Eye on Blades Blog: Trends in Infrastructure : data center

PODs and Hovercraft

Daniel Bowers — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:49:00 GMT

Outside of my window, they're pouring the cement on the bays where future HP PODs will be tested. Here are some pics. A POD (Performance-Optimized Data center) is a 40-foot container filled with servers, storage, and other IT gear. HP can build &...(read more)

From #HPTF: Pondering the HP POD

newtonja — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:51:00 GMT

I found the HP POD to be one of the most compelling demo areas at this weeks' HP Technology Forum. Being able to emerse yourself in the POD and touch and feel what it takes to deploy and support 3000 or more systems is amazing. Every detail has to...(read more)

Applications Matter - What Affects Server Power Consumption: Part 2

Tony Harvey — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:21:00 GMT

How does the application you are using and what it is doing affect the power consumption of system. The first thing that everyone looks at when talking about power consumption is CPU utilization. Unfortunately CPU utilization is not a good proxy for power...(read more)

Is this UCS confusion...or dandruff?

Daniel Bowers — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:04:00 GMT

On Wednesday, Soni Jiandani announced an expansion of Cisco’s UCS family , adding rack servers to their hardware roadmap. I’m really scratching my head at this move. Soni says that her goal with these products – 1U and 2U servers each...(read more)

Datacenter Power Allocation

Tony Harvey — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:24:00 GMT

I was going to add some more details to Chuck's post on how a blade server powers on, but I got sidetracked by a brilliant post from Mike Manos of Digital Realty on the real basics of what is going with power in your datacenter. What Mike is explaining...(read more)

Configuration Matters - What Affects Server Power Consumption: Part 1

Tony Harvey — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:06:00 GMT

Following on from my first post I'll take a look at the affect hardware configuration will have on the power consumption of the enclosure. To do this I went into the Blade Power Sizer and configured up two equivalent systems. I kept the enclosure...(read more)

Chargeback Glitch

Daniel Bowers — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Here’s a story about unexpected behavior prompted by some chargeback rules at Pfizer . (By 'chargeback' I mean the budgeting scheme where IT resources are metered, then costs are attributed to the business units that consume them.) Larry Cannell...(read more)

OMG - that's a lot of blade servers

newtonja — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:55:00 GMT

One of our specialists passed this cool picture along of a massive row of blades. I'd tell you what customer it was from but they would hang me. green PS: you know you're a nerd when you think lots of blinking green lights are cool. (guilty)...(read more)