Hitachi Unveils First Enterprise-class Blade Server
Nearly a decade after the enterprise computing industry promised data center consolidation via blade servers, Hitachi has delivered the first enterprise-class blade server.
Hitachi America today announced BladeSymphony with Virtage, the first blade server to provide users with enterprise-class data center functionality. The new product, the latest member of Hitachi BladeSymphony series, includes Virtage, an embedded virtualization feature. The feature, which builds virtualization right into a blade servers hardware for the first time, provides customers an alternative to third-party software solutions and thus can enable them to decrease overhead costs while increasing manageability and performance.
BladeSymphony with Virtage also includes unique blade symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) interconnect technology that improves scalability by enabling users to configure multiple blades, so that they work as a single system. BladeSymphony with Virtage will be generally available in North America in January and has been selected by several customers, including Stanford Universitys Cardiovascular Biomechanics Research Laboratory (CBRL).
Introduced in Japan in August 2006 and first demonstrated in North America last September at the Intel Developers Forum, BladeSymphony with Virtage is a 10U chassis, supporting hot-swappable blades capable of running both Windows and Linux. Built on standards-based multi-core Intel processors with Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT), the product allows users to combine, scale, and virtualize BladeSymphony blades based on Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 9000 Series processors.
BladeSymphony with Virtage can also support BladeSymphony blades based on Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors within the same chassis. Additionally, BladeSymphony with Virtage is available in more eight-processor (16-way) SMP configurations than any other blade server on the market.
BladeSymphony with Virtage also solves scalability issues on an enterprise scale. The products backplane utilizes an SMP architecture to enable multiple blades to interconnect and act as a single system in one chassis. Offered in two-processor (four-way) Itanium processor blades, BladeSymphony can be scaled up and out to offer up to two eight-processor (16-way) servers in a single chassis, thus reducing footprint and power consumption while increasing utilization.
BladeSymphony with Virtage also includes unique blade symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) interconnect technology that improves scalability by enabling users to configure multiple blades, so that they work as a single system. BladeSymphony with Virtage will be generally available in North America in January and has been selected by several customers, including Stanford Universitys Cardiovascular Biomechanics Research Laboratory (CBRL).
Introduced in Japan in August 2006 and first demonstrated in North America last September at the Intel Developers Forum, BladeSymphony with Virtage is a 10U chassis, supporting hot-swappable blades capable of running both Windows and Linux. Built on standards-based multi-core Intel processors with Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT), the product allows users to combine, scale, and virtualize BladeSymphony blades based on Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 9000 Series processors.
BladeSymphony with Virtage can also support BladeSymphony blades based on Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors within the same chassis. Additionally, BladeSymphony with Virtage is available in more eight-processor (16-way) SMP configurations than any other blade server on the market.
BladeSymphony with Virtage also solves scalability issues on an enterprise scale. The products backplane utilizes an SMP architecture to enable multiple blades to interconnect and act as a single system in one chassis. Offered in two-processor (four-way) Itanium processor blades, BladeSymphony can be scaled up and out to offer up to two eight-processor (16-way) servers in a single chassis, thus reducing footprint and power consumption while increasing utilization.
