One of the great server options for virtualization is are the new Dell PowerEdge M600 and M605 blades that use the M1000e chassis. This chat will focus on the reasons to use blades and the reasons not to use blades as a virtualization server with specific focus on power consumption, I/O ports, memory capacity, and performance.

Technical Community - Background Reading

Selecting a Virtualization Server
Virtualization Server Selection Matrix
10g Blades
Recommendations for Blade Server - DellTechCenter Discussion Thread
VMware ESX Server on Blades - DellTechCenter Discussion Thread

Chat Transcript

		Kristoffer joined.
	DELL-ScottH	hello kristoffer, how goes it ?
	Kristoffer	Hi Scott, it goes well... I'm just here to see whats going on... I'm a new Dell customer waiting for my new chassis and Ax4 san... Just getting to know Dell :-)
	DELL-ScottH	cool, welcome, and feel free to ask any questions, and thanks for coming to Dell ... we have about 10 mins before we start and we usually just chit chat ... Todd will do an official kick off ... interact as much or as little as you like ... lurkers are welcome :-)
	Kristoffer	Thanks, sounds great... So you guys are here every tuesday or is it different Dell techs in here?
	DELL-ScottH	Todd and I are here every tuesday, we try to have guest developers in from time to time, but Todd and I are always here ...and there's all kinds of people (dell and others) on the site
	DELL-ToddM	Scott and I are here pretty much every week - other Dell engineers will drop in depending on topic
	DELL-ScottH	just start a discussion thread on any page and you;ll see them crawl out of the woodwork :-)
	DELL-ToddM	Speaking of which - thanks for pointing out that comment
	DELL-ScottH	is this your first Dell system ?
	DELL-ToddM	I just responded
	Kristoffer	Ok... Are you hardware technicians or ...?
	DELL-ToddM	We are more like solution architects
	DELL-ToddM	We have a broad background in x86 servers, storage, and applications
	Kristoffer	Cool...
	DELL-ScottH	I specialize in systems management - openmanage for the Dell side, dabble in Virtualization, I came from Ibm and have strong background in x86, San, etc
	DELL-ToddM	I have done lots of testing, writing of whitepapers, and presenting on topics like Sql Server, Vmware, San, Exchange
	DELL-ToddM	Currently I am focusing on virtualization
	DELL-ScottH	typical geeks, part time Hak0rz
	Kristoffer	Great - I'm building a Xen hosting invironment with a m1000e with an ax4
	DELL-ScottH	and we play a lot of Team Fortress 2 !
	Kristoffer	Haha, nice
	DELL-ScottH	url ?
	Kristoffer	not yet... this is my second day as self employed and I'm recieving the equipment in 2 days, so there have been no time to do any homepage yet ;)
	DELL-ScottH	ahhh, trying to give you a free plug, maybe next chat
	DELL-ToddM	We are getting close to start-time, but lets give people a few minutes to get joined in
	DELL-ToddM	Why did you decide to go with Xen?
	Kristoffer	It's free... ;-) And I have experience with it on servers with direct attached storage... This will be my first Xen setup with a San
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	DELL-ScottH	Hey Greg, Roger
	DELL-ToddM	Hello
		Maureen_McCann joined.
	ramseyg	hello all
	Dell-RogerF	Afternoon
	DELL-ToddM	Hello Maureen!
	DELL-ScottH	Hi Maureen
	DELL-ToddM	I will officially get things started in a minute or two - still waiting for the crowd to gather
	Maureen_McCann	Hello! Looking forward to learning!
	DELL-ScottH	Fyi, use "action" .. "recent Room History" to catch up on the conversation
	DELL-ToddM	Kristoffer - Why did you decide to select 1000e blades?
		Dell-Marc joined.
	DELL-ToddM	Howdy Marc
	DELL-ScottH	hey Marc
	Kristoffer	I liked the idea of the easy management of blades with switching etc...
	Dell-Marc	Hey todd, hey scott
	Kristoffer	just seems like a nice and clean setup with almost no cables ;)
	DELL-ScottH	yeah, when can me plug into the real "ether" :-)
	DELL-ToddM	I assume that you are just going to use the switches in the blades chassis for your San - which will save cables and cost
	Kristoffer	Sure, 2 switches for ethernet, 2 for iscsi, and 2 spare for future needs
	DELL-ToddM	I would like to officially welcome everybody to today's Tech Tuesday chat!
	DELL-ToddM	The topic for today is Blades and Virtualization
	DELL-ToddM	or more specifically - When to use blades for virtualization
	DELL-ToddM	This is the third chat in a series of chats that we have had here on www.delltechcenter.com on selecting the right server for virtualization
	DELL-ToddM	There is a landing page for this topic at:
		Robby joined.
	DELL-ToddM	http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/selecting+a+server+for+virtualization \
	DELL-ToddM	Welcome back Robby
	DELL-ScottH	hey Robby, how you been ?
	Robby	Good, thought I stop by and see what's new.
	DELL-ToddM	There are links to the previous chat transcripts and other resources for helping you to decide the right server for you
		dell-marcf2 joined.
	DELL-ToddM	Last week we talked about 2-socket or 4 socket servers
	dell-marcf2	Hi - my machine froze - so I'm back on another
	DELL-ToddM	Which is basically the 2950/r805 or R900/r905 in terms of specific servers
	DELL-ToddM	Marc - Maybe you should run a virtual machine with a browser in it? :)
	DELL-ToddM	So - today we wanted to focus on blade servers
	DELL-ToddM	specifically the M1000e chassis and M600 or M605 blades
	DELL-ToddM	Kristoffer is awaiting the arrival of his M1000e blade chassis as we chat
	DELL-ToddM	We were discussing his specific config and reasons for choosing blades just before we got started
	Kristoffer	I'm so excited :)
	DELL-ToddM	I always get excited when I know that a new system is about to arrive
	Kristoffer	Actually I started with an Ibm config
	DELL-ToddM	There is something about opening a box with a new computer that I have always loved
	Kristoffer	But Dell actually provided better features on the blades...
	DELL-ToddM	Can you be specific about which features?
	DELL-ScottH	that's great to here ! -- Fyi I lead the very first beta program with the Ibm blades -- and look where I am now ! ... we both made the right choice
	DELL-ScottH	and hear too
	Kristoffer	On Ibm going with a 8core 32GB mem blade you would have to use 2 Ssd disks to have disk redundancy
	Kristoffer	Dell have this, even with hotspares...
	Kristoffer	And 10G uplinks already on the basic switches
	Kristoffer	That did for me
	DELL-ToddM	I would guess that since you are doing a hosting facility - you need as much Ram and processor as possible to be able to host Max Vms per blade
		Robby left.
	Kristoffer	Yes... And I've heard that it should be possible to run 64GB Ram in the blades this fall... even though that must be a little hot...
	DELL-ToddM	I haven't seen the dates on when additional Ram capacities will be available - but I would assume this is true and will be once the 8GB Dimms are available for blades
	DELL-ToddM	One choice that you have to make, after picking blades, is processor architecture - Intel or Amd?
	DELL-ToddM	The M600 is Intel
	DELL-ToddM	The M605 is Amd
	DELL-ToddM	A mini decoder ring!
	DELL-ScottH	ha
	Kristoffer	Amd is nice because of the memory not running as hot as the Fully buffered modules on the Intels
	Kristoffer	And they should be faster too
	Kristoffer	But I like the idea of the L5420 cpu
	DELL-ScottH	are you in a hosted facility, or your own facilities ?
	Kristoffer	compensating for the powerusage of the memory blocks :)
	Kristoffer	I will be in a hosted facility
	DELL-ToddM	I haven't checked lately, but pricing on the memory with Amd used to be slightly less - Was that the case for you?
	DELL-ScottH	curious, do they charge by rack U space, or also by Btus ?
	DELL-ToddM	In the interest of being fair and balanced on the Amd or Intel question - Intel does show a bit better performance in most benchmarks
	Kristoffer	I don't know about the memory pricing actually... I just thought the M600 was the better of the two... with all the problems Amd have had with their new cpu
	Kristoffer	They charge rack U's and amps
	Kristoffer	I'm getting 2 x 16amp in one rack...
	Kristoffer	for redundancy.. hopefully I will never hit 32amps :)
	DELL-ScottH	do they charge on what you "use" or what they installed in the rack ?
	DELL-ToddM	Along those lines - blades can save you on power - in comparison to traditional rack servers
	Kristoffer	They charge on what i use, although either 10 or 16amps
	DELL-ToddM	I did a blog entry last week that highlights the power consumption with blades question - http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/05-29-2008+ultimate+power+efficiency+with+blades+and+virtualization+-+comments
	Kristoffer	Actually I heard that the Ibm bladecenter is using more power compared to 1U Ibm servers... but I guess that's a difficult measure...
	Kristoffer	Dell's supposed to be even less powerhungry ;)
	DELL-ScottH	it's not too difficult, they have a rack calculator that will show the power draw for any configuration
	DELL-ToddM	The numbers for blades being more power efficient assume that you are using all 16 blades slots in comparison to 16 1U servers
	Kristoffer	sure, but then you have switches, and disks etc...
	DELL-ScottH	you can use our power calc and theirs and do a 16 x 1u vs 16 blades config on both
	DELL-ScottH	you can add the switches in both the Dell and Ibm calc, gives a pretty close estimate
	DELL-ToddM	Actual power usage can vary quite a bit based on load - the power calculators are usually conservative and use figures that are higher in the range
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	Kristoffer	sure, in the Ibm story it was just strange to hear that you actually would use less power with 1U servers... anyway, the reason i chose blades, without actually knowing Dells open manage, was the ability to have easy access to all the nice Ip-kvm and switch configuration stuff... I guess this is even more important than the very big rack servers... I also like the idea of having more smaller servers in case of problems, when I don't have the funds to buy a lot of big servers...
	DELL-ToddM	I agree that you made the right choice in selecting blades servers - I also lean towards more smaller baskets, then fewer larger baskets
	DELL-ToddM	More flexibility
	DELL-ScottH	yeah, you've invested in the chassis that has the power, cooling, kvm, etc .. .all the infrastructure .. so you don't have to pay for this stuff again as you incrementally add more blades ... makes sense
	DELL-ScottH	Were starting a blades/management topic next week and you'll like the fact that you can do everything over the net for management, power, console, updates, etc
	DELL-ToddM	In order for blades to make sense however, you really need to have it mostly full, or plan to have it full in the future
	DELL-ToddM	If you are only going to need 5 or 6 servers, then it really makes sense to look at 2950 or R805
	DELL-ToddM	Do you have any questions about configuration? Management? We will do our best to answer
	Kristoffer	Hmm... not yet really.. :) maybe next week... I'm just looking forward to setting it all up...
	DELL-ToddM	We have recenlty had some activity on the Xen section of delltechcenter - http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/citrix+xenserver+dell+edition
	DELL-ToddM	You could post a question to the discussion threads area at the bottom of these pages....if needed
	DELL-ToddM	The other question that I want to ask you is about your storage.
	Kristoffer	Cool - I think right now the most exciting thing about this setup will be configuring the virtual machines block devices on the san...
	Kristoffer	Optimizing it, and resizing will be fun
	DELL-ToddM	Why the Ax4 iscsi array?
	DELL-ToddM	We have lots of options for iscsi these days
	Kristoffer	strictly from a price/performance point of view
	Kristoffer	I've looked at the md3000i
	Kristoffer	and the nexsan solutions
	DELL-ToddM	The Md3000i has been a fairly popular topic on the techcenter at times
	Kristoffer	but I'm on a budget, and I liked the fact that the ax can have 60 disks
	DELL-ToddM	Seems like lots of customers consider the MD3000i as their first Iscsi array
	Kristoffer	only 512mb of cache
	DELL-ToddM	In terms of value, the Equallogic Ps Series is pretty compelling because
	DELL-ToddM	all of the software features are included with the array
	DELL-ToddM	There are no additional charges for replication options, etc....
	DELL-ToddM	So once you get futher into your experience with the external storage arrays and you want to start doing some "cool stuff" the Equallogic stuff becomes more interesting
	Kristoffer	if you need all the features, and the scalability and management, yes they are very nice
	Kristoffer	but they also cost a lot more than the ax
	Kristoffer	At least that whats my Dell guy told me ;)
	Kristoffer	sorry did i say nexsan? I meant equallogic of course:)
	DELL-ToddM	I'm actually still kinda new at this whole iscsi thing
	DELL-ToddM	I've been working with fibre channel for about 7 years - with the Dell | Emc (clariion) arrays
	DELL-ToddM	I must admit that iscsi is alot easier to setup and manage from what I have seen so far
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	DELL-ToddM	We are nearing the end of the hour - Any other topics/questions that we should address?
	DELL-ToddM	Next week's chat will be on Blades Management - Scott - do want to quickly intro?
	DELL-ScottH	sure, thanks Todd ...
	DELL-ScottH	next week starts a 3 week agenda around blade managment ... we'll kick it off with a chat session, but have many more pages developed around how to manage your blade infrastructure ... bookmark this page http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/06-10-08+managing+blades+web+chat - and see you on the chat next week ....
	DELL-ToddM	Kristoffer - do you have an Id on delltechcenter? I would like to see about sending you a Techcenter shirt
	DELL-ScottH	and fill out your profile when you get that homepage setup. If you lurk and contribute, more chances someone will come across it, free advertising :-)
	DELL-ToddM	Thanks to all for attending this weeks’ Tech Tuesday chat - See you next week