Blade Watch

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/pressoffice/en/2008/2008_07_01_rr_000?c=us&l=en&s=corp

Round Rock, Texas, July 1, 2008

• Low-Cost Solution for Blade IO Virtualization, Deployment and Reducing Downtime
• Utilizes Existing Networking Investments; No Need to ‘Switch Your Switch’
• Achieves up to 100 Percent More Networking and Storage Connectivity at Half the Cost of HP Virtual Connect

Dell has followed on the successful introduction of its PowerEdge M-Series blade server solution with Dell FlexAddress, a patent pending tool for blade chassis virtualization and persistent identity. Dell FlexAddress is a simple, low-cost way for customers to deploy and manage blade infrastructures while reducing data center downtime. Dell FlexAddress is enabled by a special SD card for the PowerEdge M1000e Chassis Management Controller (CMC) and the latest firmware. The FlexAddress SD card is now available worldwide with a starting price of $499. For more information, visit www.dell.com/blades.

“We delivered one of the greenest, most energy-efficient blade solutions on the planet with the PowerEdge M-Series and now we’re making it one of the most flexible,” said Rick Becker, vice president of software and solutions, Dell Product Group. “FlexAddress frees customers from existing high-cost, proprietary tools, and enables them to utilize existing networking infrastructure and knowledge to handle predictable or even unplanned changes in their data center without affecting the network.”

Dell and Partners Declare: No Longer a Need to “Switch Your Switch” for Blades

Dell FlexAddress allows any M-Series blade enclosure to abstract the Fibre Channel World Wide Name(WWN) and Ethernet/iSCSI Media Access Control (MAC) from the blade hardware and, instead, tie it persistently to a slot in the M1000e chassis. This feature provides customers with an efficient, flexible and consistent infrastructure. Dell FlexAddress is managed by the Chassis Management Controller (CMC) in the PowerEdge M1000e, keeping it agnostic to the IO module and avoiding the need to “switch your switch.” Customers can achieve 100 percent more network and storage (LAN and SAN) connectivity at half the cost of HP Virtual Connect by enabling automated deployment configuration in advance and network stacking. This speeds network configuration and management by virtualizing the switches across up to 8 chassis (up to 128 servers), making them appear as a single virtual switch. FlexAddress also works with all Dell pass-through modules.

This is very cool, being able to allocate the MAC, the World Wide Name to slot, will improve the support process, and should reduce the delays of provisioning a new blade. By allocating the slot, the details when I swap the blade we can avoid the need for several teams to be involved, for storage to re-zone the World Wide Name, for Networks to reconfigure the Network, I just have the hardware guy/server team swap the blade and go. I also love the concept of the solid state card containing your configuration, that I can make one configuration and duplicate it/back it up, that if I need to replace parts of the enclosure, I can plug in the card to restore everything to my previous configuration.

That innovation continues across the blade platform has to be a good thing for the end user in terms of choice and functionality, but also in the industry, in illustrating the benefits of the blade platform for a range of uses.

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