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IBM Blade advice

D

dsystem

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 6, 2009
Messages
136
Not sure if this is the right sub-forum but I bet it has people that have the experience I am looking for.

Has anyone ever used an IBM Flex Enterprise Chassis Blade System?
What did you like about them?
How did it compare to Dell and HP blade solutions?

IBM is giving away the chassis (a savings of about 12k) so I am seriously considering their products.
However I have never seen, or used an IBM, maybe one or two desktops in the early 90's but that doesn't count.

Thanks guys.
 
I've used every blade system in the enterprise market over the years.

The highest density blade platform on the enterprise market is HP with 16 blades per 10U chassis and you can fit 4 chassis in each 42U rack. The downside is HP and Cisco have been fighting for years so while Cisco blades are available for the HP blade enclosures their options are very limited. HP has a weird bug that has never been fixed since the C7000 chassis came out. For no explicable reason the blades forget which users are allowed to login to the blades directly so you have to do a CLI login and issue a special command to re-populate the users across all the blades. Very strange bug.

IBM Blades are not as high density but honestly tend to have fewer firmware issues compared to HP. Personally I think the HP blades are easier to manage and maintain to a degree but if your organization has need of AIX servers that is one huge benefit of the IBM Blades is you can have both x86 and Power blades in the same chassis. Setup and management is very simple on the IBM Blade Center, it's all very intuitive and easy to figure out. Unlike HP it doesn't randomly lose track of which users are allowed to logon to the blades which is nice.

Avoid Dell blades, they're crap, absolute crap.

As far as support goes. HP has always made me jump through more hoops to get parts replaced, took HP almost 2 years to figure out a problem with a server of mine, didn't extend the warranty even though the system was un-usable for 2 years. IBM support has always been a breeze for me, quick to send replacement parts for customer serviceable items, they also have the best technician coverage in remote areas. Many other manufacturers use IBM technicians to handle their service calls as well.
 
I have experience with both HP and IBM blade solutions. Overall, I give it to IBM. As mentioned, their support was better and they seemed to have more options for what I was looking for. They don't have the density of HP systems, but using them, you just get a more "enterprise" feel about them.

I went and did a demo with Dell and their Blade solution (version 3 as they abandoned their last two forays into blade tech) and again, as Mtnduey says, junk. Why they need plastic everywhere on them, I have NO clue..
 
Thanks for the input guys.

We are pretty much all Dell, but I was doing some preliminary quoting for this years budget and their SSD markups made me very angry. I understand the need for a business to make money, but I think their markup up is just ridiculous. I mean are they helping to pull OCZ out of bankruptcy? LOL

Mind you have not checked the IBM prices.
The free enclosure is also a very nice incentive and I saw a youtube video of their enclosure management software and I was impressed.
 
dsystem said:
Thanks for the input guys.

We are pretty much all Dell, but I was doing some preliminary quoting for this years budget and their SSD markups made me very angry. I understand the need for a business to make money, but I think their markup up is just ridiculous. I mean are they helping to pull OCZ out of bankruptcy? LOL

Mind you have not checked the IBM prices.
The free enclosure is also a very nice incentive and I saw a youtube video of their enclosure management software and I was impressed.
Click to expand...

FYI, most enterprise-grade SSDs are really that expensive and you cannot compare pricing with consumer-grade SSDs. For example, I know Cisco sold the Intel 710 Series SSDs for use in their UCS systems. Those SSDs are really expensive because of the type of memory used and the fact the drive can be completely overwritten 10X each day for 3 years (or something like that). Consumer-grade SSDs can only be overwritten 1-2X each day before they wear out. Something to consider.
 
I doubt we will see that kind of write activity. Which is why I think we can get away with something like a SAMSUNG 840 PRO.

But I believe dell was using OCZ for there SSD maybe Dell is to blame for OCZ poor fortunes; because they overcharged and no business's bought them.
 
Dell blades are poorly built, poor components, poor quality control, cheaply made, have poorly designed mgt interfaces, etc....
 
Emmanon said:
Are the altimeters there to compensate for lower air pressure/density?
Click to expand...

Per the docs it says its for saving electricity.
Perhaps how its harder to breathe at higher elevations, servers require more airflow to cool?

"Dammit Emmanon, I'm a IT guy not a scientist."
 
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