Server Consolidation on xSeries with Blades

Key's March Webinar featured Steve Wada, western region technical sales executive for blades at IBM. Wada discussed how to best accomplish server consolidation using IBM's xSeries servers with IBM blade servers. Key designed this Webinar to demystify blade server technology -- the latest stage in server evolution. Dramatic cost savings, saving critical data center space, boosting reliability and simplifying systems management can be achieved with IBM's blade server technology, called BladeCenters.

This Webinar was developed for those responsible for the management of server configurations, including CIOs, IT directors/managers, ops managers, and managers of Win/Tel environments.

You should review the archived version of this KEY Webinar if you have interest in the following:

• How can consolidation of my Win/Tel servers benefit me?
  
• How do blade servers enable server consolidation?
  
• What are the major architecture components of blades?
  
• What are the enhanced system management capabilities of blades?
  
• What are the considerations for deployment of blades?
  
• What are the cost-benefits of blades?

Steve Wada discussed how to take control of your infrastructure by tackling server management challenges with IBM's BladeCenter. Its design gathers computing resources into high-density enclosures that support hot-swappable, high-performance 2-way and 4-way Intel processor-based and 2-way POWER processor-based blade servers. IBM BladeCenter offers the high performance and manageability of IBM rack-optimized platforms. The result is an effectively managed infrastructure that helps maximize resource productivity and minimize IT and network administration costs.

Wada reported on gaining On Demand-ready status for servers. Steve described how to leverage IBM's BladeCenter modularity, increased serviceability and bullet-proof reliability. It works with the award-winning IBM Director systems management platform, and with the industry-leading virtualization capabilities of VMware's ESX Server 2.5, to provide a complete server consolidation solution.

Steve pointed out how IBM BladeCenters are helping businesses to be responsive to customers, to focus on core competencies, to adapt flexibly to cost structures, and to gain resiliency to face any challenge. IBM's BladeCenter now supports Intel's Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T), providing investment protection by supporting 32-bit and 64-bit applications. Moreover, BladeCenter has expanded its hardware ecosystem, according to Wada, by delivering new Cisco, Brocade, Nortel, qlogic and Topspin switch modules to help users lower their total cost of ownership.

An archived recording of this and all past KEY Webinars is available: http://www.keyinfo.com/resources/web_arch.htm.