[THIN] Re: Hardware - Blades, SAN?

  • From: "Taylor, George" <gtaylor@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 13:03:59 -0600

I'm not sure I can justify it cost wise compared to 1U servers, but
management wise I believe I can.  Imagine a rack with 28 - 1U servers in
it...
28 KVM cables
28 Power Cords, hope a power supply doesn't pop, I can't think of a 1U
that has dual PSs, but there may be.
28 Network cables (56 for redundancy)
Just basic cable management would be a nightmare.  You've now used 28
ports on your KVM switch and you've used 56 ports on your network switch
(hope your networking guys like you...)  and how many PDUs did you have
to mount in that rack?
 
Now let's use 28 blades, thats 2 chassis.
2 KVM cables
8 power cords
8 network cables, 16 if your networking guys like you.
28 Fiber Channel cables if your using SAN based storage
1/2 the rack space used.
 
Yes, I know servers like the X335 you can daisy chain the KVM together,
but I can't say how it works, we never got the management module to do
that.  I VPN into our network from home, point my browser at the
management module and have remote control over all my blades w/o
anything like PCAnywhere or such.  I haven't looked at the math lately,
but power consumption is also reduced dramatically.


  _____  

        From: Jeff Malczewski [mailto:jmalczewski@xxxxxxxx] 
        Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 11:49 AM
        To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
        Subject: [THIN] Re: Hardware - Blades, SAN?
        
        
        The cost of the FastT-700 and the associated switch fabric was
what I was most interested in..  I'm rather unfamiliar with SANs and was
just curious as to the price of an entire solution would be if I were to
build a new facility from the ground with this solution instead of
individual boxes..   What administrative benefits have you seen from
this as opposed to 5 individual 1U boxes??  It seems to me that the
individual servers are still WAY cheaper, so there must be some
real-world justification, just trying to find it..
         
         

                -----Original Message-----
                From: Taylor, George [mailto:gtaylor@xxxxxxxx]
                Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:36 PM
                To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
                Subject: [THIN] Re: Hardware - Blades, SAN?
                
                
                I can't give you the full price, our infastructure was
already in place, but I can give you an close idea.  Here is what I
remember about the latest project, keep in mind that one bladecenter was
already in place as well as the FastT-700 and associated switching
fabric.
                 
                The BladeCenter with optical pass-thru, ethernet switch,
bigger power supplies, Accustic Attenuation Module (muffler), 3yr 24x7x4
support and all associated fiber cables, etc...  about $11K
                5 Blades, (Dual 2.8 Xeons, 4gigs, HBA, 40Gig IDE drive)
w/ 3yr 24x7x4 about $35K
                5 145Gig fiber channel drives for the FastT about $10K
                New Storage shelf and shortwave GBics for the FastT
about $7K
                 
                Along w/ that was things like server CALs, TSM CALs,
etc...   The whole project HW and SW turned in right around $80K
                 


  _____  

                        From: Jeff Malczewski
[mailto:jmalczewski@xxxxxxxx] 
                        Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 10:26 AM
                        To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
                        Subject: [THIN] Re: Hardware - Blades, SAN?
                        
                        
                        How many HS20's do you have, what was the cost
for JUST hardware for that solution, including the FastT, and how much
storage do you have available to you??
                         
                        How many U does the complete solution take up,
including the FastT?
                         
                        I currently use 6 x330's (Dual P3, 4Gb RAM, 1U)
for my TS farm...
                         
                         

                                -----Original Message-----
                                From: Taylor, George
[mailto:gtaylor@xxxxxxxx]
                                Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 11:37 AM
                                To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
                                Subject: [THIN] Re: Hardware - Blades,
SAN?
                                
                                
                                We're implementing this right now.  You
give up one of the on-board drives to make space for the HBA.  What I've
decided to do is boot from the SAN and use the little on-board IDE drive
for nothing but the swap and temp files.  You can get SCSI drives on the
blades, but its an attached cage that takes up a second slot.  My
testing using the HS20s, dual Xeons, 4gig ram, booting from the FastT
has shown them to be very robust machines.  Currently we only have 1
Optical pass-thru and 1 ethernet switch installed, but you can double up
on both for redundancy if need be.  The ethernet switch gives you 4
ports that can be trunked and plays very well with our Cisco 6500 gear,
the throughput is good and from what our networking guys say we are
hardly touching the 4gig limit.  The optical pass-thru gives you a fiber
channel from each and every blade, wire management with that much fiber
coming from such a little space is a chore, but does work.


  _____  

                                From: SMREKAR, JACK
[mailto:SMREKAR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
                                Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 4:59 AM
                                To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
                                Subject: [THIN] Re: Hardware - Blades,
SAN?
                                
                                

                                While we do not have any blades I have
been also thinking about using them for some things.  Depending upon the
company you use for your blades I would question if you need to use a
SAN for the storage of your apps.  They are coming with upwards of 80
gig drives and I think some of them are now just starting to come with
SCSI drives so you can mirror the drives.  I would look at purchasing
them as they are and not to worry about attaching them to a SAN.
Besides I am not sure that you could get a HBA inside one of them to
attach to the SAN.

                                 

                                Jack Smrekar

                                Appleton Area School District

                                 

                                
  _____  


                                From: Chris Grecsek
[mailto:grecsek@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
                                Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 4:31 AM
                                To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
                                Subject: [THIN] Hardware - Blades, SAN?

                                 

                                We're trying to determine which way to
go with our backend hardware for our Citrix farm...I've been hearing a
lot about these blade servers and was wondering if we should setup our
farm on a slew of blades and tie it into a SAN? Seems like the optimal
configuration for a ton of users running basic apps like Office, IE,
Acrobat, etc. 

                                 

                                Was wondering if anyone had any feedback
regarding a setup like this - have you done it, advisable, not really,
pro/cons, etc. 

                                 

                                   


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