one of the test labs.

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IBM Director Multiplatform Now on System i

Computer Merchants — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 06:38:21 +0000

IBM Director is both a remote systems management tool and monitoring solution which was made for both servers and PCs on Intel platforms.

The idea was to be able to provide multi-systems management where administrators could easily keep an eye on their hardware and at the same time monitor anything critical. The basic layout was the software was installed onto an Intel server, called the ‘management server’ from which you were able to manage any connected Linux or Windows servers on the network.

The product comes with IBM System x servers and BladeCenter products. It also can be purchased for use on non-IBM systems.

With the arrival of IBM Director Multiplatform, this same ability is now available for the System i and other servers. Designed to manage larger environments that may contain servers, desktop computers, workstations, laptops and other devices, IBM Director MP can manage up to 5000 systems in total.

The setup and structure is along the same lines as Director (see diagram), however this time the management server can be Windows, Intel or an System i server. Also, the servers to be managed are no longer limited to only Windows/Intel.

IBM have also allowed Director MP to support a wider range platforms including:

i5/OS,
AIX,
Power Linux,
IXS Windows etc

Director Multiplatform is installed through IBM Virtualization Engine on System i, System p and System x servers and offers an easy to use client user interface and a web based interaction with the management server.

System i users and administrators now have the ability to easily manage individual systems or groups of equipment. They can also provide monitoring of alerts, with the ability to remotely access troubled servers and well as control them to provide support.

IBM Director Multiplatform takes care of tasks such as:

User Administration,
Inventory,
Monitoring,
Events,
Group Management,
Action Plans,
Process Management,
Remote Session, and
File Transfer.

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IBM BladeCenter And Storage Specials December 2006

Computer Merchants — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 03:48:04 +0000

Pricing does NOT include the following:
GST Delivery Installation
Plain English Terms and Conditions Apply.
Subject to prior sale.
Call us on 1800 777 111 and quote “IBM Specials” for more information on the following items.

IBM BladeCenter

IBM 88524X BladeCenter H Chassis with 2×2900W Power Supplies – $5,200

IBM Blades

IBM 8853L1M Dual Core Intel 5110 Processor 1.6GHz/1066MHz,
4 MB L2, 2×512 MB Chipkill, O/Bay SAS – $2,550
Note: Buy three 8853L1M and get a 88524X H Chassis free

IBM 8853L2M Dual Core Intel Xeon Processor 5120 1.86GHz/1GHz,
1GB, 0GB Open bay, Integrated SAS controller, p/s, Blade – $2,380

IBM 8853L4M Dual Core Intel Xeon Processor 5140 2.33GHz/1GHz,
1GB, 0GB Open bay, Integrated SAS controller, p/s, Blade – $2,800

IBM 8853L5M Dual Core Intel Xeon Processor 5150 2.67GHz/1GHz,
1GB, 0GB Open bay, Integrated SAS controller, p/s, Blade – $3,340

IBM 88432RM Intel Xeon Processor 3.20GHz/800MHz, 1GB, 0GB Open bay,
Integrated Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI, p/s, Blade – $2,350

IBM 885076M AMD Opteron Processor Model 280 2.40GHz/, 1GB, 0GB Open bay,
Integrated Single Channel Ultra320 SCSI, p/s, Blade – $3,480

IBM Storage

IBM 3580/L3H LTO-3 Tape Drive (400/800GB) SCSI LVD External – $4,400
IBM 172260X DS4300 Disk System Model 60U – $13,200

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