DEVELOPER TOOLS

By Uwe Harms, Harms-Supercomputing-Consulting -- On January 29 Compaq announced in Munich its new ProLiant Blade Line Server, which fit into the company's activities in the adaptive infrastructure. This approach consists of software tools and hardware blades to adapt the dynamic business models, conserve scarce resources and respond to high customer expectations. Additionally Compaq presented the Blade roadmap which consists of 1-, 2-, 4-CPUs. Compaq ProLiant Servers Compaq sold in total 2 million ProLiant servers in Europe and 5 million worldwide. There are different ProLiant server lines. The ML, maximum expansion line, is available in Tower and Rack and, optimized for maximum expansion. The DL-series, density environments line, can only be purchased as Rack models and is optimized for maximum scalability in a rack. The CL, cluster package line, Tower and Rack based on ProLiant DL380 is optimized for a cluster. It will be now integrated in the DL product line. Having a look into the sales of ProLiants, Compaq sees a trend into racks and especially in space reduced systems. The sales of the different systems in August 2001 can be estimated as 50% DL Rack, 20% ML Rack and 30% ML Tower. These experiences led to the BL line with the design targets save space and power consumption. Compaq sees different markets for the different models. The 1-CPU Blades are ideal in the web hosting and in infrastructure, e.g. firewalls. The 2 CPU blades can be used in application hosting and media streaming. The 4 CPU blades are directed to complicated applications, databases and clustering. ProLiant Blade Line (BL) The blade line is the next generation form factor. There are 1, 2 and 4 CPU server blades available. The 1-CPU blade is the first and will be announced on February 4, 2002. The insertion unit for this server has a height of 3 U and connects up to 20 servers (blades) and has a redundant power supply and fan for all 20 blades. The administration and network interface is realized via a management module. In total a rack, 42 U high, can contain up to 280 1-CPU blades. There is a central server management and a simplified extension and replacing of the server capacity. The results are reduced space and power requirements. Blade Line e-Class components The 1-CPU blade (ProLiant BL10e) uses an Intel Pentium III CPU, 700 MHz, 100 MHz front side bus (FSB) and has an ultra low voltage processor. The SDRAM can be upgraded to up to 1 GByte, the hard disk has up to 30 GB space, 2 10/100 NICs (network interface card) onboard. The operating systems support is Windows 2000, .NET, and Linux RedHat. SuSe and Caldera follow in Q1 2002. The administration is realized via a management module on the backplane. Up to 20 blades can be administered via a Telnet console or browser. In Q2 2002 Compaq will offer 2-CPU blades. In a height of 6 U there will be up to 8 2-CPU server blades. Here up to 2 Pentium III CPUs are available, 1.26 GHz, 133 MHz FSB, up to 4 GB SDRAM, 2 Wide Ultra 3 SCSI hot plug hard disks, RAID on a chip, 3 10/100 NICs on board. A remote insight management via a dedicated NIC is possible. In Q3 2002 the 4-CPU blade will be delivered. In a hight of 6 U there will be up to two 4-CPU server blades. It consists of up to 4 newest XEON CPUs, 400 MHz FSB, up to 16 GByte ECC DDR-1, 4 Wide Ultra 3 SCSI hot plug hard disks, RAID on a chip, 5 10/100/1000 NICs on board and 2 PCI-X slots. ProLiant Essentials Software Compaq delivers four software components with its blades to fit the users’ needs. The Essentials Value Pack Software contains a series of simple to use tools for the virtual presence, control and administration, especially the automatic deployment of several servers and load management in huge SMP servers. The adaptive infrastructure is ideal for the constantly changing business environment. Future offerings support the build out of an adaptive infrastructure. The Foundation Pack is included with every ProLiant server, the software every customer needs to install, configure and manage the servers. The Rapid Deployment Pack can be used for the rapid and consistent deployment of the blades and a large number of ProLiant servers, remote and hundreds in parallel - 119 US$ per server. It supports the BL, ML and DL servers as well as Windows 2000 and Linux RedHat 7.1. The Workload Management Pack enables resource optimization, 1875 US$ per server. It only supports ProLiant 8-way servers and Windows 2000. Integrated Lights-Out (ILO) Advanced Pack uses the ILO processor in the ProLiant servers. The local CD and floppy of the administrator can be redirected to a remote server to boot it - base functionality included Advanced Pack 350 US$. It supports ProLiant DL360, additional ML, DL, BL servers beginning in Q1 2002 and is operating system independent. Pricing The BL e-Class is available in February 2002. A single BL10e starts with EUR 2350, a packet of 10 BL10e starts with EUR 22 200. The e-Class insertion unit including the management module costs EUR 7950. Additionally Compaq offers warranty life-cycle and support solutions.