Earlier this month, IDC published their Q3 2020 WorldWide Server tracker data showing the top server vendors. in this post, I’m going to dive in and take a closer look at how blade servers are performing including which vendor is leading the blade server market. Continue reading
Category Archives: Cisco
What Does the Future Hold for the Blade Server?
One of the goals I have for this blog is to keep it current with news and updates from blade top tier server vendors. However, over the past year, I have found it harder and harder to find relevant information. Why is this? Is it just because we in a lull between new blade server models or is the blade server dying? I decided to dig a little deeper into this question. Continue reading
Helpful Blade Server Links (Updated)
Here is a list of blade-related websites that may help you find more information about blade servers. Since vendors tend to move their sites without notice if you find a dead link, please let me know. If you have other sites that you think are worthy to remember, email me at “kevin AT bladesmadesimple.com”.
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Cisco Next Gen UCS Rumors
As we enter the next decade, rumors of Cisco’s next generation UCS are surfacing. Whether or not they are true, there is no doubt that the original generation of Cisco’s blade server design is long overdue for a major overhaul – and we may see the replacement this year. So let’s take a look at what’s being said in the gossip mill. Continue reading
Blade Server Comparison – August 2019
Below is an updated chart to help guide you to the best blade server for your project. This version includes Intel DC Persistent Memory (Optane).
Overview of the Cisco UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect
Earlier this year Cisco announced and has begun shipping the Cisco UCS 6454 Fabric Interconnect (FI). The Cisco UCS 6454 offers line-rate, low-latency, lossless 10/25/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fibre Channel functions. In this blog post I provide an overview of what you can expect in this fourth generation FI and provide some things you need to be aware of before migrating. Continue reading
Overview of the Industry Top Blade Chassis
It occurred to me that I created a reference chart for showing what blade server options are available in the market (“Blade Server Comparison – 2018“) but I’ve never listed the options for blade server chassis. In this post, I’ll provide you with overviews of blade chassis from Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo. One of the things I’m not going to do is try and give Pro’s and Con’s for each chassis. The reason is quite obvious if you have read this blog before, but in a nutshell, I work for Dell EMC, so I’m not going to promote or bash any vendor. My goal is to simplify each vendor’s offerings and give you one place to get an overview of each blade chassis in the market.
UCS vs PowerEdge MX – Comparison of Admin Tasks
Principled Technologies released a report earlier this month that compared certain administrative tasks between a Cisco UCS blade server solution and a Dell EMC PowerEdge MX solution and the results were quite surprising. Continue reading
Blade Server Comparison – September 2018
With the recent release of the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX blade servers, I realized it’s been a year since I’ve updated my blade server comparison chart. Below is an updated chart to help guide you to the best blade server for your project. (REVISED December 2018 – fixed drive count on Dell EMC PowerEdge MX servers. Thanks to Mike Browning for catching it after this many months!)
New Study Compares Networking Capabilities of Blade Server Solutions
An independent testing company, Principled Technologies, recently released a study that compared the networking capabilities of Dell EMC PowerEdge MX, HPE Synergy and Cisco UCS using VMware vMotion. Their findings: