Cutting Through Storage Blades

You've rolled out that shiny new blade system with all of its power, cooling, and management bells and whistles, but the deal isn't done until you find a home for all of the data your customer's new computing power will generate.

Vendors are finally coming around with storage options to support burgeoning blade environments. That's good news for VARs who are finding that blade-friendly storage technologies--especially the new generation of storage blades--represent a grand opportunity to sweeten blade-server deals. In many cases, storage blades may even clinch a deal with customers previously reluctant to transition their tower or rack-mounted servers because of uncertainty.

Until now, internal storage in blade systems has lagged that of traditional servers. The reason for that limitation is that blades only have room for 2.5-inch disk drives, the same form factor as a notebook PC. Traditional servers, by comparison, support numerous high-capacity 3.5-inch drives.

But a number of new offerings will allow solution providers to up the ante when proposing blade systems. First, the arrival of 146-GB drives for blade servers doubles the capacity of the current generation of drives. Also, the advent of storage blades armed with the 146-GB drives allows for the installation of dedicated racks of storage into the blade chassis. At this point, the options for storage blades remain limited, but that's due to change next year.

When Hewlett-Packard and IBM released their second-generation blade systems earlier this year, both introduced platforms that allow for much tighter integration of networking, storage, power and cooling. The icing on the cake was that they also offered a common management architecture.

While there are others with new blade architectures--Dell, Hitachi and Sun, to name a few--HP and IBM sell a majority of the blades in the market at this point and have the broadest offerings.

For now, HP owns the bragging rights to storage blades. The vendor is just starting to ship what it claims is the world's first storage blade, the StorageWorks SB40c. When training partners on the BladeSystem architecture, the company wants resellers to lead with that point.

"It's a differentiator because IBM and Dell don't have similar capability," says Rich Baldwin, CEO of San Diego-based Nth Generation, an enterprise systems solution provider that sells HP servers and storage. "Rather than having to buy a server that has a large amount of storage for a direct-attached application, this extends the reach of the blade."

NEXT: Blades for external storage networks

For many blade-server deals, storage blades will be an attractive option to customers who prefer to stick with direct-attached storage. But it's also important to note that while this solution will appeal to a good number of customers, it's not for everyone. Some may want direct-attached storage for applications that require it, but will also link their blade systems with external storage networks.

The SB40c can go into HP's new c-Class BladeSystem rack with 15 servers. By pooling the servers, they can all share the capacity of that storage blade, or the rack can be configured with up to eight servers and eight storage blades. Based on six SAS drives with 146 GB each, the storage blade supports up to 876 GB. Since each HP server blade also supports up to two 146-GB drives, each can utilize up to 1.168 terabytes of storage.

The IBM BladeCenter Storage and I/O expansion blade, or SIO, adds up to three serial attached SCSI (SAS) drives or 438 GB per blade. Both HP and IBM offer two drives within the blade servers.

The IBM I/O expansion only lets customers add direct-attached storage to a single blade, versus HP's pooled-storage option. IBM downplays that point, arguing that external SANs are better-suited for the pooling of storage.

"We're seeing external storage, not direct-attached. That's the way of the future," says Matt Weinberg, an IBM BladeCenter product manager. "As processing power continues to increase, customers will be busting out of whatever capacity their blades can hold. We're focusing on putting solutions out there that rely on external storage."

Weinberg says IBM is developing I/O technology that will let it develop a pooled storage blade as well. But HP partners could argue that that's not going to happen anytime soon, counters Mark Smith, founder and president of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Outsource Channel Executives. Smith's company recently led a 26-city Blade Builder University road show with training for HP partners.

HP's pooling capability aside, partners should talk up the direct-attached model because it offers more capacity. It should be noted, though, that each server must be linked to a specific storage blade in such a scenario.

That's a good scenario for customers migrating from tower or rack-mounted servers, many of whom will prefer to carry over the same direct-attached storage model to the blade environment. HP says about half of its server customers still use direct-attached storage in their existing server infrastructures.

Illuminata analyst John Webster says those customers are likely to want to stick with that model when moving to blade servers. "It's not the coolest thing to do, but it's the way a lot of customers do it," Webster says. "[Customers] can be very risk-averse, particularly when it comes to fooling around with the storage environment. This is a way for HP to give the ability to carry the [direct-attached storage] architecture along with them as they migrate to blades."

NEXT: Bottom lines sell blades

When it comes to selling blades, VARs need a strategy that can be applied to any vendor's offering and across a number of environment types.

Recently, VARBusiness gained exclusive access to HP's Blade Builder University training program and gathered some noteworthy insights into selling blades. It's important to remember that migration to blades is a strategic business decision. But keep in mind, IT will see it as disruptive. Some IT organizations will find blades threatening because they require less manpower. With that in mind, a blade deal requires buy-in from top executives--notably, the CEO and the CFO, followed by the CIO.

Mark Smith, founder and president of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Outsource Channel Executives who taught the training program, recommends ditching the tech speak and focusing on how blades can help an organization boost profits. Don't even mention servers. "To a CEO, a server is someone who brings them their lunch," Smith says.

Also, emphasize that blades fit in the same chassis as the servers, power and network gear. Focus on the benefits of the chassis, because once you do, you have a better chance of keeping the customer for the long term. "One thing I like is that you own the account if you sell them a chassis," says Christian Aguayo, a consultant with Biff Duncan Associates, a Carlstadt, N.J., partner who attended the HP training event.

Underscore the ability to manage multiple components in a common interface. That's important for organizations with limited admin resources. If capacity requirements are substantial, focus on SANs and network-attached storage, rather than trying to convince customers that they'll be able to put petabytes of data in a blade rack.

So what is the future of storage blades? Illuminata's Webster says it's too early to say. "Bladed storage is a long-term strategy, but I think this is a good first step, he says. "No one really knows where it will go."