Cisco Cisco UCS C3260 Rack Server Libro blanco
Page
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Data Center Management: The Key Ingredient for Reducing Server Power while Increasing Data Center Capacity
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
ences between vendors boils down to overall server performance, other hardware capabilities, power
consumption, and the strength and scalability of the management stacks, particularly at scale.
HP has a long history of providing data center hardware and software solutions. HP’s blade server
HP has a long history of providing data center hardware and software solutions. HP’s blade server
lineup dates back to RLX, which patented and shipped the first blade server in 2001. After HP
acquired RLX in 2005, the company leveraged RLX blade technology to produce HP’s ProLiant blade
server lineup. From a management perspective, the HP stack is comprised of a set of agent-based
technologies either acquired from other sources or developed internally, all of which have been more
or less integrated.
Cisco is a new entrant to the blade server market, first introducing the UCS blade server line in March
Cisco is a new entrant to the blade server market, first introducing the UCS blade server line in March
2009, although the company has had a dominant position in the data center networking market for
years. While the UCS servers have been on the market only about a year, Cisco has already caused
significant market disruption by introducing innovative blade server technologies that provide high
performance with the advantage of organically developed management capabilities that are, by and
large, built-in to the UCS hardware and firmware with a single interface.
CPU and Memory
As one might expect, CPU comparisons between the two vendors are virtually identical. Both vendors
utilize the same Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors, both offer two-socket blades, and both
currently offer (Cisco) or plan to offer (HP) four-socket Intel Nehalem EX-based blades. Both vendors
use the same type of DDR3 DIMM memory, supporting 2GB, 4GB and 8GB modules.
There is one significant difference between Cisco and HP in terms of memory architecture, how-
There is one significant difference between Cisco and HP in terms of memory architecture, how-
ever. HP’s conventional memory scheme supports either 12 or 18 DIMM slots, which translates to
a maximum of 192GB of RAM per blade. Cisco’s “Extended Memory” architecture, developed in
partnership with Intel, supports up to 48 DIMMs for a maximum of 384GB per blade. In addition
to providing large amounts of memory for RAM-intensive applications such as VMs, Cisco’s memory
architecture also enables the use of faster 1066 MHz chips across all 48 DIMMs, whereas HP servers
currently drop to 800 MHz due to memory architecture.
Networking
When comparing blade vendors from a networking perspective, it is important to consider the overall
supporting hardware required. The days of discrete networks for management, compute, and storage
are fading fast thanks to the emergence of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), which allows the
convergence of all network protocols across a single medium.
HP’s blade server architecture, while making some steps towards convergence, is still firmly steeped
HP’s blade server architecture, while making some steps towards convergence, is still firmly steeped
in the old world. HP requires one or two separate network interface cards (NICs) per blade (one
Ethernet and one Fibre Channel), a minimum of 4 “in-chassis” switches, plus associated cabling and
downstream switches, to support each blade’s connectivity requirements. In addition to a large amount
of supporting hardware and switches, this architecture requires a large quantity of network cables—up
to ten cables per chassis (four Ethernet, four Fibre Channel, and two management ports per chassis)
to reach a network aggregation density similar to Cisco UCS. HP’s new converged networking offering
is delivered and managed “old world,” without true simultaneous convergence of network protocols
with server, network and storage management.