HP (NYSE: HWP) announced its BL495C, claiming the first blade designed for virtualization.
Overview The HP ProLiant BL495c virtualization blade is the world’s first server blade designed specifically to host virtual machines. The BL495c is the ideal platform for virtualized environments that require significant memory, data storage and network connections to optimize server performance.
The BL495c eliminates performance bottlenecks by accelerating virtual server speed with twice the memory capacity, solid state drives that use significantly less power, and up to two more Ethernet network connections than competitive offerings.(1) Based on the typical configuration of 4 gigabytes (GB) per virtual machine (VM), the BL495c can support a minimum of 32 VMs. Customers filling an HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure with 16 BL495c server blades can utilize up to 512 VMs versus 256 and 112 from the closest competitors.(2)
“Customers looking to maximize the performance of their virtualized infrastructure have the answer with the BL495c. It was architected and optimized specifically for virtual machines,” said Mark Potter, vice president, HP BladeSystem. “With its memory, storage and I/O capabilities, the BL495c is unmatched in the industry and redefines server blades for virtualization.”
The BL495C ships with 10GB NICs. In a video on this page, HP specifically points out comparisons vs. IBM and Dells used of 1GB NIC and half the DIMM slots. HP’s support for SSD also is another point.
10GB vs 1 GB. 2 times the DIMMs. Support for SSD.
It is interesting that HP has added all this IO capability to dual proc, quadcore AMD blade. This supports the idea that IO is the big issue in virtualization hardware.
This announcement was part of a bigger HP Virtualization initiative.
HP Encourages CIOs to Rethink Virtualization in Business Terms
HP has expanded its industry-leading virtualization portfolio to maximize better business outcomes for customers. To meet the growing demands of technology environments, HP is providing businesses with the virtualization tools and strategies needed to rethink infrastructure management, client architectures and barriers to building and organizing infrastructures.
HP's latest hardware, software and services offerings enable enterprises to blend physical and virtual assets to expand virtualization beyond the data center, providing new ways for customers to accelerate growth, lower cost and mitigate risk.