AEM is an energy management software tool that can help provide a single view of the actual power usage across systems in your infrastructure as opposed to the benchmarked power consumption. Planned availability date is december 12th 2008.

The new features in this release are: Web-based user interface requiring only a browser, Soft power capping, Energy thresholding, Group capping, Integration with Emerson-Liebert's SiteScan management application (the SiteScan application is supported by Emerson Network Power), Additional power savings modes, Command-line interface support, Select non-IBM PDU support

AEM V4.1 is available as a Web download and includes AEM's monitoring and management functions. AEM's monitoring functions are available for no charge, and the AEM management functions are enabled for a 60-day evaluation period.

You can use the IBM® Advanced Settings Utility (ASU) to modify firmware settings from the command line on multiple operating-system platforms like DOS, Linux, Solaris, Windows (yes also WinPE).

It supports BIOS code, Remote Supervisor Adapter firmware, Remote Supervisor Adapter II firmware and Baseboard management controller firmware 

You can perform the following tasks by using the utility:

• Modify the basic input/output system (BIOS) CMOS settings without the need to restart the system to access F1 settings
• Issue selected baseboard management controller setup commands
• Issue selected Remote Supervisor Adapter and Remote Supervisor Adapter II setup commands

The ASU supports scripting environments through its batch-processing mode.

Readme:  ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/systems/support/system_x_pdf/46m1352.pdf
Files:  http://www-304.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-55021&brandind=5000008

IBM® BladeCenter® provides a modular approach to streamlining your system to maximize server capability. Take advantage of the IBM Blade Assessment Tool and see if blades or rack servers are right for you.

What is the Blade Assessment?
The Blade Assessment Tool is designed to help you determine whether blade or rack servers can help meet your organization's requirement. The assessment uses your responses to determine whether your organization has a requirment for rack or blade servers. When you have completed the online assessment, a graphic is generated on-screen. A graphic of the result will also be emailed to you if you request it.

Source:  Blade Assessment Tool

ARMONK, NY and SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- October 23, 2008 -- IBM and Intel Corporation today announced they are extending their collaboration in the blade server market to drive adoption of an open industry specification for blade switches. This will enable switch vendors to maximize return on their research and development by developing products to a single design, reaching more customers with just one product.

Last october 2008 the Tolly Group did a functionality certification and cooperative interoperability evaluation on the IBM Corporation Nortel 1/10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter (report 208337).  Test report highlights:

• Earns 11 Switch Interoperability certifications for Layer 2 and Layer 3 Advanced LAN functions
• Achieves broad Layer 2 and Layer 3 Interoperability with 19 switches from seven vendors
• Interoperates with other devices tested when supporting 10GbE LAN PHY interface, 802.1p/Q VLAN tas, Link Aggregation, Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol, RSTP, VRRP, OSPF, BGP protocols and more
  

Source: BladeNetwork 208337, Tolly Group report, 1/10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch

We received a VERY extensive and useful consultant report from 'International Technology Group' which proofs that IBM System x, BladeCenter and System Storage have the
best TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) compared to HP and Dell. We urge everyone to read this.

Some of the results for these comparisons may be summarized as follows:
Server costs. Overall three-year costs, including hardware, maintenance, software, personnel and facilities for use of IBM System x and BladeCenter platforms averaged 12.2 and 8.9 percent less than for use of Dell PowerEdge and HP ProLiant and BladeSystem equivalents respectively.
Disk system costs. Overall three-year costs, including the same components as for servers, averaged 21.6 percent less for IBM DS3000 and DS4000 systems than for Dell/EMC AX4 and CX3 systems, and 22.9 percent less than for HP Modular Storage Array (MSA) and Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) systems.
Combined server and disk system costs. Reflecting the differences described above, combined three-year costs for IBM server and disk system platforms averaged 16.4 and 15.3 percent less than for Dell and HP equivalents respectively.

Source:  Business Case for IBM System x, BladeCenter and System Storage (XSW03022USEN.PDF)

A new updated version of the Power Concepts and Solutions PDF file can be found HERE.

Changelog:  BladeCenter S and the new PDU's are added.

If you want to know something about power, (cable) connectors, PDU's, BladeCenter configurations of just want to know how to calculate Volts to Amps or viceversa than this is your guide.  It is created by Chris Gillen (IBM)

More @ ibm.com/technotes

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a powerful new solution to help organizations slash virtual desktop infrastructure storage requirements by up to 80 percent, allowing them to take advantage of new cloud computing models at significantly reduced costs while increasing energy efficiency.

Update Oct 31st: Added link to webcast

After the VMworld 2008 announcements VMware published some videos about key new features coming with VMware Infrastructure 4.0:

• Fault Tolerance
• vNetwork Distributed Switch
• Host profiles

They also offer a glimpse at the new vCenter (formerly VirtualCenter) 4.0 interface. They are definitively worth a look.

Source:   Virtualization.info

We already published an article about the iSCSI Boot Commander, and now information is available to guide you through.

The iSCSI standard (RFC 3720) defines transporting of the SCSI protocol over a TCP/IP network that allows block access to target devices. A host connection to the network can be provided by an iSCSI host bus adapter or an iSCSI software initiator that uses the standard network interface card in the host.

iSCSI-capable IBM Blades utilize two iSCSI initiators during the boot process. One iSCSI software initiator is contained in the system firmware or BIOS. The other iSCSI software initiator is provided by the operating system.

Every now and than IBM releases new videos on topics related to green computing, bladecenter or system x.

In this case they uploaded the video 'BladeCenter - Right Choice' to YouTube.

You can watch this video by clicking on Read More.

 

ETC Distribution is a true Value Add Distributor that covers all IBM brands: System p, System i, System x, Storage, Software and services and is therebuy the only one-stop-shop-distributor in Holland.

Thanks to the broad expertises of our multi-disciplinair team they have a strong relationships with our resellers.

Contact ETC Distribution and join their IBM Business Club today

 

This IBM Director 5.20.3 will propably be the latest version of IBM Director in the 5.20.x range. The next major release is IBM Systems Director 6.1 which is available now.

UPDATE: The Systems Director 6.1 press release has been published HERE and is available for download HERE

This 5.20.3 version adds official support for Windows 2008 and several additional hardware support like iDataPlex, the Cisco Catalyst switches. the RAIDed SAS switch, 8GB FC cards and resolves a number of APAR's.

Source: Release Notes 5.20.3, What's New and IBM Support Download 5.20.3 and 6.1

A tool that helps ensure business resilience by offering simplified failover and storage management solutions for BladeCenter S.

What is BladeCenter Integrated Manager?

Business resilience is more than continuity of business operations. Regulatory compliance, high availability, security and data protection, and integrated risk management are needed to help businesses rapidly adapt and respond to risks and maintain continuous business operations.

IBM BladeCenter Integrated Manager provides failover functions with simplified manageability to help ensure business resilience.

This tool provides flexible functions, including:

IBM Systems Director 6.1 is available NOW!! ........ download it here!

The management software will be included on a CD with every IBM system from december 12th onward.
The september 23rd official press release on IBM Systems Director 6.1 can be found HERE.

An update on IBM Director 5.20 has also been posted to the IBM support site.   This 5.20.3 release now support Windows Server 2008 and additional new hardware e.g..

Additional sources of information on IBM Systems Director can be found @:

Lenovo has introduced their new ThinkServer line that will be available for purchase at Lenovo Business Partners on september 30. In january this year we published that Lenovo would introduce servers based on System x technology. Read that story again HERE

Blades and high-end systems as well as the tower and rack servers IBM is selling now will still be sold tomorrow. With the Lenovo ThinkServer System x technology will be sold on places IBM itself is not selling at this moment.
The competitive mapping of ThinkServer versus System x is (T=Tower, R=Rack, S=Single socket, D=Dual socket): 

TS100 vs x3200 M2, TD110 vs x3400, TD110x vs x3500, RS110 vs x3250 M2 and RD120 vs x3650

Source: IBM and Lenovo Agreement, Lenovo ThinkServer, Announcement