Virtualization Move: IBM Adds SAN To Blade Server Chassis
The change to the BladeCenter S -- making available a new switch module that turns existing direct-attach storage into a storage area network, or SAN -- is fairly minor, but it is major in its implications for the virtual server market, said Leif Morin, president of Key Information Systems, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based solution provider.
"It's a big deal," Morin said. "Until now, the BladeCenter S has been unable to run some of the cooler, more important features of VMware. Specifically, it couldn't run VMotion to migrate virtual machines between blades. Now it can. That's a big improvement in the marketability of the product."
The change makes it easier to work with existing smaller customers who want to use blade servers as part of their virtual server infrastructure, as well as to target a broader base of potential customers, Morin said.
"In the past, we targeted customers with virtualization who had 1U and 2U servers with a SAN," he said. "Now we can do it with the BladeCenter S. And we can target departmental users with new capabilities."
The built-in SAN capability is easily the most important enhancement IBM could make to its BladeCenter S, Morin said. "IBM can increase its processor performance and memory, but that stuff will happen anyway," he said.
The BladeCenter S chassis currently has room for six server blades, as well as two hard drive bays, one on each side of the server blade bay, with room for up to 12 750-Gbyte SAS hard drives for a capacity of up to 9 Tbytes.
Those drives have been attached directly to the blade servers via a NSSM, or non-shared storage module, which plugs into the switch bay on back of the chassis, said Alex Yost, vice president of IBM's BladeCenter product line.
What's new is the RSSM, or RAIDed shared storage module, which allows those hard drives to be networked together as a SAN which can be shared by the blade servers, Yost said. Previously, to add SAN capability to the BladeCenter S, it was necessary to add a switch to allow it to connect to an external storage network, he said.
The new SAN capability makes it easier for solution providers to help customers by offering server and SAN in a single enclosure, Yost said. "Customers don't want to deploy different servers and switches," he said. "If we can give them one throat to choke, it can help them better use the BladeCenter S."
The integrated SAN improves performance over competing solutions by offering a full 3-Gbit-per-second SAS connectivity and a redundant architecture, all without using one of the six blade server slots, Yost said.
In addition to the new SAN capability, IBM also added a couple of new software tools, including StartNow, a GUI-based tool to help set up the servers, storage, and switches within 30 minutes, and Service Advisor, which adds a call-home feature to the BladeCenter S to send alerts of pending issues.
The new RSSMs are expected to ship in volume later this month with a list price of $7,000 for a pair.