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If IBM is your blade server vendor of choice and Cisco Systems is your preferred switch vendor, then it looks like there's a chance that these two companies are going to be working together to create a line of Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) switches for BladeCenter blade servers.

Last week, Cisco announced that it was going to be shrinking down its Nexus 5000 line of 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches, which can handle plain old Ethernet traffic between servers and the outside world as well as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) traffic over the same 10 GE switch, to create a new product family called the Nexus 4000.

There are four expansion blades currently available for IBM BladeCenter servers:

• IBM BladeCenter Memory and I/O Expansion Unit, part number 42C1600
• IBM BladeCenter Storage and I/O (SIO) Expansion Unit, part number 39R7563
• IBM BladeCenter PCI Expansion Unit II (PEU2), part number 25K8373
• IBM BladeCenter PCI Express I/O Expansion Unit (PEU3e), 43W4391

The expansion blades add function to the blade server by adding additional memory DIMMs, Ethernet controllers, and I/O expansion slots. In this technote, we list the blade server models that support these expansion blades.

For related information about this topic, refer to the following IBM Redbooks publication:  IBM BladeCenter Products and Technology, SG24-7523-03

Source:  IBM Redbooks BladeCenter Expansion - Supported Configurations

Recently a new website was launched to support in DS3000, DS4000 and DS5000 Training. They can also be followed on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/ds345ktrainer

Source: IBM DS Series Training

You can use the IBM® Advanced Settings Utility (ASU) to modify firmware settings from the command line on multiple operating-system platforms.

Change history of Version 3.01 (ASUT67N)

• reset to factory defaults support to loaddefault
• added record managment support
• added --instances option to showvalues
• add instance data to showvalues output
• added --license option
• support instance creation and deletion
• fixed problems with spaces in directory names
• fixed remove patch problem
• fixed text validation for windows 64 bit
• improved ASU help

On August 28, 2009 IBM, BLADE Network Technologies and Emulex pre announced a new solution that will help IT organizations to achieve new levels of consolidation, efficiency, flexibility and lower costs especially when deploying virtualization.

This new offering built off the latest HS22 blades, BladeCenter H, BNT 10-port 10G ESM and the future Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter will help IBM exceed the capabilities of HP Flex-10 and Cisco UCS.

IBM BladeCenter Start Now Advisor 2.0.1 has been released. If you do not know what this is, please read the 1.0 announcement information HERE. This version 2.0.1 is supported by:

• IBM BladeCenter S Type 8886 1948 7779
• IBM BladeCenter Advanced Management Module, firmware level BPET34C or above
• IBM BladeCenter SAS Connectivity Module, firmware level 3.53 or above
• IBM BladeCenter S Disk Storage Module, firmware level 0.7 or above
• IBM BladeCenter SAS RAID Controller Module, firmware level 1.0 or above
• IBM BladeCenter HS12 8014 8028 1916
• IBM BladeCenter HS21 8853 1885
• IBM BladeCenter HS21 extended memory 7995 1915
• IBM BladeCenter HS22 7870 1936
• IBM BladeCenter LS21 7971
• IBM BladeCenter LS41 7972
• IBM BladeCenter LS22 7901
• IBM BladeCenter LS42 7902

A good document discussing in details the procedure of configuring a BladeCenter S using SNA 2.0 (including two real life scenarios) can be found here

Source:  IBM Support Download

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes what you can do to improve and maximize the performance of your business server applications running on IBM System x® hardware and either Windows®, Linux®, or VMware® operating systems. It describes how to improve the performance of the System x hardware, the operating system, and specific server applications.

The Brocade 8Gb FC Single-port and Dual-port HBA for IBM System x are PCI Express 2.0 x8 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters with SFP+ LC-style connectors. The adapters connect to SFP+ Multimode Fiber SR optical modules. These adapters support 8 Gbps per port maximum bidirectional throughput for high-bandwidth storage (SAN). The PCI Express low profile form factor adapter can be used in either a standard PCI Express slot or a low profile PCI Express slot.

Ordering part numbers and feature codes
Brocade 8Gb FC Single-port HBA for IBM System x  46M6049    3589
Brocade 8Gb FC Dual-port HBA for IBM System x    46M6050    3591

Source:  IBM Redbooks - TIPS0719