User guide

Chapter 1. IBM BladeCenter products and

technology

Blade servers are thin servers that insert into a single rack-mounted chassis which supplies

shared power, cooling, and networking infrastructure. Each server is an independent server

with its own processors, memory, storage, network controllers, operating system, and

applications. Blade servers came to market around 2000, initially to meet clients’ needs for

greater ease of administration and increased server density in the data center environment.

When IBM released the IBM BladeCenter in 2002, it quickly changed the industry with its

modular design. The IBM BladeCenter provides complete redundancy in a chassis, and

enables network and storage integration.

This chapter provides an overview of BladeCenter products and technology. In it, we cover

the following topics:

1.1, “BladeCenter chassis” on page 2

1.2, “Blade servers” on page 5

1.3, “BladeCenter H networking architecture” on page 10

1.4, “High-speed I/O paths in BladeCenter H” on page 13