The Journey to Your Cloud Starts Here

Doing the laundry is men's work! No? Yes, it is!

Doing the laundry is men's work! No? Yes, it is! Since virtualisation allows various operating systems to be run on the same hardware, this is so. It is like putting all types of clothing into the same wash cycle, pressing the 'start' button, and receiving a perfect washing result for all the various fabrics and colours...

Well, what's still impossible in the wash-kitchen is already reality in IT. Virtualisation based on VMware or XEN today allows various operating systems to easily run side-by-side on one piece of hardware.  What's more, it is possible to run the same operating systems in different versions.

Every financial controller and every company director would like to achieve high utilisation of machines and equipment. Investments in production systems should be utilised to the best effect. A comprehensive study by IBM showed that  the CPU utilisation of most Windows servers ranges between 5 and 10%. Obviously, this is not in line with corporate goals.

Virtualising operating systems allows high utilisation and, at the same time, higher availability compared to traditional installations, making IT investments much more efficient. In practice, the number of servers could be reduced up to 10 fold using virtualisation. Operating costs are reduced while flexibility increases.
 

Servers - The Performance - Scalability

We all know servers. Many of us believe that a server can do everything. Some believe that particular tasks require special servers. Only few believe that a server does not require any hard disks or fans. However, it's all very easy. The result of server innovation is a blade centre. This mode of running servers is not all that new, but has established itself today for efficient use in the small to mid-sized sector.

Following years of IT expansion, many companies often possess a large number of servers. All servers have different connections and a variety of components and spare parts. In order to tidy up these structures, a platform should be chosen that standardises components.

The IBM Bladecenter allows the running of up to 14 servers (blades) in 7 height units. Apart from the blades, it also includes all components for power supply and network infrastructure in the LAN and SAN direction. The network units are modular and can be used by manufacturers such as Cisco, Nortel, Qlogic and Brocade. All systems have a redundant layout and provide a fail-safe system for all functions from the first blade onwards. You will obtain an entire "data centre" in a quarter of a cabinet! The necessity of IT availability for companies is increasing. Who can do without e-mail services for more than a day? The Bladecenter innovation is robust and fail safe. With just 8 connections to the outside world, you can get up to 112 CPUs (cores) on the road. And how about the price? From four blades upwards, it comes at a better price than four conventional servers.

Scalable from 2 to 112 cores

Made-to-measure, yet standardised, the IBM Bladecenter sets standards for state-of-the-art IT. The features allow dynamic expansion for all customer requirements:

• Central administration of all systems

• Open SAN and NAS connection with internal Cisco, Nortel, Qlogic and Brocade switches

• Infiniband 10 GBit/s for LAN

• 4 Gbit/s FiberChannel or 1 GBit/s iscsi SAN

• Blades with Intel, AMD and power processors

• Blades with up to 8 cores and 32 GByte RAM

• 2 x silicon- and 1x flash-disk support

• Redundant power supplies with efficiency < 90%

• Redundant central fans 230 V supply

Connecting 14 servers with 2 cables

The iSCSI and FiberChannel (FC) interfaces can be used to connect into the different worlds within SAN, allowing all servers to boot or mount their (virtual) disks from the storage system.

Redundant and twice secured

All units have a second physical backup. In case of a hardware failure, your IT will not come to a standstill. IT availability is one of today's production factors.

Please also consult our flyer to learn more about this topic.