Post By Martin 3 Comments
March 2007 05

HP vs IBM blades

I was asked by Chris in four points to review an IBM blade solution against the HP one, when we were last out to dinner, and I thought I’d publish them.

Please note, this is a brief summary, and if you are going to look at blades do quiz the vendors and decide which is right for you.

Why I love IBM blades:

  1. I buy one enclosure and it works with many processors – Powerpc/X86 (AMD/Intel)/Cell (soon)
  2. The blades work in any of the different enclosures with different scalability for your business – telecoms grade enclosures
  3. 10GB Ethernet in the enclosure supported
  4. Can buy the blade add on to make quad processor/extra local storage etc

Why I love HP blades:

  1. The HP support site is fantastic – quick spec guide/driver packs work on any platform
  2. 10GB Ethernet on the C class blades
  3. Fit 16 blades – 6 more than IBM
  4. I can mix blade servers and blade workstations

Please keep in mind, that both offer benefits over each other, whichever you choose will be down to your preference and any buying procedures/corporate agreements. This is merely a bullet point summary that I discussed with Chris over dinner, check out the CNET reviews, and speak with colleagues to see their experiences with the hardware.

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3 Comments

  1. Lode says:
    March 6, 2007 at 10:20 am

    Other reasons to love IBM:

    * they don’t abandon their customers every year, forcing them to buy new $20K worth of switches for yet another chassis design.
    * all their blades have dual power & IO connections. Even HP’s full height blades have only got single power
    * try to mix full- and half height HP blades in one domain and you downgrade your chassis to a very expensive paperweight
    * proven power & cooling efficiency (not only using the respective power configurators, but also in real lab tests, soon to be certified by an independent 3rd party)
    * the advanced management module & integrated media bay: There’s a local KVM and dvd drive built in, no need for external cd drives and “KVM breakout cables”.
    * actually usable redundant power: lose one power circuit (ie. two of the four power supplies, or 50%) and your system stays up. Lose one power circuit at HP (ie three of the six) and your complete chassis goes down.

    ..i could go on..

    (Disclaimer: I am a certified IBM BladeCenter specialist working for an IBM BP. I’d love to hear the competitive take from HP’s side.)

  2. Ed Byrne says:
    March 6, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    HP Blades also have 8 DIMM slots as oppose to 4 in the IBM, and have integrated NIC’s, RAID and 2 x SAS-HD slots. IBM can’t take 2 HD’s if you want more NIC’s.

  3. martin says:
    March 7, 2007 at 10:59 am

    Please remember that if you’re tied to a vendor, for example you can only buy IBM servers, it’s a mute point for discussion. As we move towards virtualization, the cost of the server, the performance, and most of all the power and cooling requirements become key.

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