Blades

[zetec452]

We seem to be selling a number of HP blades at work of late. Probably due to the latest promotions.

At first I was a little sceptical about blades, eggs in one basket etc etc.

How many of you use blades? What is your general experience with them?

Jon

 

[Stolly]

Its not all eggs in one basket, especially when used with ESX.

If you want to pack a lot of computing power in a limited space then its a good way to go.

The oft quoted stat is that for every £1 spent on a server 50p will be spent powering and cooling it during its lifetime, so being able to dynamically turn blades off and on as the workload changes is a good feature.

 

[Robdav]

at work we are currently going through an infrastructure refresh with one of our customers. we've purchased 50 odd blade servers for us with 4 chassis to replace the 6 full size cabinets full of 1 / 2 U servers.

it equates to ...

6 cabinets -> 2 cabinets worth of kit. much of it will be virtualised on ESX where possible, physical where needed.

blades rock...

 

[zetec452]

What kind of blades are you using chaps? I would assume that you are hooking the ESX boxes up to a SAN of sorts?

We have a few test beds at work, the HP C3000 seems like a decent unit, not managed to put ESX on one yet but have played around with XEN. Unfortunately I didn't have any shared storage to test it with.

 

[NickK]

We use c7000. BL460cG5 preferred (dual QC, 8GB), Brocade SAN switches.

We actually disable the power saving. This is because the delay in ramping up CPU speed causes a network wide ripple effect. It's the same with ESX, the virtualisation causes too much delay. The systems are usually dimensioned according to customers traffic rates anyway.

Also there's a lot of customers out there that monitor the CPU speed - with the power saving on then they also get 100% CPU warnings all the time in RedHat!

We use multi-site deployments to cope with cluster outages.

 

[Shaz]sigh[]

We use blades for dense VM farms and DR sites. The C7000 and C3000 from HP to be precise. Also looked at the Dell M1000e and the IBM H series.

With regards to eggs all in one basket, the chassis itself is made to be pretty robust with multiple PSUs, multiple fans, passive backplane etc.

Where blades come in to their own is obviously in rack density and cable count. With the integrated ether/fibre switches or even virtualconnect, your cabling requirements falls through the floor (unless you use passthrough ofc).

Not really that much to say, blades have their place but they're not the rackable killing machine that they're touted as.

 

[Robdav]

What kind of blades are you using chaps?

currently we're using HP C7000 enclosures with HP BL460c blades hooked up to a twin headed Netapps SAN.

 

[bigredshark]

We're evaluating HP C series enclosures and blades, alongside a HP EVA for storage. The storage may well change, the HP impresses with it's relatively low power usage though. As everybody else says, you're saving rack space, power and cabling, only really of use when you've got large numbers of servers. The pain of expansion and non SAN storage means it's best for virtualisation as well. We'll likely limit deployment to DR sites for now..

 

[MikeTimbers]

Rack density is all well and good but then you just hit the floor loading limit with a rack that still has loads of space!

 

[Topgun]

Rack density is all well and good but then you just hit the floor loading limit with a rack that still has loads of space!

I think you will hit the power limits for the rack long before the floor loading limits. Many co-lo facilities are being forced to place limits as low as 8 amps per rack and a rack full of blades could quite possibly pull 60 amps or more.

 

[Biffa]

I remember several large colos having to build special blade areas as well, usually enclosed with much higher aircon and cooling capabilities due to the blade racks needing the extra help.

 

[zetec452]

Apparently the latest C class HP blades do not require specific air conditioning. I believe this was the case with older blade systems.

We have a blade running in a non airconditioned room and it seems OK. Granted it is much better to have the kit in an air conditioned room.

 

[NeoNemesis]

We have 2 types of blade frames the c3000 and the c7000.

The c3000 only holds 8 blades but does not require any additional cooling and can be plugged into standard "household" 13amp sockets. It allows a complete infrastructure to sit in an office backroom and run the place.

The c7000 is the big beefy datacentre momma. That needs the proper cooling and power

Neo

 

[BoomAM]

We're getting a c7000 and about 6-7 blades at my place.
Should make my job easyier than the current setup. .

 

[NickK]

We have 2 types of blade frames the c3000 and the c7000.

The c3000 only holds 8 blades but does not require any additional cooling and can be plugged into standard "household" 13amp sockets. It allows a complete infrastructure to sit in an office backroom and run the place.

The c7000 is the big beefy datacentre momma. That needs the proper cooling and power

Neo

True the c3000 is aimed at crappy office server rooms.. but the same HH blades will fit in either chassis - the c3000 has non-redundant I/O modules in the back.. so you loose that but what is funny is that they have an Itanium blade.. nothing like lots of heat in a really small space!

Infact the most useful thing about the c-series racks - you cam switch the LCD panel on the rack and the individual blade blue. No pulling wrong blades out..

 

[morfmedia]

As you say they are all eggs in one basket, I've seen 2 enclosures of BL20 or 25P's go offline at once due to faulty backplanes. Had to get a lot of components replaced in the blades due to it surging power.

Overall I like them as they come with ILO licenses but when they go wrong they can really go wrong!

Just got some new C class blades in and the fans on them are amazing, really throw the air out the back!

 

[BoomAM]

How loud are the c7000s, or is that dependant on what blades/how many fans are mounted?

 

[Shaz]sigh[]

Erm, pass.

I'd imagine it's based on the number of fans....

Can't hear it over the other servers/aircon/UPS so... "Normal loudness"

 

[Stolly]

Yeah i can't hear any of the blade chassis fans either, but then it is a rather loud room. Ear defenders are provided if you intend to spend a while in there. You have to speak up to be heard.