System information

2 Deploying Samba on IBM Eserver BladeCenter
1.1 Introduction to blade server technology
Blade servers are a relatively new technology that has captured industry focus because of its
modular design, which can reduce cost with a more efficient use of valuable floor space, and
its simplified management, which can help to speed up such tasks as deploying,
reprovisioning, updating and troubleshooting hundreds of blade servers. All this can be done
remotely with one graphical console using IBM Director systems management tools. In
addition, blade servers provide improved performance by doubling current rack density. By
integrating your resources and sharing key components, you will not only reduce cost but
also increase availability.
1.1.1 IBM eServer™ BladeCenter and BladeCenter HS20 features
򐂰 The IBM Eserver BladeCenter has the following features:
– Rack-optimized, 7U modular design enclosure: holds up to 14 hot-swap BladeCenter
HS20 blades with up to six enclosures in a 42U rack.
– Contains a high availability MidPlane supporting the hot-swap of individual blades.
– Two 1200-watt, hot-swap power modules and support for two optional 1200-watt power
modules: provides redundancy and power for robust configurations. See the guidelines
in 1.2.4, “BladeCenter 1200W Power Supply Module” on page 9.
– Two hot-swap 325 CFM blowers and thermal sensors throughout to monitor and alert
you to over-temperature conditions.
– Management module: lets you manage and control components in the enclosure.
– Optional hot-swap redundant Ethernet and Fibre Channel switch modules (supports up
to four network switch modules).
– Control panel : contains USB port and status LEDs.
򐂰 The IBM Eserver BladeCenter HS20 features are as follows:
– Choose between 2.0 or 2.4 GHz(1) Xeon processors with quad-pumped 400 MHz
front-side bus (FSB) and full-speed 512 KB ECC L2 caches.
– Standard 512 MB system memory with Chipkill ECC support: supports 8GB maximum,
when 2GB memory module becomes available.
– Dual Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet controllers with teaming and failover support.
– Integrated service processor: monitors critical components on each blade for remote
and local systems management.
– ATA-100 IDE controller: economical interface for up to two optional 40 GB IDE HDDs.
– SCSI expansion connector: supports optional storage unit containing an Ultra320
RAID 1 SCSI controller and backplane support for two hot-swap HDDs.
Each of these features will be discussed in greater detail later in the paper, as well as a few
other important points.