1 Performance, energy savings and footprint reduction are based on the following comparisons.
Blade to rack:
2012 IBM BladeCenter HS23 blade server configuration: 2S 8C Intel Xeon E5-2680 / 2.7GHz
2009 HP Proliant DL380 G5 2U rack server configuration: 2S 2C Intel Xeon 5120 / 1.86GHz
Blade to blade:
2012 IBM BladeCenter HS23 blade server configuration: 2S 8C Intel Xeon E5-2680 / 2.7GHz
2008 IBM BladeCenter HS21 blade server configuration: 2S 2C Intel Xeon 5120 / 1.86GHz
Source: Intel Corp. and the IBM Systems Consolidation Evaluation Tool. http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/resources/tools/sconevalltool_intel/index.html
2 Up to 92% fewer networking cables based on calculations of: one 42U rack populated with 4 BladeCenter H chassis containing 14 blades each (56 total) supporting 12 I/O ports per blade (672 total ports) requiring a total of 64 cables per rack for 6 integrated switch modules (8 cables from the Virtual Fabric switches and 8 cables from other LAN switches times 4 chassis; the VF switches support both LAN and SAN traffic, so separate SAN cabling is unnecessary). An equivalent 56 1U rack servers populated in 2 rack enclosures supporting 14 I/O ports per server (12 LAN cables and 2 SAN cables connected to corresponding external LAN and SAN switches) requires a total of 784 cables. This does not even include the 86% reduction in cabling for power cords (16 per rack for BladeCenter H vs. 112 for 56 1U servers with redundant power), or the reduction in KVM and PDU switches and cabling.