Blade Watch

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=778

Compared to the likes of other server makers like IBM, HP, Dell, and Sun, Hitachi Data Systems may not be a household name in the North American market. But this week at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), the North American division of the Japanese HDS (Hitachi America’s Ltd.) will be looking to drive its first x86 server stake into the American server ground when it launches its a Xeon-based server — a blade server at that — that it thinks is unique enough to trump the home field incumbents.

Under the brand BladeSymphony, the HDS blade servers’ primary unique selling proposition is their o ability to carve themselves up into virtual machines each of which can support Windows Server 2003, Novell SuSE Linux, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  This of course can be done with servers from IBM, HP, Sun, and Dell. But try doing it without the sort of virtualization software (hypervisors) that you’d normally have to buy from companies like VMware (a subsidiary of EMC), XenSource (a subsidiary of Citrix), Microsoft, Virtuozzo, SWsoft or others.

Instead, using a technology that HDS has branded as Virtage, the Japanese-based company has embedded its own hypervisor into its blade servers’ firmware.  The results say Steve Campbell and Paul Figliozzi, the two Hitachi executives that I interviewed in the attached podcast, is a server that is easier to virtualize, that doesn’t have to deal with the thorny driver issues that software-based hypervisors do, and that Hitachi believes is a more reliable and scalable solution.  You can hear the interview by pressing the play button on the podcast player above, downloading the MP3 audio (also available on the podcast player), or, if you’re already subscribed to ZDNet’s IT Matters series of podcasts (see how to subscribe), the audio should already be sitting on your computer’s and/or MP3 player’s hard drives.

The Hitachi alternative does sound very cool I’ll need to read up more about them. Do check out this interesting post and the associated podcast interviews with the guys from Hitachi.

Related posts:

1. Hitachi continues to innovate their Blade platform Business Wire CUPERTINO, Calif. & TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Neterion, Inc., the industry...
2. Hitachi Data Systems to increase efficiency Business Wire SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a...
3. Hitachi and Cavium continue the innovation MarketWire MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA–(Marketwire – October 7, 2009) – Cavium...
4. Hitachi continue their innovation on BladeSymphony platform It’s great to see Hitachi has announced improvements to its...
5. Hitachi aims to help with virtualization Check out this article talking about what Hitachi’s initiative in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.