TECHNOLOGY FEATURE Blade Servers: Driving the standard By Lin Nease and Craig Yamasaki

HP Blade Servers are a series of ■ Storage blades add new capabilities from other vendors CompactPCI-based dedicated servers ■ switch blades and Fibre without adding a different proprietary and related peripherals that brings blade Channel arbitrated loop and switch solution and increases the chance of technology to enterprise and service blades incompatibilities. Many competitors are provider customers, and at the same time ■ Expansion I/O blades designing proprietary, ultra dense servers, enhances the offerings to telcos. These ■ Management blades but because of this density their servers servers use an extension of the are thermally limited to under-powered CompactPCI specification called In effect, using HP Blade Servers will processors and limited memory. OpenBlade, which adds a dedicated allow service providers or enterprise cus- management capability, including a port tomers to bring new levels of density, flex- The HP Blade Servers offer a third alter- for a dedicated management LAN, as ibility, serviceability, manageability, and native. By using the existing CompactPCI well as support for access efficiency to their infrastructure, while standard, plus some extensions, users can to storage. The result provides great den- gaining the security and technology inno- gain the density benefit of blade servers, sity, lower power consumption, easier vation of a standards-based computing while maintaining an industry-standard management, and better performance environment. environment. Users of HP Blade Servers than previous CompactPCI-based sys- can realize a gain of twice the computing tems. The result for customers will be a Edge and enterprise customers typically resources for the same space requirements lower TCO, greater flexibility better need high performance computing and when compared against a similar volume security, and lower risk. storage services that can be accessed via of 1U servers. In addition, these users will the Internet or through an internal enter- find that their demand for power and cool- Hewlett-Packard’s launch of the blade prise network or intranet. Servers are ing is significantly less than a rack full of servers provides an important new area of expected to provide Web pages and 1U servers. growth for the technology and for the related data, as well as database access CompactPCI standard. Our servers extend and application services on demand. The The OpenBlade specification the existing CompactPCI standard, pro- traffic demands on these servers can be CompactPCI has historically addressed vide a new standards-based line of prod- quite heavy, and as Web and intranet the needs of the communications and con- ucts, and allow existing users of usage becomes more mission-critical, the trol equipment world. In this value chain, CompactPCI technologies to leverage demand for data delivery and storage equipment providers are the solution inte- their hardware investment and expertise grows accordingly. grators. They are essentially designing while growing their capabilities. Soon, we hardware out of CompactPCI suppliers’ expect to see additional vendors joining to Currently, edge, enterprise, and commer- components. create a wealth of new products meeting cial users are faced with choosing the CompactPCI standard. between 1U dedicated servers or propri- OpenBlade is a specification based on etary blade servers. The 1U dedicated CompactPCI (both present and future), but The new HP Blade Servers extend open servers are relatively inexpensive and pro- augments the specifications of Com- standards-based CompactPCI blade vide good redundancy, can be added to the pactPCI in order to address the critical technology to new markets, including ser- data center as needed and use familiar needs of enterprise end-user customers. vice providers, corporate and enterprise technology. However, they are complex to Enterprise customers need to use blades in data centers, in addition to the more tradi- manage, consume significant amounts of a manner that is very different from equip- tional carrier-grade markets. Because of power and demand some physical access ment-provider OEM customers. the widely varying needs of these new for troubleshooting, upgrading and main- classes of users, and because of the tenance. The OpenBlade specification was de- demand for increased performance among signed to enable rapid solution develop- traditional users, HP’s Blade Servers are Some early blade server offerings could ment for customers. It is HP’s contention available to meet a wide variety of arguably make better use of floor space in that blades offer a unique new economy in requirements, and to meet several levels of the data center than 1U servers, but they system integration Ð an economy that can performance demands. can still be complex to manage, and have only be unleashed with an interoperable the downside of being based on propri- environment of complimentary products. Especially exciting are the new types of etary technology. This means that cus- Only after whole solutions can be built out CompactPCI blade servers that are now tomers must make the decision to buy into of interoperable blades will the promise of available. These include: a specific company for a significant blades be fulfilled. amount of their computing needs. ■ Complete Web hosting appliance Proprietary technology also limits up- However, in the enterprise computing blades grade possibilities to only those offered by world, solution integration is performed ■ General-purpose server blades their vendor. It eliminates the ability to by IT personnel or systems integrators

Reprinted from CompactPCI Systems / April 2002 Copyright CompactPCI Systems who buy network computing products off- the-shelf. The demand to mix and match vendors’offerings has created the need for an extremely high level of interoperability. Ethernet equipment is an example of what a low-touch integrator or end-user cus- tomer needs in terms of interoperability, because Ethernet products of all types interoperate reliably. Likewise, if blades don’t possess a similar level of interoper- ability and ubiquity, their advantages in manageability, cost, and density will be meaningless.

However, CompactPCI addresses a range of issues that are not applicable to blades. For example, the very specification CompactPCI leverages, PCI, is a standard for I/O adapters. The multitude of issues associated with I/O bus layouts and sig- naling are not central issues for blades. Rather, the central issue for blades is access to heterogeneous solutions. These solutions include server blades (known in CompactPCI as CPU blades), storage blades, network switch blades, manage- ment blades, appliance blades, and many more. Thus, OpenBlade is really about Ethernet and Fibre Channel Ð not PCI Ð to enable interoperability and ubiquity. Figure 1 OpenBlade augments CompactPCI by enabling: The changes to CompactPCI for the pro- blade, an Ethernet switch blade, and posed OpenBlade specification allow optional Fibre Channel blades. Each of ■ Interoperability akin to the Ethernet interoperability between blades meeting these blades includes all CompactPCI world that specification and today’s CompactPCI standard services, including power, signal- ■ Solution integration from commercial specification. Because this specification is ing, and network connections. In addition, building blocks, rather than OEM well-known and thoroughly debugged, it the extensions on HP Blade Servers components opens the door for new manufacturers to include Gigabit Ethernet (defined by ■ Enterprise data center capabilities create new CompactPCI/OpenBlade prod- PICMG 2.16), dual fibre channel and an such as Fibre channel and manage- ucts. The result is more flexibility and additional Ethernet management network. ment greater opportunity for both manufacturers These servers will work in existing blade ■ Strict focus on network-connected and their customers. Integrators will be enclosures with existing CompactPCI con- blades, rather than I/O adapters more likely to use OpenBlade and Com- nectors, but the extended services will not pactPCI products because they can be be available in enclosures that do not sup- The changes to the CompactPCI specifi- assured that their solutions will work and port the OpenBlade extensions. Likewise, cation required to become OpenBlade be widely supported. Customers can be existing blades will work in the HP Blade compliant are minimal. Starting from assured that they won’t be stranded by sin- Server chassis. The details of the exten- CompactPCI 2.16, OpenBlade’s manage- gle-vendor specifications that go away sions will be discussed below in the sec- ment and storage pinouts are derived from when the vendor changes its marketing tion on the OpenBlade specification. the H.110 TDM bus pin-out, but the pins plans or goes out of business. assigned to -48VDC signaling have been The HP Blade Server bc1100 (Figures 3 changed to ground. The remaining pins, The new capabilities of the OpenBlade and 4) is the initial server product and is a which are used for the two Fibre Channel specification can result in products that complete server with a processor, memory, loops and the management LAN use pre- are more useful to a broader set of cus- disk storage, and network connections viously unpopulated pins. tomers. For example, the management included. This blade is designed to mount support designed into HP’s Blade Servers in the HP Blade Server bh7800 chassis, The diagram in Figure 1 shows that the means that customers can manage their which will hold up to 16 blade servers. changes to the existing CompactPCI networks centrally, rather than having HP’s blade server solution currently sup- pinout specification take place exclusively large numbers of on-site technicians con- ports the Intel Pentium III processors run- in the P4 / J4 combination. The detailed stantly looking at each dedicated server. ning the Linux operating system. The three pinout chart in Figure 2 shows the changes distributions of Linux currently supported in the existing specification, and the pin HP Blade Servers and peripherals are: Debian 2.2r3 kernel 2.2.19; Red Hat locations for the new communications HP Blade Server suite includes server 7.0 kernel 2.2.16; or SuSE 7.1 kernel 2.4.0. requirements. blades, storage blades, a management HP Blade Servers will, in the future, be

Reprinted from CompactPCI Systems / April 2002 Copyright CompactPCI Systems TECHNOLOGY FEATURE available with the PA-RISC processor and the mid-plane, thus significantly reducing Intel’s processor family. HP-UX the cabling complexity associated with and Microsoft Windows will also be sup- three LANs per server. In addition, the HP ported in the future. Blade Server solution will support IDE, SCSI, and FC. At initial release the server The HP Blade Server bc1100 currently blades will have access to local storage uses a 700 MHz Intel Pentium III proces- through the embedded IDE hard disk on sor. The blades each come with 512 the server blade itself and by pairing the Mbytes of ECC PC100 memory and a 30 server blade with an optional storage Gbyte IDE hard disk. Both PICMG 2.16 blade with two IDE hard disks for addi- 10/100 Ethernet ports are supported. The tional storage. The dual Fibre Channel blade is CompactPCI hot-swap level 3 interfaces also routed through the mid- compliant and it supports SNMP. For plane are enabled by an FC-AL SAN legacy users, each of these server blades blade (which creates a standard FC arbi- supports two USB ports, an RS-232 port trated loop ), or a and an SVGA port. As a part of the Fibre Channel switch blade (which would extended CompactPCI specification, each create switched fabric to each server slot blade also includes an additional Ethernet in the chassis). port intended for out of band management as preferred in xSP, corporate, and enter- The lower ejector handle on each blade ini- prise data centers. tiates a power-down cycle to allow safe removal and replacement in a running Any of these operating systems can use chassis. In this manner, which is compliant the standard Ethernet connections through with the PICMG 2.1 standard, the blade

Figure 3. HP Blade Server bc1100

Figure 4. Connector pins for the HP Blade Server bc1100

can shut down safely, while also notifying the Network Operations Center (NOC) that the blade is being removed. This func- tion can also be initiated at the NOC. Each Figure 2 blade includes environmental sensors that

Reprinted from CompactPCI Systems / April 2002 Copyright CompactPCI Systems communicate with the management blade provides access to the management con- can track and restore a blade’s manage- which, in turn, controls fan speeds, slot soles of each installed server blades. This ment IP address when it’s been hot- power, etc., and which can alert the NOC blade provides consolidated management swapped. The management blade moni- of abnormal conditions or events. This of the chassis, all installed blades, as well tors all chassis functions including combination of features means that blades as event reporting, configuration manage- individual blade logs, power utilization are less likely to suffer environmental ment, and hot-swap control. The Man- and compliance, and thermal compliance. faults, and are easier to service. agement Blade is designed to use the The management blade can also increase third, out of band management port in the the fan speeds when over-temperature Because of its ability to function as an OpenBlade specification. However, the conditions arise and return them to normal independent, dedicated server, as well as management LAN connection from the when appropriate. All of the management to exist in a high-performance Gigabit Management Blade can also be connected data can be reported to management utili- Ethernet or SAN environment, the HP via the Network Switch Blade to the two ties using SNMP, or to network managers Blade Server is an ideal solution for com- production LANs if “payload” traffic such as HP Toptools or HP OpenView. panies that need a high-density solution. doesn’t need to be separated from the Although central to the infrastructure, the The bc1100 exceeds the demands of com- management traffic. individual blades and remaining infra- panies with space constraints and power structure will continue to operate in the needs by meeting those needs and also The HP Blade Server bh7800 event of a management blade failure, delivering high levels of manageability chassis which can also be hot-swapped. and flexibility. A future two slot-wide, two The HP Blade Server bh7800 is a unique way IA-32 blade will utilize the 100 watts solution for the service provider or the The HP Blade Server bh3700 Chassis is a available to obtain the highest perfor- enterprise. The unprecedented density, the NEBS-compliant chassis that shares many mance and flexibility to meet the demands efficient power use, and the vast simplifi- characteristics with the bh7800. It also sup- of the enterprise customers while improv- cation of the cabling plant can reduce per- ports the OpenBlade specification, and ing their manageability of servers. The sonnel costs, increase staff efficiency, and supports enhanced capabilities, including key to this manageability and flexibility allow customers to build larger, more Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel. How- are the PICMG standards, the OpenBlade capable data centers without having to ever, the bh3700 is a 10 slot, 6U single extensions to the CompactPCI standard as build more space, or even install more sided enclosure designed more for the tra- well as the FC and management blades power (see Figure 5). ditional carrier installation than for the that enhance the HP Blade Server offer- enterprise or service provider. But because ings so that customers can get a more The bh7800 chassis is designed to be a the bh3700 is capable of sharing many of complete server solution. NEBS-compliant 13U enclosure that has the blades as the bh7800, HP will leverage 38 slots, of which up to 16 can be Server the volumes and best in class of both busi- The HP Network Switch Blade is func- Blades. It includes N+1 hot-swap power nesses thus providing customers with a tionally identical to the HP Procurve supplies, fans and power line inputs, and lower total cost of ownership. The most 2524. This blade will support up to 16 it has local front and rear display panels important difference between the two chas- 10/100 Ethernet ports through the mid- and keypads. sis is that the bh3700 has an I/O , plane. Two Network Switch Blades are while the bh7800 does not. The bh7800 can required to support two Ethernet ports per The bh7800’s unique two-sided enclosure only accommodate Ethernet or Fibre server (one switch blade is required; a allows customers to access the enclosure Channel connectivity between blades. second is available for redundancy). In and insert blades from either the front or addition to the 16 mid-plane ports, this back. This enclosure eliminated the tradi- Of course, the single most important fea- blade includes eight external 10/100 tional rear transition modules, instead ture of the HP Blade Server bh7800 is the Ethernet ports for communications with employing a mid-plane design that allows CompactPCI standard. More important, external network devices, and a Gigabit full-height 6U blades to be inserted from it’s the only blade standard that has Ethernet uplink port. This is a layer 2 either end. The mid-plane is not a shared momentum and an existing community of managed switch with VLAN support. PCI bus topology where the PCI signals vendors, designers, and suppliers. are delivered to each slot. Using through The HP Fibre Channel SAN Blade is hole technology for the pins in the mid- Equally important, using the CompactPCI inserted into a patented 3U carrier/slot on plane, the PCI bus for a given server is standard for HP Blade Servers means that the mid-plane. When two 3U FC SAN dedicated to the I/O expansion slot that is other vendors can take advantage of the blades are mounted on the 6U carrier, two directly opposite the server from the mid- features of the HP blades and provide Fibre Channel ports are enabled to each plane. Furthermore, server slots alternate additional capabilities, services and fea- server blade. The FC-AL blade creates an from front to rear on adjacent slots, allow- tures. In today’s marketplace, no single arbitrated loop within the mid-plane, and ing for a maximum number of two slot company can do everything, and with its two FC-AL blades create two arbitrated wide high performance server blades. CompactPCI-based blade servers, HP loops. Likewise, the FC Switch blade (Each server blade is its own independent opens a wealth of potential applications to would enable switched FC fabric to each server on a card, making it possible to mix its customers. server blade, and two of these blades and match blades in the chassis, i.e., IA- would allow for two switched FC inter- 32, PA-RISC, and IPF.) The result is that customers will have the faces. Both FC blades have interfaces that opportunity to select the products they allow for connections to external FC This enclosure also contains a manage- need to meet their requirements, regard- switches and/or storage devices. ment blade, which has many important less of whether those products come from cost-saving features, including inventory HP. CompactPCI helps assure customers The HP Management Blade supervises management down to serial numbers, and that they will have a consistent upgrade the operations of the bh7800 chassis and configuration management capability that path, either to more performance, or as

Reprinted from CompactPCI Systems / April 2002 Copyright CompactPCI Systems TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

to the public, and where the internal opera- Because of the level of control, and the tions of the OS can never be exposed. This security provided by the separate manage- results in a much more secure network than ment LAN, customers can manage and can ever exist where management must control nearly every aspect of the opera- take place over the production network. tion of these devices. This means that physical access to the blade servers is only The functions of the HP Management necessary for physical events, such as the Blade are as follows: hot-swap of a blade. In addition, because the management blade is tracking errors ■ Supervises the operation of other as well as operations, intervention can components in the chassis, including take place as soon as an error is detected, power and cooling, and the status of meaning that server uptime is enhanced. installed blades ■ Reports failures to the central man- HP Blade Server Alliance Program agement system Because the OpenBlade specification is ■ Provides switching for access to the designed to allow other vendors to create console management for the manage- blades that will interoperate with HP ment blade and the processor blades Blade Servers, HP created the HP Blade ■ Provides initial boot configuration for Server Alliance Program to encourage and the chassis assist companies that want to enter this ■ Provides configuration for the exciting market. Figure 5. Three fully configured network blades ■ HP Blade Server bh7800 Keeps an inventory of the network The program includes a set of services Chassis in a rack blades that facilitates the integration of products ■ Brings up, shuts down, and restarts on the HP Blade Server platform. This blades program will accelerate market accep- solutions to problems and needs that don’t ■ Consolidates events from installed tance of blade servers by speeding up currently exist. As a result, basing the HP blade servers and transmits them to blade development, increasing reach to Blade Servers on CompactPCI means that the management application customers through HP’s partners and pro- there will be an assured path to innova- ■ Controls indicator lights for each mote customer confidence in the interop- tion, which is absent in a proprietary envi- blade, making faulty blades easy to erability of their blade solutions. ronment. locate in the enclosure Services offered to partners through this These advantages, of course, mean that Each blade server includes a management program include hardware and software the risk of adopting a blade server solution controller that communicates with the development kits, a hardware and soft- is reduced, as is the total cost of owner- management blade. This controller, which ware certification program, events and ship. Likewise, new products will appear exists on a daughter board installed on partner communication, joint marketing sooner, innovations will happen more each bc1100, provides console access and activities and promotional services. quickly, and owners will have greater flex- remote management functions. This ibility, and the comfort of knowing that remote management circuit (RMC) pro- The future of HP’s Blade Servers they have an industry-standard solution. vides specific management information The HP Blade Server offering available directly to the management LAN. The today is just the beginning. The roadmap HP Blade Server management RMC provides: includes a Fibre Channel switch, blades The HP Management Blade is the central with PA-RISC and IPF processors, sup- component for managing the HP Blade ■ Text mode VGA access over the LAN port for Microsoft Windows and HP-UX Server bh7800 Chassis. This blade is ■ Telnet access to the console as well as dual-and quad-processor designed to communicate with the central ■ Firmware update access blades. management station using a separate man- ■ Remote on and off through agement LAN, to which all of the other CompactPCI hot-swap support Summary HP Blade Servers are also connected. ■ Remote reset and reboot HP’s Blade Servers are an important new While this management LAN can be development for both the blade server mar- interconnected to the primary “payload” The information gathered by the HP ket and the CompactPCI industry. The LAN through a switch or router, the Remote Management Blade is made avail- arrival of standards for blade servers is a design is intended to allow management able to management applications, such as critical step for their broad acceptance in traffic to remain separate. HP’s Toptools, and to management frame- the service provider and enterprise markets, works, such as HP OpenView. Either of and it’s an important step in bringing new The management LAN provides access to these packages provides a centralized capabilities to carriers in a form that’s com- the management circuitry built into each management solution that will monitor patible with their existing infrastructure. HP Blade Server. In addition, it allows every blade server, the chassis, and in the management of the operating system, case of HP OpenView, the operating sys- The OpenBlade specification will help which is especially important in applica- tem running on each blade server. ensure the growth of CompactPCI, and of tions where the “payload” LANs are open blade servers, because it will provide an

Reprinted from CompactPCI Systems / April 2002 Copyright CompactPCI Systems interoperability path for vendors and help Craig Yamasaki is ease the way for integrators and IT depart- Product Planning ments. In the meantime, the HP Blade Manager for HP’s Servers bring lower costs, better perfor- blades. He is char- mance, greater security, and lower risk to tered to leverage customers. HP’s vast experience with Windows, The ability to leverage the advantages of Linux, and UNIX blade servers while also providing easy servers to lead the definition of HP’s access to the rest of the enterprise through Blade Server strategy. Craig has been industry standard storage solutions and with HP for 16 years, primarily in hard- management simply enhances the fact ware R&D, but also in support, software that both the vendors and the customers R&D, and marketing. will win. For more information, contact Craig at: Lin Nease is chief technologist for HP’s UNIX server business. He is responsible Craig Yamasaki for leading the commercial server busi- Hewlett-Packard ness product portfolio process as well as 8000 Foothill Blvd. mailstop 5596 the technology strategy. Lin has been Roseville, CA 95747 with HP for 15 years, primarily in R&D, E-mail: [email protected] but also in marketing and business strat- Web site: www.hp.com egy.

For more information, Contact Lin at:

Lin Nease Hewlett-Packard 8000 Foothills Blvd., mailstop 5602 Roseville, CA 95747

GNP demonstrates Intel-based blade architecture is ity applications. However, the blade configuration is ideal for core ready for high-availability applications network applications with high-reliability requirements. By Bruce Rostowfske GNP’s patent-pending Natural Clustering Technology, embed- System manufacturers are touting a new type of server architec- ded in the Continuant middleware, keeps all nodes active and ture called blade. Blade is a low-cost, low-power design that lets responsible for work distribution in an N+k configuration, where engineers fit hundreds of densely-packed into a stan- N is the number of blades required to maintain a desired perfor- dard rack by optimizing the available processing power of DSP mance level and k is the built-in reliability level. When in a blade and I/O boards. In addition to eliminating space needed for tra- environment, the middleware communicates between the appli- ditional separate host CPU and I/O boards, this super-slim server cation and the hardware framework, including OS and drivers, architecture enables multi-node clusters. For those applications thus ensuring 99.999 percent uptime. Blade is a comprehensive that require scalability of processing power and I/O, blade is the operations framework that automates routine HA functions and next-generation architecture alternative. provides out-of-band remote control and maintenance.

GNP has demonstrated the effectiveness of blade’s low- Blades are modular, scalable, low-power, low-cost computers, power/high-density design in a carrier-class and GNP’s demonstration proves that this architecture can func- application powered by four Intel StrongARM-based computers. tion as part of a high-density . When combined with By loading its high-availability middleware, Continuant Cluster effective clustering middleware and powerful embedded com- Suite, directly onto Intel’s integrated 32-bit StrongARM SA- munications technologies like CompactPCI Packet Switched 1110 I/O processing boards, GNP eliminated the need for system Backplane (cPSB), blade boards will emerge as a standard net- slot processors and provided a clustered platform for natural load- work application design. Whether as the primary application in balancing. In a clustered blade configuration, these low-power a server farm, or one of many, blades support scalable high- processors support administration and application operations so availability applications for optimized computing power in lim- that the system integrator does not need to design in a high-avail- ited space. ability dual-host server to support other I/O computers. For more information, contact: Continuant Cluster Suite is ideal for implementing blade architec- tures for core network applications due to its combination of five- GNP Computers nines availability and scalability. Blades are commonly used to 555 E. Huntington Dr., Monrovia, CA 91016 power applications running at the edge of a network, and are there- Tel: 626-305-8484 ¥ Fax: 626-305-9177 fore not the standard default server architecture for high-availabil- Web site: www.gnp.com

Reprinted from CompactPCI Systems / April 2002 Copyright CompactPCI Systems