HPE BladeSystem: History
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BladeSystem is a line of blade server machines from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Formerly Hewlett-Packard) that was introduced in June 2006. The BladeSystem forms part of the HPE Converged Systems platform, which use a common converged infrastructure architecture for server, storage, and networking products. Designed for enterprise installations of 100 to more than 1,000 Virtual machines, the HP ConvergedSystem 700 is configured with BladeSystem servers. When managing a software-defined data center, a System administrator can perform automated lifecycle management for BladeSystems using HPE OneView for converged infrastructure management. The BladeSystem allows users to build a high density system, up to 128 servers in each rack.

  • lifecycle management
  • bladesystem
  • hewlett-packard

1. Components

HPE ProLiant BL660 Gen8 server blade. By Redline - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30848252

1.1. Enclosures

HPE currently offers 2 types of enclosures in its c-Class BladeSystem lineup succeeding the p-Class BladeSystem

c7000

The BladeSystem c7000 enclosure has had multiple versions, the first version of which was announced in June 2006. In 2007 there was a minor update to the first version that included a larger Onboard Administrator display (3 inches, up from 2 inches). The next update (second version) was in 2009 and brought RoHS compatibility, increased backplane speed (5 Tbit/s, up from 4 Tbit/s), 1 Gbit/s Onboard Administrator connectivity, and increased blade connectivity options like: 2x 10 Gbit/s Ethernet support, 4x QDR or 1x FDR InfiniBand port support, and 6 Gbit/s SAS. The third version of the c7000 enclosure, called the c7000 Platinum Enclosure was released in February 2013. It features location discovery services, thermal discovery services and redesigned backplane. The new backplane increased aggregate bandwidth 40% from 5 to 7 Tbit/s to allow use newest high-speed interconnect modules (such as 16 Gbit/s FC and multiple ports of 56 Gbit/s FDR InfiniBand). Also the new Platinum Plus rating power supplies were announced with higher efficiency than previous Gold Plus rating power supplies.[1]

All versions of the enclosure occupy 10 rack units and can accommodate up to 16 half-height blade servers. It includes space for 6 power supplies (single-phase, three-phase or a −48V DC), 10 cooling fans, 8 single-wide (such as 1/10 Gbit/s Ethernet or 8/16 Gbit/s FC) or 4 double-wide (such as 40 Gbit/s Ethernet or Infiniband) interconnect modules (that allows for up to 4 redundant interconnect fabrics)

c3000

The HPE c3000 enclosure was announced in August 2007. Updated version of the enclosure called c3000 Platinum was announced in February 2013.

All versions of the enclosure occupy 6 rack units or can be used as a standalone unit (with optional tower conversion kit) It can accommodate up to 8 half-height blade servers. It includes space for 6 power supplies (single-phase, or a -48V DC), 6 cooling fans, 4 single-wide or 2 single-wide and one double-wide interconnect modules

p-Class

Taking up 6 rack units, the p-Class enclosure can house 16 Half height, 8 Full-height or 2 Quad-wide p blades. There are two interconnect modules on the front allowing for different connectivity options such as Fibre channel. Power is managed by a Powerenclosure; 1u 6x PSU single-phase or 6x PSU three-phase / 48v DC 3u enclosures.[2] The two types of backplanes determine what blades are supported; the standard backplane supports BL20p and BL25p blades whereas the enhanced backplane supports BL20p, BL25p, BL30p, BL35p, BL40p, BL45p, and BL60p (All generations).[3]

1.2. Server Blades

HPE has offered general-purpose Proliant server blades (based on Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron CPUs) as well as Integrity (based on the Intel Itanium CPU) and specialized ProLiant blades aimed at workstation virtualization. Blades can use half-height/full-height and single-wide/double-wide/quad-wide form factors. Apart from built-in 1 Gbit/s Ethernet network adapters, optional mezzanine cards can be installed on the blades to further increase connectivity options. These can include more network adapters, HBA/RAID Cards, SAN Fibre Channel Cards, and GPUs up to Nvidia Quadro FX 2800M via the (WS460c). WS ProLiant Blades can have a half-height GPU Blade that can be installed to accommodate full-height double graphics cards

Blade Models
Model Form Factor Year Chipset CPU

(No. & Socket)

CPU (Type) RAM (Max) RAM (Type) Drive Bays
BL260c G5 Half-Height 2007 Intel 5100 2 LGA 771 Intel Clovertown 5200, 5300, 5400 6x DIMMs, 48 GB DDR2, 667 2x Non-Hot plug SATA
BL460c G5 Half-Height 2007 Intel 5100 2 LGA 771 Intel Clovertown 5200, 5300, 5400 8x DIMMs, 64 GB DDR2, 667 2x SFF SAS/SATA E200i
BL465c G5 Half-Height 2007 ServerWorks HT-1000 and HT-2100 2 Socket F AMD Opteron 2300 8x DIMMs, 64 GB (667), 32 GB (800) DDR2, 800 2x SFF SAS/SATA E200i
BL480c G5 Full-Height 2007 Intel 5000P 2 LGA 771 Intel Clovertown 5200, 5300, 5400 12x DIMMs, 64 GB DDR2, 667 4x SFF SAS/SATA P400i
BL680c G5 Full-Height 2007 Intel 7300 4 Socket 604 Intel Dunnington 16x DIMMs, 128 GB DDR2, 667 2x SFF SAS/SATA P400i
BL685c G5 Full-Height 2007 nVidia CK8-04, IO-04 4 Socket F AMD Opteron 8200, 8300 4x DIMMs Per processor, 128 GB DDR2, 667 2x SFF SAS/SATA P400i
BL860c Full-Height 2007 HP ZX2 2 MPGA 700 Intel Itanium 2 9000, 9100 12x DIMMs, 48 GB DDR2, 533 2x SFF SAS/SATA LSI 1068
BL870c Double Full-Height 2007 HP ZX2 4 MPGA 700 Intel Itanium 2 9000, 9100 24x DIMMs, 192 GB DDR2, 533 4x SFF SAS/SATA LSI 1068
BL2x220c G6 2 Node Half-Height 2009 Intel 5500 2x 2 LGA 1366 Intel Nehalem 5500 3x DIMMs Per Processor, 96 GB DDR3, 1333 1x Non-Hot plug SATA
BL280c G6 Half-Height 2009 Intel 5500 2 LGA 1366 Intel Nehalem 5500 6x DIMMs Per Processor, 192 GB DDR3, 1333 2x Non-Hot plug SATA SSD
BL460c G6 Half-Height 2009 Intel 5500 2 LGA 1366 Intel Nehalem 5500 6x DIMMs Per Processor, 192 GB DDR3, 1333 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
WS460c Half-Height 2009 Intel 5500 2 LGA 1366 Intel Nehalem 5500 6x DIMMs Per Processor, 192 GB DDR3, 1333 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL465 G6 Half-Height 2009 ServerWorks HT-2100, HT-1000 2 Socket F AMD Opteron 2400 4x DIMMs Per Processor, 64 GB (667), 32 GB (800) DDR2, 800 2x SFF SAS/SATA E200i
BL490c G6 Half-Height 2009 Intel 5500 2 LGA 1366 Intel Nehalem 5500 9x DIMMs Per Processor, 192 GB DDR3, 1333 2x Non-Hot plug SATA SSD
BL495c G6 Half-Height 2009 ServerWorks HT-2100, HT-1000 2 Socket F AMD Opteron 2400 8x DIMMs Per Processor, 128 GB DDR2, 800 2x Non-Hot plug SATA SSD
BL685c G6 Full-Height 2009 ServerWorks HT-2100, HT-1000 4 Socket G34 AMD Opteron 8200, 8300, 8400 8x DIMMs Per Processor, 256 GB (533), 128 GB (800) DDR2, 800 2x SFF SAS/SATA P400i
BL2x220c G7 2 Node Half-Height 2010 Intel 5520 2x 2 LGA 1366 Intel Westmere 5600 3x DIMMs Per Processor, 96 GB DDR3, 1333 1x Non-Hot plug SATA
BL460c G7 Full-Height 2010 Intel 5520 2 LGA 1366 Intel Westmere 5600 6x DIMMs Per Processor, 384 GB DDR3, 1333 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL 465c G7 Full-Height 2010 AMD SR5690 and SP5100 2 Socket G34 AMD Opteron 6200, 6300 8x DIMMs Per Processor, 512 GB DDR3, 1333 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL490c G7 Full-Height 2010 Intel 5520 2 LGA 1366 Intel Westmere 5600 9x DIMMs Per Processor, 384 GB DDR3, 1333 2x Non-Hot plug SATA SSD
BL620c G7 Full-Height 2010 Intel 7500 2 LGA 1567 Westmere EX 2800 16x DIMMs Per Processor, 1 TB DDR3, 1333 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL680c G7 Double Full-Height 2010 Intel 7500 4 LGA 1567 Westmere EX 4800, 8800 16x DIMMs Per Processor, 2 TB DDR3, 1333 4x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL685 G7 Full-Height 2010 AMD SR5690 and SP5100 4 Socket G34 AMD Opteron 6100, 6200, 6300 8x DIMMs Per Processor, 1 TB DDR3, 1066 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL860c i2 Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 2 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9300 24x DIMMs, 384 GB DDR3, 1600 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL870c i2 Double Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 4 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9300 48x DIMMs, 768 GB DDR3, 1600 4x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL890c i2 Quad Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 8 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9300 96x DIMMs, 1.5 TB DDR3, 1600 8x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL860c i4 Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 2 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9500 24x DIMMs, 384 GB DDR3, 1600 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL870c i4 Double Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 4 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9500 48x DIMMs, 768 GB DDR3, 1600 4x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL890c i4 Quad Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 8 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9500 96x DIMMs, 1.5 TB DDR3, 1600 8x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL860c i6 Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 2 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9700 24x DIMMs, 384 GB DDR3, 1600 2x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL870c i6 Double Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 4 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9700 48x DIMMs, 768 GB DDR3, 1600 4x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL890c i6 Quad Full-Height 2011 Intel 7500 8 LGA 1248 Intel Itanium 2 9700 96x DIMMs, 1.5 TB DDR3, 1600 8x SFF SAS/SATA P410i
BL420c Gen8 Half-Height 2011 Intel 7500 2 LGA 1356 Intel Sandy Bridge EN 2400 6x DIMMs Per Processor, 192 GB DDR3, 1333 2x SFF SAS/SATA P220i/B320i
WS460c Gen8 Half-Height 2011 Intel C600 2 LGA 2011 (R1) Intel Sandy Bridge EP 2600 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 1333 512 GB, RDIMMs 1866 256 GB DDR3, 1866 2x SFF SAS/SATA P220i
BL460c Gen8 Half-Height 2011 Intel C600 2 LGA 2011 (R1) Intel Sandy Bridge EP 2600 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 1333 512 GB, RDIMMs 1600 256 GB DDR3, 1600 2x SFF SAS/SATA P220i
BL465c Gen8 Half-Height 2011 AMD SR5690 and SP5100 2 Socket G34 AMD Opteron 6300 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 1333 512 GB, RDIMMs 1600 256 GB DDR3, 1600 2x SFF SAS/SATA P220i
BL660c Gen8 Full-Height 2011 Intel C600 4 Socket 2011-1 Intel Sandy Bridge EP, Ivy Bridge EX 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 1 TB DDR3, 1866 2x SFF SAS/SATA P220i
BL460c Gen9 Half-Height 2013 Intel C610 2 LGA 2011-v3 (R3) Intel Haswell-EP 2600 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 2 TB DDR4, 2400 2x SFF SAS/SATA P244br/B140i
WS460c Gen9 Half-Height 2013 Intel C610 2 LGA 2011-v3 (R3) Intel Haswell-EP 2600 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 1 TB DDR4, 2400 2x SFF SAS/SATA P244br/B140i
BL660c Gen9 Full-Height 2013 Intel C610 4 LGA 2011-v3 (R3) Intel Haswell-EP 4600 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 4 TB DDR4, 2400 4x SFF SAS/SATA P246br/B140i
BL460c Gen10 Half-Height 2017 Intel C621 2 LGA 3647 Intel Skylake-SP 8x DIMMs Per Processor, LRDIMMs 2 TB DDR4, 2933 2x SFF NVMe P204i-b/S100i SR

1.3. Networking

Several connectivity options are available for the HPE BladeSystem:

  • HPE Virtual Connect modules
  • HPE Aruba networking switches
  • Cisco Ethernet and Fibre Channel switches and fabric extenders
  • Broadcom Fibre Channel switches and pass-through modules
  • Mellanox Infiniband

1.4. Storage

Storage options include:

  • Internal server HDDs (usually 2 to 4 with hot-swap capabilities)
  • Internal USB, SD or microSD slot
  • Connecting to external SAN via FC, SAS or iSCSI; enabled by the use of a mezzanine I/O card
  • Storage blade (with large number of internal HDD's)
  • Tape blade (half-height blade unit hosting LTO tape drive and designed to connect to adjacent blade server)

The content is sourced from: https://handwiki.org/wiki/Engineering:HPE_BladeSystem

References

  1. "HP cranks up bandwidth on BladeSystem sheaths, adds pretty platinum stripe". https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/19/hp_bladesystem_chassis_switch_workstation/. 
  2. "Document Display | HPE Support Center". https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c03539328&docLocale=en_US. 
  3. "Document Display | HPE Support Center". https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-c00868076. 
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