© 2009 IBM Corporation

IBM Systems & Technology GroupSystem x and BladeCenter®

Why BladeCenter S SAN is the Right ChoiceLowest cost, lowest complexity, and most capable SAN for the office environment

IBM BladeCenter®

© 2009 IBM Corporation2

At a Glance

RAID Capability RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 Dual controller support Supports 2 Disk Storage Modules with up to 12

3.5” SAS Drives

System Support BladeCenter S chassis (only) Legacy switch bays 3 and 4 60% Attach Rate to BCS Chassis

Cache 1GB per dual controller Battery backed (72 hours)

Ease of Use And System Management Simplified setup and out of box configuration Storage Configuration Manager GUI Interface

IBM BladeCenter SAS Controller Module

Option Part Number - 43W3584 Now Shipping!!

IBM BladeCenter®

© 2009 IBM Corporation

With an all-in-one approach, an entire VMware stack (servers, networking, storage), can all be built within a BladeCenter S chassis, all that without having to cable up anything but the power!

This fully supported solution is available on IBM ServerProven as well as VMware HCL today.

Full-featured BladeCenter S SAN enables VMware & VmotionVirtualize servers, storage, and even networking with BladeCenter S

IBM BladeCenter

© 2009 IBM Corporation

When buying a SAN, consider the 3 Cs of SAN buying1. First C is Cost:

Look for low cost, given the complexity is low, and capability is high. Features that will help lower the cost will be:

1. All-in-ones – less parts to buy almost always means lower cost2. Now number of cables / options needed – Beware of getting charged a lot for must-have cables /

options3. Good installation tools – This will help keep installation overhead low

2. Second C is Complexity:Usually, the lower the complexity, the higher the cost, however, some products have the ability to keep both cost & complexity low, here is what to look for:

1. Point & click setup tools – This is most possibly the most important dimension, look for a single tool that can setup your entire SAN. Unfortunately, this is not easy to come by

2. All-in-ones – Integration out the factory usually means easier setup for you

3. Third but just as important C is Capability:At the end of the day, a SAN is all about capability. You have certain criteria to meet such as virtualization, applications, data serving… make sure your SAN is up to the task. Look for the following:

1. High transfer speeds – Usually enabled by Fibre Channel, which is costly. SAS technology is an excellent high-speed alternative

2. Large number of Terabytes – A good rule of thumb is 1TB per server. The SAN will let you share between servers for extra efficiency

3. Availability – The better the redundancy features, the more capable your SAN will be. Look for dual controllers, dual paths, and support for RAID 5.

4. High Interoperability – This is where the gotchas are, make sure your SAN support VMware, Vmotion, and all the latest OSs.

IBM BladeCenter

© 2009 IBM Corporation

Our approach to storage is radically different than others

There are three main areas of differences Capacity advantage to BladeCenter S because:

BladeCenter S uses different hard disks which are lower in cost and higher in capacity than disks used by HP Shorty

BladeCenter S does not lose a server bay when using storage, HP Shorty loses 2 server bays when using HP recommended storage solution; AiO SB600c

Performance advantage to BladeCenter S because: BladeCenter S uses latest SAS technology with 3 times as fast throughput

as HP Shorty, which still uses slower iSCSI Interoperability & redundancy advantage to BladeCenter S because:

BladeCenter S storage uses dual-controllers for redundancy, AiO uses a single HP E200i controller. When this fails, access to data is lost

BladeCenter S storage tested with Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) at shipment. AiO cannot be supported with MSCS because of the single-point of failure

Difference is important to our clients