The IBM BladeCenter was IBM's blade server architecture, until it was replaced by Flex System in 2012. The x86 division was later sold to Lenovo in 2014.
History Introduced in 2002, based on engineering work started in 1999, the IBM eServer BladeCenter was relatively late to the blade server market. It differed from prior offerings in that it offered a range of x86 Intel server processors and input/output (I/O) options.
The naming was changed to IBM BladeCenter in 2005. In February 2006, IBM introduced the BladeCenter H with switch capabilities for 10 Gigabit Ethernet and InfiniBand 4X.
A web site called Blade.org was available for the blade computing community through about 2009.
In 2012, the replacement Flex System was introduced.
Enclosures
IBM BladeCenter (E) The original IBM BladeCenter was later marketed as BladeCenter E. Power supplies have been upgraded through the life of the chassis from the original 1200 to 1400, 1800, 2000 and 2320 watt.
The BladeCenter (E) was co-developed by IBM and Intel and included: 14 blade slots in 7U Shared Media tray with Optical drive, floppy drive and USB 1.1 port 1 (upgradable to 2) Management modules Two slots for Gigabit Ethernet switches (can also have optical or copper pass-through) Two slots for optional switch or pass-through modules, can have additional Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or Myrinet 2000 functions Power: Two (upgradable to four) power supplies, C19/C20 connectors Two redundant high-speed blowers
IBM BladeCenter T BladeCenter T is the telecommunications company version of the original BladeCenter, available with either AC or DC (48 V) power. Has 8 blade slots in 8U, but uses the same switches and blades as the regular BladeCenter E. To keep NEBS Level 3 / ETSI compliant special Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) compliant blades are available.
IBM BladeCenter H
Upgraded BladeCenter design with high-speed fabric options, announced in 2006. Backwards compatible with older BladeCenter switches and blades. Features: 14 blade slots in 9U Shared Media tray with Optical drive and USB 2.0 port 1 (upgradable to 2) Advanced Management modules Two slots for Gigabit Ethernet switches (can also have optical or copper pass-through) Two slots for optional switch or pass-through modules, can have additional Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or Myrinet 2000 functions Four slots for optional high-speed switches or pass-through modules, can have 10 Gbit Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X. Optional Hard-wired serial port capability Power: Two (upgradable to four) power supplies, with Souriau UTG input connectors Two redundant high-speed blowers
IBM BladeCenter HT
BladeCenter HT is the telecommunications company version of the BladeCenter H, available with either AC or DC (48 V) power. Has 12 blade slots in 12U, but uses the same switches and blades as the regular BladeCenter H. But to keep NEBS Level 3 / ETSI compliant special NEBS compliant blades are available.
IBM BladeCenter S Targets mid-sized customers by offering storage inside the BladeCenter chassis, so no separate external storage needs to be purchased. It can also use 120V power in the North American market, so it can be used outside the datacenter. When running at 120V, the total chassis capacity is reduced. Features: 6 blade slots in 7U Shared Media tray with optical drive and 2× USB 2.0 ports 1 Advanced Management module as standard (no option for secondary module) Storage: Up to 12 hot-swap 3.5" (or 24 2.5") SAS or SATA drives with RAID 0, 1, and 1E capability (RAID 5 and SAN capabilities optional with two SAS RAID controllers) Two optional Disk Storage Modules for HDDs, six 3.5" SAS/SATA drives each 4 hot-swap I/O switch module bays Power: Two 950/1450-watt, hot-swap modules and ability to have two optional 950/1450-watt modules, offering redundancy and power for robust configurations; C19/C20 connectors Four hot-swap redundant blowers (plus one fan in each power supply)
Blade nodes list IBM BladeCenter blade nodes listwidesockets20022003200420052006200720082009201020112012x86Intel21-4HS401(2)2(4)HX511-2HS20HS21HS22HS2311HS12HC10AMD21-4LS41LS4211-2LS20LS21PPOWER24JS43 ExpPS70422PS70212JS22JS23PS70311JS12PS701PS700PowerPC12JS20JS21Cell22QS201QS21QS22UltraSPARC2BCNetwork11PN41
Intel based Modules based on x86 processors from Intel.
HS12 (2008) Features: Processor: Celeron single-core 445 to quad-core Intel Xeon up to 2.83GHz Memory: 6 DIMM slots (up to 24GB) Hot-swap drives
HS20 (2002–2006) Features:
Processors: One or two Intel Xeon DP (single or dual-core) Memory: 4 DIMM slots Option for one or two 2.5" drives (ATA100, SCSI U320 or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) depending on generation) Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand)
HS21 (2007–2008) This model can use the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards-compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features: Processors: One or two Intel Xeon DP (dual or quad-core) Memory: 4 DIMM slots Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10Gbit/s Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X)
HS21 XM (2007–2008) This model can use the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features: Processors: One or two Intel Xeon DP (dual or quad-core) Memory: 8 DIMM slots Option for one SAS 2.5" drive or one or two SAS-based Solid State drives Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10Gbit/s Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X as well as additional Fibre-Channel or Ethernet ports)
HS22 (2009–2011) Features: Processors: One or two Intel Xeon 5500 or 5600 series (up to 3.6GHz 4-core or 3.46GHz 6-core) Memory: up to 192GB DDR3 (12 VLP DIMM slots) Option for two hot swap SAS 2.5" drives or SSD (RAID 0 and 1 are possible) Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports (Broadcom 5709S) 1 CIOv slot (standard PCI-Express daughter card) and 1 CFFh slot (high-speed PCI-Express daughter card) for a total of 8 ports of I/O to each blade, including 4 ports of high-speed I/O Requires Advanced Management Module
HS22v (2010–2011) Features are very similar to HS22 but: Memory: up to 288GB DDR3 (18 VLP DIMM slots) Up to two 1.8" disks (SSD, not hot swapable) Requires Advanced Management Module
HS23 (2012) Features: Single-wide Processors: One or two Intel Xeon E5-2600 or E5-2600 v2 Memory: 16 DIMM slots, up to 1866MHz 2 hot-swappable HDDs (SATA/SAS) or SSDs Dual 10G/1G Ethernet onboard expandable to Virtual Fabric / vNic's onboard Requires Advanced Management Module
HS23E (2012) Features: Single-wide Processors: One or two Intel Xeon E5-2400 Memory: 12 DIMM slots, up to 1600MHz 2 hot-swappable HDDs (SATA/SAS) or SSDs Dual Gigabit Ethernet onboard ports with TOE Requires Advanced Management Module
HS40 (2004) Features: Double-wide (needs 2 slots) Processors: One to four Intel Xeon MP Memory: (8 DIMM slots) Option for one or two ATA100 2.5" drives Four 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports Two expansion slots for up to four additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand)
HC10 (2008) This blade model is targeted to the workstation market, Features: Processor: Single Intel Core 2 Duo Memory: 8GB max (4 DIMM slots) NVidia video adapter One SATA 60GB HDD Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports
HX5 (2010–2011) This blade model is targeted at the server virtualization market. Features: Processors: 2 to 4 Intel E7, 6500 or 7500 series Xeon (410 cores per CPU, up to 2.67GHz) Memory: 256GB Max (16 DIMM slots); Expandable to 40 slots with a 24 DIMM MAX 5 memory blade (640GB total). Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports per blade
AMD based Modules based on x86 processors from AMD.
LS20 (2005-2006) Features:
Processors: One or two AMD Opteron (single or dual-core) Memory: DDR (4 VLP DIMM slots) Option for one or two SCSI U320 2.5" drives Two 1Gbit/s Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand)
LS21
(2006) This model can use the high-speed I/O of the BladeCenter H, but is also backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:
Processors: One or two AMD Opteron (dual-core), support 65nm Quad core after BIOS update (tested) Memory: up to 32GB of RAM (8 DIMM slots) Option for one SAS or SATA 2.5" drive Two Gigabit Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre-Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10Gbit/s Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X)
LS22 (2008) Upgraded model of LS21. Features:
Processors: One or two 45nm AMD Opteron (quad or 6-core) Memory: up to 64GB of RAM (8 DIMM slots) Option for two SAS or SATA 2.5" drive Two Gigabit Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre-Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10 Gbit Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X)
LS41 (2006–2007) This model can use the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:
Double-wide (needs 2 slots) Processors: One to four AMD Opteron (dual-core) Memory: up to 64GB of RAM (16 DIMM slots) Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives Four Gigabit Ethernet ports Two expansion slots for up to four additional ports (Fibre-Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10Gbit/s Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X) Data Storage Capacity ?
LS42 (2008–2009) Upgraded model of LS41. Features:
Double-wide (needs 2 slots) Processors: One to 4 AMD Opteron (quad or 6-core) Memory: up to 128GB of RAM (16 DIMM slots) Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives Four Gigabit Ethernet ports Two expansion slots for up to four additional ports (Fibre-Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10Gbit/s Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X)
Power based Modules based on PowerPC- or Power ISA-based processors from IBM.
JS20 (2006) Features: Can run AIX or Linux Processors: Two PowerPC 970 at 1.6 or 2.2 GHz Memory: 4 DIMM slots for PC2700 ECC (max 8 GB) Option for one or two ATA100 2.5" drives Two Gigabit Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand)
JS21 (2006) This model can have the High-speed IO option of the BladeCenter H, but is backwards compatible with the regular BladeCenter. Features:
Can run AIX or Linux Can do virtualization, with Dynamic Logical Partitioning (DLPAR) capabilities Processors: Two PowerPC 970FX single-core at 2.7 GHz or two PowerPC 970MP dual-core at 2.5 GHz Memory: 4 DIMM slots for PC2-3200 or PC2-4200 ECC (max 16 GB) Option for one or two SAS 2.5" drives Two Gigabit Ethernet ports One expansion slot for up to two additional ports (Fibre Channel storage, additional Ethernet, Myrinet 2000 or InfiniBand) One High-speed expansion slot for up to two additional ports (10 Gbit Ethernet or InfiniBand 4X)
JS22 (2009) Features: Can run IBM i, AIX or Linux Supports virtualization, with Dynamic Logical Partitioning (DLPAR) and IBM Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) Processors: Two POWER6 dual-core at 4.0 GHz Memory: 4 DIMM slots ECC Chipkill DDR2 SDRAM (max 32 GB) One 2.5" SAS drive up to 146 GB Two Gigabit Ethernet ports card