IBM BladeCenter


The IBM BladeCenter was IBM's blade server architecture, until it was replaced by Flex System in 2012. The x86 division was later sold to Lenovo in 2014.
Image:bladecenter-back.jpg|thumb|400px|BladeCenter E back side, showing on the left two FC switches and two Ethernet switches. On the right side a management module with VGA and PS/2 keyboard and mouse cables connected.
Image:UPM-CeSViMa-SupercomputadorMagerit.jpg|thumb|400px|Magerit supercomputer has 86 Blade Centers

History

Introduced in 2002, based on engineering work started in 1999, the IBM eServer BladeCenter was relatively late to the blade server market. It differed from prior offerings in that it offered a range of x86 Intel server processors and input/output options.
The naming was changed to IBM BladeCenter in 2005. In February 2006, IBM introduced the BladeCenter H with switch capabilities for 10 Gigabit Ethernet and InfiniBand 4X.
A web site called Blade.org was available for the blade computing community through about 2009.
In 2012, the replacement Flex System was introduced.

Enclosures

IBM BladeCenter (E)

The original IBM BladeCenter was later marketed as BladeCenter E. Power supplies have been upgraded through the life of the chassis from the original 1200 to 1400, 1800, 2000 and 2320 watt.
The BladeCenter was co-developed by IBM and Intel and included:

IBM BladeCenter T

BladeCenter T is the telecommunications company version of the original BladeCenter, available with either AC or DC power. Has 8 blade slots in 8U, but uses the same switches and blades as the regular BladeCenter E. To keep NEBS Level 3 / ETSI compliant special Network Equipment-Building System compliant blades are available.

IBM BladeCenter H

Upgraded BladeCenter design with high-speed fabric options, announced in 2006. Backwards compatible with older BladeCenter switches and blades. Features:

IBM BladeCenter HT

BladeCenter HT is the telecommunications company version of the BladeCenter H, available with either AC or DC power. Has 12 blade slots in 12U, but uses the same switches and blades as the regular BladeCenter H. But to keep NEBS Level 3 / ETSI compliant special NEBS compliant blades are available.

IBM BladeCenter S

Targets mid-sized customers by offering storage inside the BladeCenter chassis, so no separate external storage needs to be purchased. It can also use 120V power in the North American market, so it can be used outside the datacenter. When running at 120V, the total chassis capacity is reduced. Features:
  • 6 blade slots in 7U
  • Shared Media tray with optical drive and 2× USB 2.0 ports
  • 1 Advanced Management module as standard Storage: Up to 12 hot-swap 3.5" SAS or SATA drives with RAID 0, 1, and 1E capability
  • * Two optional Disk Storage Modules for HDDs, six 3.5" SAS/SATA drives each
  • 4 hot-swap I/O switch module baysPower: Two 950/1450-watt, hot-swap modules and ability to have two optional 950/1450-watt modules, offering redundancy and power for robust configurations; C19/C20 connectors
  • Four hot-swap redundant blowers

Intel based

Modules based on x86 processors from Intel.

HS12

Features:Processor: Celeron single-core 445 to quad-core Intel Xeon up to 2.83GHzMemory: 6 DIMM slots
  • Hot-swap drives

HS20

Features:
[Image:IBM HS20 blade server.jpg|400px|thumb|Inside of IBM HS20 blade. Two 2.5 inch disk drive bays are unoccupied.]Processors: One or two Intel Xeon DP Memory: 4 DIMM slots
  • Option for one or two 2.5" drives
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports

HS21

This model can use the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards-compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:Processors: One or two Intel Xeon DP Memory: 4 DIMM slots
  • Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports

HS21 XM

This model can use the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:Processors: One or two Intel Xeon DP Memory: 8 DIMM slots
  • Option for one SAS 2.5" drive or one or two SAS-based Solid State drives
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports

HS22

Features:Processors: One or two Intel Xeon 5500 or 5600 series Memory: up to 192GB DDR3
  • Option for two hot swap SAS 2.5" drives or SSD
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
  • 1 CIOv slot and 1 CFFh slot for a total of 8 ports of I/O to each blade, including 4 ports of high-speed I/O
  • Requires Advanced Management Module

HS22v

Features are very similar to HS22 but:Memory: up to 288GB DDR3
  • Up to two 1.8" disks
  • Requires Advanced Management Module

HS23

Features:
  • Single-wideProcessors: One or two Intel Xeon E5-2600 or E5-2600 v2Memory: 16 DIMM slots, up to 1866MHz
  • 2 hot-swappable HDDs or SSDs
  • Dual 10G/1G Ethernet onboard expandable to
  • Virtual Fabric / vNic's onboard
  • Requires Advanced Management Module

HS23E

Features:
  • Single-wideProcessors: One or two Intel Xeon E5-2400Memory: 12 DIMM slots, up to 1600MHz
  • 2 hot-swappable HDDs or SSDs
  • Dual Gigabit Ethernet onboard ports with TOE
  • Requires Advanced Management Module

HS40

Features:
  • Double-wide Processors: One to four Intel Xeon MPMemory:
  • Option for one or two ATA100 2.5" drives
  • Four 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
  • Two expansion slots for up to four additional ports

HC10

This blade model is targeted to the workstation market, Features:Processor: Single Intel Core 2 DuoMemory: 8GB max
  • NVidia video adapter
  • One SATA 60GB HDD
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports

HX5

This blade model is targeted at the server virtualization market. Features:Processors: 2 to 4 Intel E7, 6500 or 7500 series Xeon Memory: 256GB Max ; Expandable to 40 slots with a 24 DIMM MAX 5 memory blade.
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports per blade

AMD based

Modules based on x86 processors from AMD.

LS20

Features:Processors: One or two AMD Opteron Memory: DDR
  • Option for one or two SCSI U320 2.5" drives
  • Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports

LS21

[Image:blade-LS21-inside.jpg|thumb|400px|Inside of IBM LS21 blade. Small circuit board visible on the bottom right is an optional Fibre Channel daughter card.]
This model can use the high-speed I/O of the BladeCenter H, but is also backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:Processors: One or two AMD Opteron, support 65nm Quad core after BIOS update Memory: up to 32GB of RAM
  • Option for one SAS or SATA 2.5" drive
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports

LS22

Upgraded model of LS21. Features:Processors: One or two 45nm AMD Opteron Memory: up to 64GB of RAM
  • Option for two SAS or SATA 2.5" drive
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports

LS41

This model can use the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:
  • Double-wide Processors: One to four AMD Opteron Memory: up to 64GB of RAM
  • Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives
  • Four Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • Two expansion slots for up to four additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports
  • Data Storage Capacity ?

LS42

Upgraded model of LS41. Features:
  • Double-wide Processors: One to 4 AMD Opteron Memory: up to 128GB of RAM
  • Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives
  • Four Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • Two expansion slots for up to four additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports

Power based

Modules based on PowerPC- or Power ISA-based processors from IBM.

JS20

Features:
  • Can run AIX or LinuxProcessors: Two PowerPC 970 at 1.6 or 2.2 GHzMemory: 4 DIMM slots for PC2700 ECC
  • Option for one or two ATA100 2.5" drives
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports

JS21

This model can have the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:

JS22

Features:

JS23

Features:

JS43 Express

Features:

JS12 Express

Features:

PS700

Branded as part of IBM Power Systems. Features:

PS701

Features are very similar to PS700, butProcessor: 8-coreMemory: max 128 GB

PS702

Think two PS701 tied together back-to-back, forming a double-wide blade

PS703

Features are very similar to PS701, butProcessors: Two 8-core at 2.4 GHz

PS704

Think two PS703 tied together back-to-back, forming a double-wide blade.

Cell based

Modules based on Cell processors from IBM.

QS20

Features:
  • Double-wide
  • Can run LinuxProcessors: Two Cell processors at 3.2 GHzMemory: 1 GB XDRAM
  • 40 GB IDE100 2.5" drive
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • Optional InfiniBand 4X connectivity

QS21

Features:
  • Single-wide
  • Can run LinuxProcessors: Two Cell processors at 3.2 GHzMemory: 2 GB
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • One expansion slot for up to two additional ports
  • One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports

QS22

Features:

UltraSPARC based: 2BC

Themis computer announced a blade around 2008.
It ran the Sun Solaris operating system from Sun Microsystems.
Each module had one UltraSPARC T2 with 64 threads at 1.2 GHz and up to 32 GB of DDR2 SDRAM processor memory.

Advanced network: PN41

Developed in conjunction with CloudShield, features:
  • Single-wideProcessor: Intel IXP2805 network processor
  • Full payload screening with deep packet inspection
  • Full Layer 7 processing and control
  • User programmability using Eclipse-based IDE and RAVE open development language
  • Quad 1 Gbit + quad 10 Gbit Ethernet controllers
  • Up to 20 Gbit/s DPI throughput per blade
  • Selective traffic capture, rewrite and redirect
  • Has LAN and WAN Interfaces

Modules

Switch modules

The BladeCenter can have a total of four switch modules, but two of the switch module bays can take only an Ethernet switch or Ethernet pass-though. To use the other switch module bays, a daughtercard needs to be installed on each blade that needs it, to provide the required SAN, Ethernet, InfiniBand or Myrinet function. Mixing of different type daughtercards in the same BladeCenter chassis is not allowed.

Gigabit Ethernet

Gigabit Ethernet switch modules were produced by IBM, Nortel, and Cisco Systems.
BLADE Network Technologies produced some switches, and later was purchased by IBM.
In all cases speed internal to the BladeCenter, between the blades, is non-blocking. External Gigabit Ethernet ports vary from four to six and can be either copper or optical fiber.

Storage Area Network

A variety of SAN switch modules have been produced by QLogic, Cisco, McData and Brocade ranging in speeds of 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit Fibre Channel. Speed from the SAN switch to the blade is determined by the lowest-common-denominator between the blade HBA daughtercard and the SAN switch. External port counts vary from two to six, depending on the switch module.

InfiniBand

A InfiniBand switch module has been produced by Cisco. Speed from the blade InfiniBand daughtercard to the switch is limited to IB 1X. Externally the switch has one IB 4X and one IB 12X port. The IB 12X port can be split to three IB 4X ports, giving a total of four IB 4X ports and a total theoretical external bandwidth of 40 Gbit.

Pass-through

Two kinds of pass-through module are available: copper pass-through and fibre pass-through. The copper pass-through can be used only with Ethernet, while the Fibre pass-through can be used for Ethernet, SAN or Myrinet.

Bridge

Bridge modules are only compatible with BladeCenter H and BladeCenter HT. They function like Ethernet or SAN switches and bridge the traffic to InfiniBand. The advantage is that from the Operating System on the blade everything seems normal, but inside the BladeCenter everything gets routed over the InfiniBand.

High-speed switch modules

High-speed switch modules are compatible only with the BladeCenter H and BladeCenter HT. A blade that needs the function must have a high-speed daughtercard installed. Different high-speed daughtercards cannot be mixed in the same BladeCenter chassis.

10 Gigabit Ethernet

A 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch module was available from BLADE Network Technologies. This allowed 10 Gbit/s connection to each blade, and to outside the BladeCenter.

InfiniBand 4X

There are several InfiniBand options:
  • A high-speed InfiniBand 4X SDR switch module from Cisco. This allows IB 4X connectivity to each blade. Externally the switch has two IB 4X ports and two IB 12X ports. The 12X ports can be split to three 4X ports, providing a total of eight IB 4X ports or a theoretical bandwidth of 80 Gbit. Internally between the blades, the switch is non-blocking.
  • A High-speed InfiniBand pass-through module to directly connect the blades to an external InfiniBand switch. This pass-though module is compatible with both SDR and DDR InfiniBand speeds.
  • A high-speed InfiniBand 4X QDR switch module from Voltaire. This allows full IB 4X QDR connectivity to each blade. Externally the switch has 16 QSFP ports, all 4X QDR capable.

Roadrunner TriBlade (custom module)

[Image:TriBlade.png|thumb|upright=1.8 |A schematic description of the TriBlade module]
The IBM Roadrunner supercomputer used a custom module called the TriBlade from 2008 through 2013. An expansion blade connects two QS22 modules with 8 GB RAM each via 4 PCIe x8 links to a LS21 module with 16 GB RAM, two links for each QS22. It also provides outside connectivity via an Infiniband 4x DDR adapter. This makes a total width of four slots for a single TriBlade. Three TriBlades fit into one BladeCenter H chassis.