Server consolidation

Server Consolidation

Whereas in the past it was important to primarily guarantee system availability and the achievement of a particular service level, today a second, frequently more important component is added: the costs!

Today most IT departments are involved in reducing costs whilst achieving high service level expectations and adapting quickly to new, modified general conditions.

At first glance these requirements appear to be mutually exclusive, yet when investigated more closely they provide interesting potential for improvements. By simplifying, standardising, modularising and optimising as part of IT consolidation projects, it is possible to reduce total costs, increase service levels and improve flexibility. The focus here is on consolidating wide-ranging, frequently heterogeneous and distributed server environments.

Blade technology

A blade system comprises a base unit, the MAXDATA PLATINUM BladeBase, which accepts the individual blade server and optional SCSI extensions.

The PLATINUM BladeBase provides the interface to the LAN via GBit switches, or to the SAN via fibre-channel switches. The GBit and fibre-channel communication for the blade components is implemented via the mid-plane of the PLATINUM BladeBase. Each PLATINUM Blade server represents an independent server with its own CPU, working memory and hard disk.

Blade servers can reduce management and operating costs considerably. Even small businesses can increase their competitiveness with blade solutions; they can accelerate their return on investment and lower the total costs of ownership.

The MAXDATA PLATINUM blade servers are built on Intel® Xeon™ DP and Intel® Xeon™ MP CPU technology. Therefore they represent highly integrated systems with full management features. MAXDATA blade servers, SCSI expansions and Ethernet and Fibre-Channel switches can be added to the blade chassis at any time via the hot-plug procedure. This guarantees scalability at all times.