Eye on Blades Blog: Trends in Infrastructure : energy efficiency

A Blade Kill

Daniel Bowers — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:07:00 GMT

In April, SPEC updated their server power benchmark to allow results for blade servers, and now HP has released its first blade result. HP just published a SPECpower_ssj2008 result for the HP BL280c G6 server blade . It's the top score for a blade...(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)

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)

Taking a closer look at the "Power On" capabilities for blade chassis

Kleinch — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:55:00 GMT

Some of our Blade Specialists give us the workings of the BladeSystem "Power switch" . David gives us these words of wisdom. "I've always referred to the "power switch" on the front of the blade not as a power switch but a...(read more)

Least Favourite Question

Tony Harvey — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:15:00 GMT

I'm sitting here thinking about writing my first Blog post and trying to come up with something to say. So I figured I'd start by trying to answer one of my least favourite questions (and before you all start to correct my spelling I'm not...(read more)

Did we miss something?

Gary Thome — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:35:00 GMT

Every time a competitor introduces a new major product we can't help but notice they suddenly get very interested in what HP is blogging during the weeks prior to their announcement. Then when they announce, the story is always a big self-congratulatory "we've figured out what the problem is with existing server/blade architectures". The implication being that blades volume adoption is somehow being constrained by the very thing they have. ...(read more)

Aaron Delp Busts Blade Power Myths

newtonja — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:06:00 GMT

Aaron Delp has started a series on blades titled "Blades and Virtualization Aren't Mutually Exclusive" where he shares a ton of personal research and experience with blades. Check out his first two articles where he busts the blade power myths....(read more)

9 Trends in 2009: What's Hot and What's Not in the Data Center

newtonja — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:30:00 GMT

We can’t let Illuminata, Gartner, IDC and Forrester have all the fun, so we sat down and came up with our own What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Data Center list for 2009. Read on for the top 9 things in '09 plus the runner-ups that just missed the list. If you don't see your hot button in 2009 here, let us here about it!...(read more)

Data Center Ants and Grasshoppers

newtonja — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Will 2009 be a tough year for IT departments, and us tech vendors too? Duh. Will it be as bad as the article I read today, 2009 - Thomas the Tank's journey to IT Hell ? We shall see. Too often, tough times inspire dark predictions, preying on our...(read more)

Datacenter power is officially a business problem

newtonja — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:48:00 GMT

I found this article last week and thought I'd share it with you. Inside, Michelle Bailey from IDC makes some good points about just how big of an issue power and cooling has become. ...(read more)

Thermal Logic – The coolest ideas for your hottest problems

Gary Thome — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:46:00 GMT

Today we are announcing some significant Thermal Logic innovations. I'm sure if you're reading this first, you are thinking "wait, here comes another vendor claim that they are most energy efficient!" I'd hate to disappoint you, but we do believe that addressing power and cooling challenges is much more than just a server that takes less power. Okay we do have a new energy efficient blade server. In fact we have a portfolio of energy efficient blades servers. But wait, there is more! Really! ...(read more)

Less Power to You

Gary Thome — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:59:00 GMT

Following up from my previous post on power measurements, I'd like to spend this post talking about ways customers can figure out for themselves what the real power consumption is for their servers and their applications. ...(read more)

Games vendors play . . . with power efficiency claims

Gary Thome — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:13:00 GMT

These days, server power efficiency is top of mind for everyone. Five years ago, most customers had no idea how much power a server used. Now, everyone knows - its a lot. In some cases, customers are making power consumption the primary criteria for vendor selection. So why is it so dang hard to get a straight story on exactly what options are the most power efficient? We'll fill you in on the dirty little secrets you need to know. ...(read more)

Even a Prius can run out gas

newtonja — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:02:00 GMT

I snapped this picture below on the way to work Friday. At first glance, it's simply a car that ran out of gas. A closer look shows it's a Prius. Huh?!? How do you run out of gas in a Prius? A datacenter has a gas gauge too. Have you checked yours lately? ...(read more)

One million and counting

Gary Thome — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:16:00 GMT

1,000,000. One million. 106. No matter how you write it, that is a big number. I’ve never tried to count to one million. But now we have sold our millionth blade server; which is cause for reflection....(read more)