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Open to your needs - IBM is committed to keeping BladeCenter flexible and customisable. That's why we were the first to open our blade specifications. This helps allow companies to more easily develop compatible solutions for BladeCenter -- providing you with more choice and flexibility.
Plus, BladeCenter is easily integrated into your IT configuration with the help of BladeCenter Open Fabric. With a rich set of switch offerings ranging from low cost to high function to leadership performance, it lets you match your data centre needs with the appropriate interconnect - without being locked into a decision by your vendor.
Easy to deploy. Easy to manage - IBM BladeCenter features powerful tools to make life easier for your IT staff. The BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager helps speed overall deployment, facilitating faster switch installation and configuration for up to 100 chassis. And management is a snap with IBM Director, which provides a simplified, single point of control so you can make the most of your time.
Keep your cool - Some companies spend up to half of their IT operating budgets on data centre power and cooling. BladeCenter gives you more control over energy efficiency with IBM Cool Blue™ technologies, a comprehensive portfolio of energy management tools.
For instance, IBM PowerExecutive™ allows you to monitor and control power consumption while providing an accurate picture of your energy needs. Plus, the new power virtualisation feature allows you to take power from servers that don't need it all and allocate it to new servers. This can help you achieve better cost control and performance within your power limits.
 
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St. Jude fights cancer with blades
Four IBM BladeCenter chassis, housing 140 blades, form the brains behind a powerful grid that is helping St. Jude Children's Hospital research new treatments for paediatric cancer. The solution can blaze through trillions of DNA sequences in hours, cutting the drug discovery process from six years to twelve short months.
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BladeCenter delivers blockbuster performance for Animal Logic
Animal Logic wanted to focus on the creative process. Not on managing infrastructure. That's why the digital production company chose the IBM BladeCenter to handle the complex rendering requirements for "Happy Feet," the Academy Award® winning feature film.
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Unipart Logistics supplies demand with BladeCenter
The IBM BladeCenter helps Unipart Logistics deliver 24/7 supply chain management to high-profile clients around the globe. After implementing an IBM virtualisation solution, featuring the BladeCenter, Unipart cut its inventory processing time from three hours to 20 minutes, allowing the company to provide sector-leading order fulfillment to its customers.
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TheStreet.com is bullish on BladeCenter
TheStreet.com, a leading provider of investment information, needed to expand its database to handle a growing portfolio of web content. Deploying a turnkey solution, built on IBM BladeCenter, they gained a highly scalable infrastructure capable of supporting rapid, incremental growth.
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BladeCenter levels the playing field for LightEdge customers
The IBM BladeCenter helps LightEdge Solutions deliver voice, data, and IT services to nearly 4,000 small and medium-sized businesses. Since standardising its pay-as-you-go offerings on the BladeCenter platform, LightEdge has boosted performance and improved manageability, cutting its SLA for response and repair time in half - from four hours to two.
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Zumiez finds extreme density with BladeCenter
A high-density IBM BladeCenter solution helped Zumiez cut energy costs and reclaim valuable floor space in its new office facility. And by taking advantage of the BladeCenter's flexible networking options, the action sports retailer was able to utilise its existing SAN storage infrastructure out of the gate.
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BladeCenter helps MMA reduce risk
As one of France's leading insurance providers, Mutuelles du Mans Assurance places a premium on data security and availability. The IBM BladeCenter is helping MMA minimise unplanned downtime due to server crashes and improve systems management across its infrastructure. |
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Chassis
The IBM BladeCenter family provides a flexible and reliable foundation for today's needs and tomorrow's opportunities, offering five chassis options:
- IBM BladeCenter E for our best energy management
- IBM BladeCenter H for our highest performance
- IBM BladeCenter T for telco and other rigorous environments
- IBM BladeCenter HT for both rigorous and high-performance environments
- IBM BladeCenter S designed for growing businesses¹
Every BladeCenter chassis comes with intelligent IBM Cool Blue technology to help you plan, monitor, control and allocate power consumption and cooling across your blade environment. Every component is designed to help preserve application uptime. This includes numerous redundant features that help prevent any single point of failure.
And to help protect your investment, the BladeCenter portfolio uses a single, compatible architecture. This open, cross-functional design allows each chassis to share the same blades, switches, and components.²
Blades
IBM BladeCenter offers a full range of blade servers to handle your diverse application requirements - from collaboration and commerce to high-performance computing and database applications.
BladeCenter gives you the freedom to apply the right architecture for diverse workloads within the same shared environment. It supports a variety of operating systems (Linux®, Windows®, IBM AIX®, Novell and Sun Solaris) and processors (Intel®, AMD, IBM POWER, and Cell Broadband Engine®)*. And most blades come in 2-socket and 4-socket configurations.
*The QS20 blade, designed for HPC applications, requires a chassis separate from other models.
Storage
The intelligent, modular BladeCenter design allows you to tightly integrate a variety of storage solutions within your blade infrastructure. BladeCenter supports an array of easy-to-install, high-capacity storage options, ranging from highly reliable internal Solid State Drives to more robust, external solutions, like storage area networking and network-attached storage found in the System Storage 3000 and 4000 family.
Switches
IBM BladeCenter provides a wide array of integrated switching options - ranging from low cost, to high function, to leadership performance - designed to help shorten install times and reduce complexity. This eases management across your infrastructure and can help lower your total cost of ownership.
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1. Expected availability 4Q2007. All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
2. 10Gb Ethernet switch and 4X InfiniBand® supported only on the high-performance BladeCenter H. |
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