Installation guide

Chapter 2. xSeries thin-client servers 11
servers can reduce cost with a more efficient use of valuable floor space and simplified
management.
Figure 2-2 IBM BladeCenter fitted with 14 HS20 servers
The key features of the IBM ^ BladeCenter and BladeCenter HS20 Servers are:
򐂰 The rack-optimized, 7U modular design enclosure holds up to 14 hot-swap BladeCenter
HS20 blades with up to six enclosures in a 42U rack.
򐂰 They contain a high availability midplane that supports the hot-swap of individual blades.
򐂰 A management module lets you manage and control components in the enclosure.
򐂰 Optional hot-swap redundant Ethernet and Fibre Channel switch modules support up to
four network switch modules.
򐂰 You have a choice between 2.0 or 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon processors with quad-pumped 400
MHz front-side bus and full-speed 512 KB ECC L2 caches.
򐂰 Each HS20 supports a minimum of 512 MB and a maximum of 4 GB of system memory.
With the availability of 2 GB memory DIMMs, the maximum system is 8 GB.
򐂰 They offers Dual Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet controllers with teaming and failover support.
򐂰 The ATA-100 IDE controller offers an economical interface for up to two optional 40 GB
IDE HDDs.
BladeCenter is equivalent to having 14 individual MetaFrame servers installed in a single
chassis, reducing rack space, cabling requirements, and ongoing power savings. Each
individual HS20 server provides excellent performance for thin-client purposes. Each server
can be fitted with dual Intel Xeon processors and a maximum of 8 GB of RAM.
The IBM Redpaper Deploying Citrix MetaFrame on IBM ^ BladeCenter, REDP3583,
is an excellent source of information about the details of the IBM BladeCenter. It includes
installation and configuration instructions for Windows 2000 and Citrix MetaFrame.
2.3 Virtual MetaFrame servers
Virtual machines have long been used in IBM’s midrange and mainframe systems to partition
development and production environments into separate logical machines on a single
physical server. Over the last few years, the use of virtual machines on Intel servers has
become increasingly popular through the use VMware’s virtual machine products. VMware
offers three products:
򐂰 VMware Workstation
򐂰 GSX Server
򐂰 ESX Server