What kind of small and medium-sized enterprises need to consider applying blade servers?

design

The rack/cabinet must be compatible with the blade server chassis, provide enough power and data cables for the blade server, and ensure that air can freely enter and exit the rack.

Based on the application characteristics of blade server, APC NetShelter VX is a rack solution suitable for all deployment modes. NetShelter has a base with good compatibility, which can support a load of 907kg, and four PDU's (0U space) can be installed vertically are reserved.

The punching rate of the front and rear doors is 66% (0.516m2), which provides sufficient refrigeration for the equipment. NetShelter can also support top-level wiring of power and data lines, cable management of racks and air distribution.

expert opinion/advice

Blade servers are mainly used in finance, telecommunications, oil exploration, geological survey and other departments. In recent years, blades have attracted the attention of many small and medium-sized enterprises. The reason is that compared with traditional rack servers, blade servers have more advantages, such as high density and space saving.

These are very popular with SME users. In addition, the concept of SMEs is different from the past. In the internet environment, many so-called small and medium-sized enterprises are actually large in scale, which may have hundreds of employees, their own financial systems and some manufacturing industries.

Enterprises also have ERP systems. In view of this situation, if you choose a general enterprise solution and buy 42U cabinets, each server will run different applications, which will not meet the needs of these small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of cost, resource utilization and computing power. What about the knife?

Chip server is energy-saving, space-saving, easy to deploy and manage, which is absolutely useful in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Fu Bin, general manager of IBM System x Greater China, also pointed out that SMEs don't have many IT managers like large enterprises, and they prefer to use some mature products that are easy to manage and use. From the perspective of IBM investment protection, SMEs must have a chance to succeed.

Dragon will become a medium-sized enterprise or a large enterprise in the future, and the blade can continue to be used, which is also the selling point of the blade server.

As He Guowei, vice president of IBM Greater China and general manager of Systems and Technology Division, said, "Growth enterprises with limited resources expect to improve their competitiveness by using technological progress without increasing costs. Therefore, the blade server must be "applicable, open, green,

"Simple" function can meet the present and future computing needs of small and medium-sized enterprise customers. "

Applicability is the primary problem that small and medium-sized enterprise users need to consider when choosing blade servers. Only by clarifying the characteristics of their own applications and finding a product scheme with corresponding architecture design, modular concept and enterprise-level reliability can enterprises successfully build personalization.

Blade systems are based on. Providing "appropriate" solutions for the special application requirements of enterprises embodies the overall strategy of IBM blade servers. Combining the design idea of modular compatibility with the design idea of chassis, blade and structure with different characteristics, IBM can

In order to combine personalized solutions for customers looking for "applicable" products.

At the same time, with the restriction of power supply system and the enhancement of energy conservation and environmental protection awareness, energy consumption is the focus of small and medium-sized enterprises, so the "green" theme of blade server has become one of its important application advantages. IBM BladeCenter adopts industry-leading innovative technology.

The new energy-saving technology is superior to the new system measurement index-performance/power consumption ratio. IBM's breakthrough PowerExecutive technology can help customers "measure" the actual electricity consumption and heat dissipation at any time, and effectively plan and control the use of electric energy.

Innovative vector calibration cooling technology is a technology to manage air intake, fan layout and area cooling, which can maximize the airflow inside blades and rack servers and optimize cooling efficiency.

"Open" compatibility is an important condition to protect the investment of small and medium-sized enterprises and ensure flexible development. IBM has always adhered to the principle of openness in the design of R&D and blade servers. The new IBM BladeCenter Open Fabric integrates a series of I/O technologies in BladeCenter.

Combination, provide open, high-performance, comprehensive interconnection and intelligent management tools to help enterprises run their business. Open Fabric technology is open, not only because it can connect to the backbone network of data center flexibly, quickly and reliably, but also because it can be used in all chassis.

, blades and switches.

Simplifying complexity and "easy" deployment is an important advantage of blade servers over rack servers. IBM adopts various leading technologies to make BladeCenter more convenient and easy to use. For example, using the new BladeCenter open architecture manager technology, services can

The deployment time of the server has been shortened from several days to several hours. At the same time, with the help of mature virtualization technology and experience in enterprise servers, IBM can make the management of blade servers simpler and more flexible. IBM Virtualization Manager can provide information for reality and virtualization.

The proposed system provides a single point of management and can continuously manage multiple virtualized environments.

In the past five years, through the efforts of IBM and other vendors, blades have increasingly become the first choice for users to deploy IT infrastructure. IDC predicts that the blade market will grow rapidly in the next few years. By 20 10, the total market volume exceeded 200,000 units and entered more customer groups.

supply electricity

Correctly determining the power required for blade server deployment needs to comprehensively consider the power capacity and the power distribution mode of the rack. But the more challenging fact is that the deployment of blades increases with time, and the future load is usually unknown.

Power distribution products must be monitored to avoid dynamic power changes that lead to the failure of upstream circuit breakers.

In addition, it is recommended to use a monitoring power distribution cabinet when deploying the blade server, so as to monitor the branch current and ensure the redundancy of AC power supply. In order to make full use of the redundancy of power distribution cabinet, it is necessary to provide input power for different UPS/PDU power lines to realize the assembly of 2N system.

. At least two ports shall be provided to provide redundancy for the circuit breakers in the distribution cabinet.

Practical problems to be considered when purchasing blade servers

Servers have been developing in the direction of high density, with the goal of smaller size, lower power consumption, higher manageability and higher scalability. Therefore, after the rack/tower server, the high-density blade server has gradually become a rookie, and has been widely valued and applied. Low power consumption, empty

Small space, low unit price, hot plug and other designs meet the requirements of intensive computing environment for server performance. At the same time, the blade server can save the space and cost of the server to the greatest extent, and provide users with flexible and convenient means of expansion and upgrade.

At present, the power density of blade servers is 10 times that of traditional data centers, so special attention should be paid to power and refrigeration systems. How to deploy this server successfully needs to consider five basic strategies: First, based on the business requirements that led to the deployment, it

Secondly, the user's preferences, as well as the requirements of blades and related restrictions are fully understood. Based on these factors, we can choose the best solution from five basic deployment methods, and choose the appropriate rack, cooling, power supply and management solutions according to individual needs.

The blade server demands the environment far more than the original rack server. If it is not integrated properly, the application environment will be overloaded. Therefore, IT is necessary for IT managers to spend some time on needs assessment to understand the actual business needs and determine the relevant parameter selection.

Equipment bottleneck is very important. This is especially true when deploying blades in an existing data center.

The selection of business requirements and user parameters includes the following contents

The existing data center continues to operate. Is it okay to plan downtime maintenance?

Does the high availability of the completed system require redundant power supply and cooling?

Dense cluster, server co-location, chip server need a specific area or can it be dispersed?

Are blades deployed in stages to continue the standard deployment?

Is there a time limit and deployment time?

Is the cost within the budget?

Constraints include

Accurate power capacity, is there any remaining power capacity available to support the deployment of blade servers?

Accurate cooling capacity, is there any remaining cooling capacity to support the deployment of blade servers?

Bearing limit, what is the bearing capacity of the data center floor?

Floor space limit, what is the floor space limit of the data center?

Do ceiling pressurization limits and room height limits limit effective ceiling return air?

Elevated floor restrictions, if there are elevated floors, are there any cable/pipeline obstacles, or is the floor height less than 2 feet?

Based on the above requirements and restrictions, the specifications of rack, refrigeration, power supply and management will be described in detail.

freeze

Cooling is the most critical factor in deploying blade servers. The front of the blade server tray (chassis) needs enough cold air to enter, and the same amount of hot air needs to be taken away from the back. Specifically, the cooling scheme should not only consider the blades.

The required inlet temperature also needs to consider the gas flow rate.

APC has two air distribution products that can improve the cooling capacity of racks. APC's air distribution device (ADU) and APC's rack-mounted strong exhaust device (ARU). At the same time, APC's NetworkAIR IR is a precision refrigeration air conditioner, which can suck hot air from the back of the cabinet (hot aisle).

Cool it and discharge it into the cold channel. In this way, the rack density can be increased because the system is no longer limited by the airflow provided by the perforated floor. For high-density loads, the in-line system will be assembled into a hot aisle fence system, which includes roofs and

Install a door kit at the end of the row to completely close the hot aisle of the data center, thus eliminating all gas mixing.

management norm

The operation of reliable NCPI system needs a large number of data points to monitor, which is also the specific requirement of blade server application in usability. The power supply, rack and refrigeration components in APC's Infineon integrated system have built-in remote management functions, which can facilitate economical access.

A device. Infineon Manager equipped with APC can centrally manage as many as 1000 APC devices in the same network. Independent IP network can access up to 253 APC devices through one IP address. You can quickly assess your current situation when it is available.

When sex may pose a threat, notify the appropriate relevant personnel. Analytics can help you plan availability, power, uptime and cooling requirements.

For the effective management of high-density NCPI facilities, users can identify the problems as soon as possible when the power supply and temperature are abnormal, and correct them in time before the shutdown, thus greatly improving the availability of the whole system.

How to apply blade server in high-density environment has become an important link in modern data center planning. When the user can consider some of the problems and requirements listed above and implement related optimization schemes, install the blade suite in the existing facilities.

The server will be more attractive because it can not only save cost and time, but also reduce the interference to the normal operation of the existing data center.