IBM HS21 - Manual

Workhorse 2-socket dual and quad-core
Intel Xeon blade server

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.

1.

Product

Guide

November 2006

IBM BladeCenter HS21

Product Overview

CONTENTS

Product Overview

1

Selling Features

2

Key Features

4

Key Options

12

HS21 Images

13

HS21 Specifications

13

BladeCenter Images

16

BladeCenter Specs

16

BladeCenter H Images

17

BladeCenter H Specs

18

BladeCenter T Images

19

BladeCenter T Specs

19

The Bottom Line

20

Server Rec. Map

22

For More Information

23

Legal Information

23

Uncompromising 2-socket blade server for business-
critical or telecommunications applications

[

Suggested uses:

Front-and mid-tier applications requiring high performance, enterprise-class

availability and extreme flexibility and power efficiency.

]

Today’s data center environment is tougher than ever. You are looking to reduce IT cost,
complexity, space requirements, power consumption and heat output, while increasing flexibility,
utilization and manageability. Incorporating IBM

X-Architecture

™

features, the

IBM

®

BladeCenter

®

HS21 blade server

, combined with the various BladeCenter chassis, can help

you accomplish all of these goals.

Reducing an entire server into as little as

.5U

of rack space does

not

mean trading away

features and capabilities for smaller size. Each HS21 blade server offers features comparable to
many 1U rack-optimized full-featured servers: The HS21 supports up to

two

of the latest full-

performance/low-power-draw

quad-

and

dual-core

Intel

®

Xeon

®

processors. The Xeon

processors are designed with

4MB

(dual-core) or

8MB

(quad-core) of

L2

cache, a leading-edge

1066

or

1333MHz

front-side bus (FSB), and

64-bit extensions

(

EM64T

), to help provide the

computing power you require to match your business needs and growth

.

The HS21 supports up

to

32GB

of

667MHz PC2-5300 Fully Buffered

ECC

(Error Checking and Correcting) double

data rate II (

DDR2

) memory in

8

DIMM

slots

,

using the

Memory and I/O Expansion Unit

, with

optional

Chipkill

™

protection, for high performance and reliability. The base HS21 is packaged

into a single 30mm form factor and supports up to

16GB

of memory in

4

DIMM slots.

Integrated

dual

Gigabit Ethernet

1

controllers are standard, providing high-speed data transfers

and offering

TOE

(TCP Offload Engine) support,

load-balancing

and

failover

capabilities. The

Memory and I/O Expansion Unit

provides

two

additional

Gigabit Ethernet

controllers (without

TOE support). Via optional expansion cards, each blade can also connect to additional Ethernet,

Myrinet

,

Fibre Channel

,

iSCSI, InfiniBand

™,

and other high-speed communication switches

housed in the chassis. Optional

2-port Expansion Cards

add additional fabrics to the HS21

server as needed. This blade is designed with

power management capability

to provide the

maximum uptime possible for your systems. In extended thermal conditions or power
brownouts, rather than shut down completely, or fail, the HS21 automatically reduces the
processor frequency to maintain acceptable thermal and power levels.

All HS21 models offer impressive features at an equally impressive price, including

up to

two

SAS

hard disk drives, with

RAID-0

data striping or

RAID-1

disk mirroring support. An optional

30mm

Storage and I/O Expansion Unit

connects to a blade (model-dependent) to provide an

additional three

2.5” SAS HDDs with

hot-swap

support, optional

RAID-5

with

battery-backed

cache

, and

four

additional

communication

ports. Moreover, the HS21 is

optimized

for

diskless operation, offering each blade server access to essentially unlimited storage capacity
via Fibre Channel or iSCSI.

A single

BladeCenter

or

BladeCenter H

chassis supports up to

14

hot-swappable

30mm-wide

HS21 blades in only

7U

(BladeCenter) or

9U

(BladeCenter H) of rack space or up to

8

hot-

swappable blades in the rugged

8U

BladeCenter T

chassis. Plans call for supporting up to

8

HS21

NEBS-3/ETSI-compliant

blades in a telecommunications environment. In addition to the

blade servers, these chassis also hold up to

four

(BladeCenter/BladeCenter T)

communication

switches

, or up to

ten

switches/bridges

(BladeCenter H) internally. Not only can this save

significant data center space (and therefore the cost of floor space and rack hardware)
compared to 1U servers, it also consolidates switches/bridges and cables for reduced
complexity and lower cabling costs, and allows clients to manage everything in the solution as
one. Using a BladeCenter chassis, up to

84

HS21 servers (

168

processors) can be installed in

one

industry-standard

42U

rack but the value of BladeCenter extends far beyond high density

data center environments.

1

Actual data transfer speed will vary and is often less than the maximum possible. Gigabit Ethernet transfer speed requires support on both

system and server, and appropriate network infrastructure.