IBM System x iDataPlex dx360 M3 Product Guide

A revolutionary new concept for energy-efficient data centers,

using industry-standard components

Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information. 1

Product Guide

February 2011

IBM System x iDataPlex dx360 M3

Product Overview

CONTENTS

Product Overview 1

Selling Features 2

Key Features 6

Key Options 17

iDataPlex Images 19

iDataPlex Specifications 21

The Bottom Line 25

Server Comparison 26

For More Information 27

Legal Information 27

An innovative integrated data center solution that maximizes performance and optimizes energy and space efficiencies

Suggested uses: Web 2.0, HPC clusters, and large corporate data processing.

IBM® System x

® iDataPlex

™ servers are modular, highly dense systems, designed around a

highly flexible architecture, for companies running large scale-out data centers that need energy efficiency, optimized cooling, extreme scalability, high density at the data center level and high performance at an affordable price. iDataPlex solutions can help cost-effectively scale processing power to meet even the most demanding Web 2.0 and high-performance computing workloads.

The iDataPlex design is the next-generation data center solution for customers finding limitations in their scale-out computing environments. By delivering customized solutions that help reduce overall data center costs, IBM addresses the business growth challenges in the massive scale-out marketplace. The iDataPlex solution incorporates innovative ways to integrate x86-based processing performance at the node, rack, and data center levels. The iDataPlex solution provides customers with outstanding energy and cooling efficiency, multi-rack level manageability, complete flexibility in configuration, and minimal deployment effort.

A typical iDataPlex solution consists of multiple fully populated rack installations. The groundbreaking iDataPlex solution offers increased density in a new rack design. It uses the dimensions of a standard 42U enterprise rack but can hold 100U

1 of equipment, populated with

up to 84 servers, plus 16 1U vertical slots for switches, appliances, and PDUs (power distribution units).

This added density addresses the major problems that prevent most data centers today from reaching their full capacity: insufficient electrical power and excess heat.

The energy-efficient design of the iDataPlex servers and chassis can reduce the incoming energy requirement by up to 40%

2 vs. standard 1U servers. In addition, the optional liquid-

cooled IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger mounted to the back of the rack, can remove 100% of the heat generated within the rack, drawing it from the data center before it exits the rack. In fact, it can even go beyond that, to the point of helping to cool the data center itself and reducing the need for Computer Room Air Conditioning units (CRACs). This fact allows racks to be positioned much closer together, actually eliminating the need for “hot aisles” between rows of fully populated racks.

With the iDataPlex chassis design, air needs to travel only 18 inches front to back, rather than the 30-plus inches of a typical enterprise server. This shallow depth is part of the reason the cooling efficiency of iDataPlex servers is so high—shorter distance means better airflow. In addition, the new design uses four large 80mm fans per 2U or 3U chassis for more efficiency and lower noise than the eight small 40mm fans used in standard 1U servers. The increased air pressure resulting from the shorter distance through the rack and the larger fans makes for one of the most efficient air-cooled solutions on the market. In fact, unlike most conventional racks, which are often left largely empty due to power and cooling limitations, the iDataPlex Rack can be fully populated, while removing all rack heat from the data center (at least 100,000 BTUs/30kW), using the Rear Door Heat eXchanger. In addition, iDataPlex chassis use highly efficient (92%+) power supplies, reducing energy draw and waste heat further.

The end result is that a well-designed iDataPlex data center can contain as many as 2.6 times the number of servers and other rack equipment as today’s standard racks and data centers can support. (More, actually, considering that today’s racks can rarely be fully populated, unlike iDataPlex racks). In addition, by using 6- or 4-core processors in an iDataPlex solution, rather than the more prevalent 2-core processors, computing density can be increased by more than 5

1 There are 2 additional 1U horizontal slots at the bottom for low-power/infrequent-access devices.

2 Using dual Intel LV Xeon processors, 8GB Memory (4 x 2GB), 4 x 500GB SATA HDDs, and 900W power supplies.

®




times previous capacity. iDataPlex servers can also help to achieve greater density even if installed in standard enterprise racks with an optional rail kit, or as part of a growing cluster configuration that begins with only a few individual chassis.

For ease of serviceability, all hard drive, planar, and I/O access is from the front of the rack. There is no need to access the rear of the iDataPlex rack for any servicing except for the Rear Door Heat eXchanger.

The racks are populated with a number of 2U or 3U system chassis. The 2U chassis holds two trays that slide into the chassis. A tray can contain a server, additional storage, or additional I/O, and can be combined in a number of different ways to form compute servers, storage servers, I/O servers, or GPU-intensive servers. This innovative blade-like design helps reduce power and cooling costs, for more affordable computing.

As for the servers themselves, they use the latest Intel® Xeon

® 5600 and 5500 Series 6-core

and 4-core processors for high performance combined with energy efficiency. Processor choices include the highest-performance 95W, lower-cost 80W, and energy-efficient 40W and 60W Xeon processors.

The Xeon processors are designed with up to 12MB (processor-specific) of shared cache, leading-edge memory performance (up to 1333MHz, depending on processor model), to help provide the computing power you require to match your business needs and growth. The dx360 M3 supports up to 192GB of registered double data rate III (DDR3) ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) memory with optional Chipkill

™ protection

3 in 16 DIMM slots for high performance

and reliability. A dual-port integrated high-speed Gigabit Ethernet controller is standard, as are an additional of Gigabit Ethernet port for dedicated systems management and high-performance PCIe adapter slots.

All models offer impressive flexibility, including dual-processor support, large memory capacity and a wide variety of high-performance internal hard disk and backup drive configurations (using 2U and 3U chassis): up to 12 3.5-inch hot-swap Serial-Attach SCSI (SAS) drives with an internal storage capacity of 24TB; up to 12 3.5-inch hot-swap Serial ATA (SATA) drives with an internal storage capacity of 24TB; up to 8 2.5-inch simple-swap SAS drives (4.8TB); up to 8 2.5-inch simple-swap solid-state drives (400GB); up to 5 simple-swap 3.5-inch SATA drives (10TB); as well as several other possible configurations, depending on the chassis and drives used. Optional IBM ServeRAID SAS/SATA controllers provide multiple RAID levels with high performance. Integrated cable-management features in the rack help reduce cable clutter, improve behind-rack airflow, and minimize installation time when interconnecting many rack-mounted servers.

Standard in the iDataPlex server is the IBM Integrated Management Module that enables the user to manage and control the server easily—both locally and remotely. In conjunction with the IMM, the dx360 M3 supports an optional Virtual Media Key, which provides additional systems management capabilities, including remote presence. This high level of manageability is designed to help keep management costs down and the system up, as are IPMI 2.0 support, including highly secure remote power control and Serial over LAN, IBM Systems Director, next-generation BIOS (UEFI), Dynamic Systems Analysis programs, hot-swap/redundant HDDs, and simple-swap HDDs.

An iDataPlex rack is built with industry-standard components and building blocks for servers, chassis and networking switches. Racks can be ordered with any combination of configured chassis installed in the rack. IBM manufacturing sites integrate on-site and test as a complete solution before shipping fully configured to the customer. Upon receipt at the customer's location, the rack is uncrated, placed in its proper location, powered up and connected to the network in minimal time. IBM personnel ensure that the servers and network are functioning properly before customer acceptance.

If you need a balance of high-performance dual-socket processing and energy-efficiency in a rack-dense environment, the iDataPlex is the ideal solution.

Selling Features Price/Performance

The iDataPlex offers numerous features to boost performance and reduce product and operating costs:

• dx360 M3 flexibility allows you to configure a model to fit all budgets. The dx360 M3 offers a choice of high-performance 6-core, 4-core, or 2-core Xeon 5600 Series and 5500 Series processors with integrated memory controllers, clock rates from 1.6GHz to 3.2GHz, 4MB to 12MB of shared cache, and energy usage ranging from 40W to 95W. Xeon 5600 Series processors offer up to 60%

4 better performance than the previous-generation 5500 Series

processors (depending on workload), while Xeon 5500 Series processors offer up to 225% better performance than the previous-generation 5400 Series processors and up to 900%

3 Chipkill protection on the dx360 M3 requires x4 DIMMs; Chipkill protection is not available with x8 DIMMs.

4 Based on Intel measurements.




better performance than the single-core processors of a few years ago that you may still be using.

• Low-voltage processors draw less energy and produce less waste heat than higher-voltage processors, thus helping to reduce data center energy costs. On a per-core basis, the standard 80W 4-core processors are extremely economical, consuming only 20W per core. For even greater energy savings, some low-voltage 4- and 6-core Xeon processors consume only 10W per core.

• dx360 M3 servers using 1333MHz E56xx, L56xx and X56xx processors support 2 DIMMs per channel (2DPC) at 1333MHz (when using memory running at 1.5V).

• Up to two NVIDIA GPUs offer supercomputer-level graphics processing at x86 prices.

• Up to 192GB of registered DDR3 ECC memory operates at 800MHz to 1333MHz (depending on the system configuration), for high performance and wide memory bandwidth.

• Depending upon the configuration, up to three high-speed PCIe adapter slots per chassis offer potential investment protection by supporting high-performance adapters, such as 10Gb Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand and GPU cards.

• The integrated ServeRAID-BR10il v2 controller (model-specific) provides RAID-0/1/1E and full-duplex (bidirectional 3Gbps) data transfers for SAS/SATA/SSD drives without consuming a valuable adapter slot. Optional ServeRAID-M5014 and M5015 controllers offer even higher performance and data security, due to 6GBps throughput, RAID-5/50 support standard, 256MB or 512MB of onboard cache (controller-specific), standard or optional battery backup, optional RAID-6/60, and optional self-encrypting drive (SED) support. The optional ServeRAID-B5015 is similar to the M5015, but optimized for SSDs, offering greater performance than RAID controllers optimized for HDDs.

• Up to twelve 3.5-inch hot-swap SAS or SATA drives or eight 2.5-inch simple-swap SAS or SATA drives offer high-performance with high availability. 2.5-inch drives consume approximately half the power of 3.5-inch drives. 2.5-inch solid-state drives use approximately 1/5 the power of 2.5-inch HDDs, with triple the reliability and higher read performance than HDDs.

• The integrated dual-port Gigabit Ethernet controller with IPMI 2.0 support provide high-speed network communications, and a dedicated 10/100 Ethernet management port is standard as well.

• A high degree of device integration, including SAS or SATA, dual Gigabit Ethernet, IMM, and video controllers, helps to lower costs and frees up valuable adapter slots.

• The design of the servers, the rack, and the Rear Door Heat eXchanger, plus the use of low-voltage processors and memory, as well as energy-efficient fans and power supplies, help significantly reduce the energy required to power and cool the data center.

Flexibility

The iDataPlex can be configured in a number of ways to best suit your needs, thanks to:

• Up to 2 Xeon 5600 or 5500 Series processors per server (up to 12 cores); up to 84 servers per iDataPlex rack (up to 1008 cores).

• A choice of processor speeds from 1.6 to 3.2GHz, 4 to 12MB of shared cache, and a choice of power draws from 40W to 95W.

• A choice of memory speeds from 800MHz to 1066MHz or 1333MHz.

• Sixteen DIMMs of registered DDR3 memory with Chipkill ECC protection provide speed, high availability, and a memory capacity of up 192GB.

• A choice of either 1.5V DIMMs, or 1.35V DIMMs that consume up to 19% less energy.

• One to three high-performance PCIe adapter slots (depending on configuration).

• A choice of 2U or 3U chassis (server-specific), each supporting two trays containing various combinations of server(s), storage, and I/O. These trays can be mixed-and-matched in several combinations, including two 1U servers, a 1U server and a 1U I/O tray, a 1U server and a 1U storage tray, or a 1U server and a 2U storage tray. 2U and 3U Storage configurations allow for both hardware RAID adapters and an available PCIe slot for high bandwidth networking options.

• Anywhere from one to twelve SAS or SATA HDDs (depending on the configuration of chassis and trays) or up to eight SSDs can be installed in a chassis. This provides from 50GB to 24TB of storage per chassis.

• A choice of power supplies, including high-efficiency 900W nonredundant, high-efficiency




550W nonredundant supply for lower power needs, and 750W dual-AC power supply.

• Two USB 2.0 front-mounted ports that are up to 40X faster5 than older USB 1.1 ports. This

provides speedy access to external flash drives, optical drives, tape drives, and other USB devices.

• An optional rail kit for standard enterprise racks, and cable routing designs for attaching storage or heavy-use networking cabling.

• Front-access cabling that can be routed either downwards for raised floor environments or upwards for installation in a portable data center container or on concrete flooring.

• A choice of direct-attach, network-attached storage (NAS), or iSCSI or Fibre Channel-attached storage that can be attached using IBM System Storage

® servers.

Manageability / Security

Powerful systems management features simplify local and remote management of the iDataPlex :

• The dx360 M3 server includes an Integrated Management Module (IMM) to monitor server availability, perform Predictive Failure Analysis, etc., and trigger IBM Systems Director alerts. The IMM performs the functions of both the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) of earlier systems and the Remote Supervisor Adapter II and is upgradeable to remote presence/cKVM.

• An optional Virtual Media Key provides additional systems management capabilities, including Web-based out-of-band control; virtual floppy and optical drive support; Windows “blue screen” error capture; LDAP and SSL support; and remote redirection of keyboard, PCI video and text, and mouse (cKVM). And it does all this without consuming a valuable adapter slot.

• Integrated industry-standard Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) next-generation BIOS. New capabilities include:

– Human readable event logs – no more beep codes

– Complete setup solution by allowing adapter configuration function to be moved into UEFI

– Complete out-of-band coverage by Advance Settings Utility to simplify remote setup

• Text Console Redirection support allows the administrator to remotely view dx360 M3 text messages over Serial or LAN.

• Integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM) provides a highly secure start-up process from power-on through hand-off to the operating system boot loader. ACPI support is provided to allow ACPI-enabled operating systems to access the security features of this module. (TCG V1.2-compliant.)

• Industry-standard AES NI support for faster, stronger encryption (in 5600 Series processors only).

• Integrated IPMI 2.0 supports alerts of anomalous environmental factors, such as voltage and thermal conditions. It also supports highly secure remote power control using data encryption.

• IBM Systems Director is included for proactive systems management and works with both the blade’s internal IMM and the chassis’ management module. It comes with a portfolio of tools, including IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager

™, Service and Support

Manager, and others. In addition, IBM Systems Director offers extended systems management tools for additional server management and increased availability. When a problem is encountered, IBM Systems Director can issue administrator alerts via e-mail, pager, and other methods.

• IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager, an IBM-exclusive, is designed to take advantage of new system power management features, by monitoring actual power usage

and providing power consumption capping features. More accurate power usage data helps with data center construction planning and the sizing of power and cooling needs, as well as allowing you to use available energy more efficiently and capping energy usage by server.

Availability and Serviceability

The iDataPlex provides the right features to simplify serviceability and maintain system uptime:

• A dual AC cord power supply as an optional chassis component for virtualized and storage intense applications, non-grid workloads, smaller clusters or performing line feed maintenance.

• dx360 M3 servers offer Chipkill ECC memory protection (when using x4 DIMMs). Chipkill memory is up to 16X better than standard ECC memory at correcting memory errors. This

5 Data transfer rates may be less than the maximum possible.




can help reduce downtime caused by memory errors.

• The dx360 M3 offers memory mirroring for redundancy in the event of a non-correctable memory failure

• Solid-state drives offer up to triple the availability (MTBF rates) of conventional SAS HDDs. This can lessen the need for redundant drives.

• All components can be removed from the front of the rack by sliding out the trays or the chassis, for easy, quick servicing.

• Optional RAID arrays enable the server to keep operating in the event of a failure to any one drive.

• IBM Thermal Diagnostics allows the administrator to evaluate thermal data on the server without taking the hardware offline. This can provide greater server uptime.

• IPMI 2.0 supports highly secure remote system power control using data encryption. This allows an administrator to restart a server without having to visit it in person, saving travel time and getting the server back up and running quickly and securely. It also adds new features to those provided by IPMI 1.5, including VLAN support, Serial over LAN, enhanced authentication and encryption algorithms (RMCP+ and AES) and a firmware firewall.

• Large, temperature-controlled fans adjust to compensate for changing thermal characteristics. At the lower speeds they draw less power and suffer less wear. Equally important in a crowded data center, temperature-controlled fans produce less ambient noise in the data center than if they were constantly running at full speed.

• The three-year (parts and labor) limited onsite warranty6 helps afford you peace of mind

and greater investment protection than a one-year warranty does.

Is iDataPlex the Right Choice?

IBM delivers variety of product innovations that meet specific customer needs. The right product choice depends on the customer’s business requirements, target applications, and operating environment. iDataPlex focuses on price/performance per watt; fast, large scale-out deployments; compute density; customization; targeted workloads; and a data center model for easily replaceable resources. The iDataPlex hardware platform is positioned for cost-conscious large enterprise businesses that rely on a recovery-oriented architecture, which enables redundancy through the software layer instead of redundant hardware.

The iDataPlex architecture is the right choice if you answer Yes to any or all of the following questions:

1. Do you require a scalable infrastructure to meet changing application demands and workloads?

2. Are you planning to build a new data center to support HPC, Web or Cloud applications, or planning to enhance the existing data center environment with additional computing power using industry-standard x86 processor-based servers?

3. Do you need to reduce operating costs and to improve the energy efficiency of your data center?

4. Are you spending too much money on cooling your current IT infrastructure?

IBM’s BladeCenter and iDataPlex product platforms each offer advantages over the other. The following table helps in comparing the two alternatives:

Attribute iDataPlex Advan-tage

BladeCenter

Rack density 168 processors in 42U rack footprint (2 tiles)

= = 168 processors in 42U rack footprint (BladeCenter E)

Energy efficiency

High-efficiency power supplies (92%+); leadership SpecPower; 1.35V DIMM support

= = High-efficiency power supplies (94%+); 1.35V DIMM support

Power circuit feed requirements per rack

42 x 900 watt power supplies = 37kW or 182A at 208V maximum

�

24 x 2000 watt power supplies = 48kW or 230A at 208V maximum (BladeCenter E)

6 For terms and conditions or copies of the IBM Statement of Limited Warranty, call 800-772-2227 in the U.S. In Canada call 800-426-2255. Telephone support may be subject to additional charges. For warranties including onsite labor, a technician is sent after IBM attempts to resolve the problem remotely. International warranty service is available in any country in which this product is sold.




Fault tolerance

Fault tolerance should be built into software, optional dual AC cord power supply

�

Redundant power, cooling, midplanes, switches etc. Designed for no single point of failure (all chassis)

Memory performance 192GB DDR3 memory capacity; 1333MHz throughput

�

288GB, or 320GB DDR3 memory capacity in HS22V and HX5 servers; 1333MHz throughput

Processor performance

95W Xeon processors � High-end 130W Xeon processors; POWER6/ POWER7 processors

Processor choices Intel-only � Intel, AMD, IBM POWER, IBM PowerXCell™, Cell Broadband Engine™

Direct-attach storage 12 3.5-inch HDDs per 3U iDataPlex chassis

� 12 3.5-inch HDDs per 7U BladeCenter S chassis

Graphics

Up to 2 supercomputer-level graphics processing units (GPUs) per 2U chassis

= =

Up to 2 supercomputer-level GPUs per BPE4 blade (1U equivalent for server plus BPE4 blade inside BC E chassis)

Integration

Up to 2 servers per chassis in a rack of up to 42 2U chassis (84 servers); individually cabled externally; external switches

�

14 servers per BladeCenter E chassis in a rack of 6 7U chassis (84 servers); connections built into midplane, eliminating most cabling; internal switches

Management

Limited software or optional hardware management for up to 84 individual servers per rack; remote management of up to 252 servers

�

Extensive hardware-level management via the Advanced Management Module for all servers in each chassis; manage up to 256 chassis and 3,584 blades with BOFM

Cost

Lower cost due to the use of industry-standard parts, elimination of many fault tolerant components and a direct sales model and direct port-attached networking

�

Higher cost due to custom server blade components, inclusion of fault tolerant components and flexible sales model and additional networking layer

Key Features 2U Compute configurations �� 2U I/O Server configuration ��

2U GPU Server configuration ��

Chassis

The iDataPlex Rack and Rear Door Heat eXchanger are only part of the solution. The modular design of the iDataPlex system components makes it possible for you to order customized server solutions that meet the specific needs of your current environment. Yet the ability to reuse of off-the-shelf parts means we can keep the cost of the solution quite low.

The iDataPlex architecture promotes flexibility through the use of multiple chassis offering multiple configurations of servers, I/O, and storage, using IBM Flex Node technology.

• The iDataPlex dx360 M3 server tray provides up to two 4- or 6-core Intel Xeon processors, 192GB of memory operating at 800MHz to 1333MHz (processor-specific) in 16 DIMM slots, one x16 PCIe Gen 2 adapter slot, one dual Gigabit Ethernet controller, and an Integrated Management Module (IMM), for systems management.

• The iDataPlex 2U Flex Chassis can hold a) two 1U iDataPlex server trays or b) one server tray and either one 1U I/O tray or one 1U storage tray:

– For maximum computing density, customers can populate each chassis with two server trays. Each server in this configuration can connect to one internal 3.5-inch simple-swap SATA HDDs (two per chassis), or one 3.5-inch simple-swap SAS HDD (two per chassis), or two internal 2.5-inch simple-swap SATA HDDs or SSDs (four per chassis). A two-server configuration offers one PCIe x16 slot per server (two per




2U Storage configurations ��

3U Storage configuration

��

chassis) standard. These configurations offer similar compute density to blade servers (84 servers per iDataPlex rack).

– For more I/O capacity, customers can attach one I/O tray supporting either one additional 3.5-inch (two per chassis) simple-swap SATA or SAS HDD or up to two additional 2.5-inch (four per chassis) simple-swap SAS/SATA HDDs or SSDs, to one server tray. Either configuration offers two x16 and one x8 PCIe Gen 2 slots per chassis.

� For supercomputing-level graphics processing, up to up to two NVIDIA GPUs may be installed in the PCIe slots.

– For more storage capacity, customers can attach one server tray and one storage

tray per chassis, containing up to four additional 3.5-inch drive bays, which support up to four 3.5-inch simple-swap SAS, four or five 3.5-inch simple-swap SATA drives (depending on configuration), or eight 2.5-inch simple-swap SAS/SATA HDDs or SSDs. All HDD configurations offer an internal slot for RAID, plus one extra x16 PCIe Gen 2 slot per chassis.

• The iDataPlex 3U Chassis offers a storage-rich server. It can accommodate up to 12 3.5-inch hot-swap SAS or SATA (24TB) internal HDDs in addition to one dx360 M3 server. (Note: SAS and SATA drives cannot be mixed within a chassis.) This configuration offers maximum storage density, at up to 672TB per iDataPlex rack or 336TB per standard 42U enterprise rack, and outstanding dollars-per-GB pricing.

Racks are orderable and deliverable with any combination of configured chassis in the rack, up to a total of 84U in an iDataPlex rack (42 x 2U chassis, 28 x 3U chassis, or a mixture of the two). This provides maximum flexibility for data center solutions to incorporate various configurations in a rack.

High-Performance / High-Efficiency Xeon 5600 / 5500 Processors

The dx360 M3 supports up to two high-performance Intel Xeon 5600 Series or 5500 Series processors. The dx360 M3 offers a choice of processor clock rates, memory access speeds and energy draw, including:

5600 Series

• 95W 6-core Xeon 5600 series models X5675, X5670, X5660 or X5650 running at 3.06, 2.93, 2.8 or 2.66GHz, respectively, with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 15.83W per core; 6.4Gtbps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 95W 4-core Xeon 5600 series models X5672 or X5667 running at 3.2 or 3.06GHz (respectively), with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 23.75W per core; 6.4Gtbps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 80W 6-core Xeon 5600 series models E5649 or E5645 running at 2.53 or 2.4GHz, respectively, with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 13.33W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 60W 6-core Xeon 5600 series low-voltage model L5640 running at 2.26GHz, respectively, with low power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 10W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), and 12MB of shared L3 cache, 1333MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and

Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5600 series models E5640, E5630, or E5620 running at 2.66, 2.53, or 2.4GHz, respectively, with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 5.86Gtps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1066MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 40W 4-core Xeon 5600 series low-voltage model L5630 running at 2.13GHz, with extremely low power draw and amazing performance/watt (only 10W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, 1066MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 40W 4-core Xeon 5600 series low-voltage model L5609 running at 1.86GHz, with extremely low power draw and amazing performance/watt (only 10W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 12MB of L3 processor cache, and 1066MHz memory access

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5600 series models E5607 or E5606 running at 2.26 or 2.13GHz, respectively, with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 8MB of L3 processor cache, and 1066MHz memory access

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5600 series model E5603 running at 1.6GHz with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 4MB of L3 processor cache, and 1066MHz memory access




5500 Series

• 95W 4-core Xeon 5500 series models X5570, X5560, or X5550 running at 2.93, 2.86, or 2.66GHz (respectively), with impressive performance/watt (23.75W per core; 6.4GTps QPI speed), and 8MB of L3 cache

• 60W 4-core Xeon 5500 series low-voltage models L5520, or L5530 at 2.26 or 2.4GHz (respectively), with low power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 15W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), and 8MB of L3 cache

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5500 series models E5520, E5530, or E5540 at 2.26, 2.4, or 2.53GHz (respectively), with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 20W per core; 5.86GTps QPI speed), and 8MB of L3 cache

• 60W 4-core Xeon 5500 series low-voltage model L5506 running at 2.13GHz, with low power draw and impressive performance/watt (only 15W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 4MB of L3 processor cache, 800MHz memory access, 2 threads per core, and Intel Turbo Boost technology

• 80W 4-core Xeon 5500 series models E5506 or E5504 running at 2.13 or 2.0GHz, respectively, with reduced power draw and impressive performance/watt (20W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), 4MB of L3 processor cache, and 800MHz memory access

• 80W 2-core Xeon 5500 series model E5502 at 1.86GHz (40W per core; 4.8GTps QPI speed), and 4MB of L3 cache

Note: Because of the integrated memory controllers the former front-side bus (FSB) no longer exists.

With the Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series processors, Intel has diverged from its traditional Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) architecture to a Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture. The processors are connected through serial coherency links called QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). QPI is capable of 6.4, 5.6 or 4.8 GT/s (gigatransfers per second), depending on the processor model.

2-core Xeon processors contain two complete processor cores; 6-core processors, similarly,

contain six cores. Each 5600 Series processor contains one 256KB L2 cache per core and one 12MB L3 cache shared by all the cores. The shared cache is dynamically allocated between the cores as needed. The multiple cores appear to software as multiple physical processors. The 2-core processors offer considerably higher performance than a same-speed Xeon processor with a single core. Likewise, 4- and 6- core processors offer considerably higher performance than a same-speed Xeon processor with 2 cores.

Turbo Boost Technology increases performance by translating the temperature, power and current head room into higher frequency. It will dynamically increase by 133MHz for short and regular intervals until the upper limit is met or the maximum possible upside for the number of active cores is reached. The maximum frequency is dependent on the number of active cores. The amount of time the processor spends in the Turbo Boost Technology state depends on the workload and operating environment, providing the performance you need, when and where you need it. For example, a 2.93GHz 6-core X5670 processor with 4-6 cores active can run the cores at 3.06GHz. With only one or two cores active, the same processor can run those cores at 3.2GHz. Similarly, a 3.06GHz 4-core X5667 processor can run at 3.2GHz or even 3.33GHz. When the inactive cores are needed again, they are dynamically turned back on and the processor frequency is adjusted accordingly.

In processors implementing Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, each core has two threads capable of running an independent process. Thus, a 6-core processor can run 12 threads concurrently.

Intelligent Power Capability powers individual processor elements on and off as needed, to reduce power draw.

Execute Disable Bit functionality can help prevent certain classes of malicious buffer overflow attacks when combined with a supporting operating system.

Intel’s Virtualization Technology (VT) integrates hardware-level virtualization hooks that allow operating system vendors to better utilize the hardware for virtualization workloads.

DDR3 Registered Memory with Chipkill ECC Protection

The dx360 M3 uses registered double data rate III (DDR3) LP (low-profile) DIMMs and provides Active Memory features, including advanced Chipkill memory protection, for up to 16X better error correction than standard ECC memory. In addition to offering triple the memory bandwidth of DDR2 or fully-buffered memory, DDR3 memory also uses less energy. DDR2 memory already offered up to 37% lower energy use than fully buffered memory. Now, a generation later, DDR3 memory is even more efficient, using 10-15% less energy than DDR2 memory.




The dx360 M3 also supports either standard 1.5V DIMMs or 1.35V DIMMs that consume 10% less energy. Redesign in the architecture of the Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series processors bring radical changes in the way memory works in these servers. For example, the Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series processors integrate the memory controller inside the processor, resulting in two memory controllers in a 2-socket system. Each memory controller has three memory channels. Depending on the type of memory, population of memory, and processor model, the memory may be clocked at 1333MHz, 1066MHz or 800MHz.

If only one processor is installed, only the first eight DIMM slots can be used. Adding a second processor not only doubles the amount of memory available for use, but also doubles the number of memory controllers, thus doubling the system memory bandwidth. If you add a second processor, but no additional memory for the second processor, the second processor has to access the memory from the first processor “remotely,” resulting in longer latencies and lower performance. The latency to access remote memory is almost 75% higher than local memory access. So, the goal should be to always populate both processors with memory.

It is important to populate all three memory channels in each processor. The relative memory bandwidth decreases as the number of channels populated decreases. This is because the bandwidth of all the memory channels is utilized to support the capability of the processor. So, as the channels are decreased, the burden to support the requisite bandwidth is increased on the remaining channels, causing them to become a bottleneck.

If 1.35V and 1.5V DIMMs are mixed, all DIMMS will run at 1.5V. If Chipkill and non-Chipkill

DIMMS are used, all memory will run in non-Chipkill mode.

The 1333MHz E56xx, L5640, and X56xx processor models support up to 1333MHz memory clock speed, and 2 DIMMs per channel (2DPC) at 1333MHz with single-rank and dual-rank 1.35V or 1.5V RDIMMs running at 1.5V. Other 5600 series processors access memory at 1066MHz. The E550x and L5506 models support 800MHz clock speed.

Running memory at 1333MHz (where supported) versus 1066MHz offers up to 9% better performance, while memory running at 1066MHz produces up to 28% better performance than memory running at 800MHz. Xeon 5500/5600 Series processors access memory with almost 50% lower latency than the previous generation 5400 Series processors. That can result in faster processing of latency-sensitive workloads.

Regardless of memory speed, the Xeon 5500/5600 platform represents a significant improvement in memory bandwidth over the previous Xeon 5400 platform. At 1333MHz, the improvement is almost 500% over the previous generation. This huge improvement is mainly due to the dual integrated memory controllers and faster DDR3 1333MHz memory. Throughput at 800MHz is 25 gigabytes per second (GBps); at 1066MHz it’s 32GBps; and at 1333MHz it’s 35GBps. This improvement translates into improved application performance and scalability.

Memory interleaving refers to how physical memory is interleaved across the physical DIMMs. A balanced system provides the best interleaving. A Xeon 5500/5600 Series processor-based system is balanced when all memory channels on a socket have the same amount of memory.

The 5500 and 5600 Series processors support single-, dual-, and quad-rank memory. A memory rank is simply a segment of memory that is addressed by a specific address bit.

A typical memory DIMM description is 4GB 2Rx4 DIMM:

• The 2R designator is the rank count for this particular DIMM (2R = dual-rank)

• The x4 designator is the data width of the rank

Ch1 Ch1 Ch0

Xeon 5600 / 5500 Processor 0

Memory Controller

1

2

Ch2

7

8

4

5

Xeon 5600 / 5500 Processor 1

Ch2

15

16

QPI Memory Controller

3 6

Ch0

9

10

12

13

11 14




It is important to ensure that DIMMs with the appropriate number of ranks are populated in each channel for optimal performance. Whenever possible, use dual-rank DIMMs in the system. Dual-rank DIMMs offer better interleaving and hence better performance than single-rank DIMMs. For instance, a system populated with six 2GB dual-rank DIMMs outperforms a system populated with six 2GB single-rank DIMMs by 7% for SPECjbb2005.

Another important guideline is to populate equivalent ranks per channel. For instance, mixing one single-rank DIMM and one dual-rank DIMM in a channel should be avoided.

In addition to Chipkill error correction, the dx360 M3 offers an additional level of IBM Active Memory protection: memory mirroring.

Memory mirroring works much like disk mirroring. The total memory is divided into three channels: a primary channel, a backup channel, and an unused channel. Data is written concurrently to both the primary and backup channels. If a DIMM fails in one of the DIMMs in

the primary channel, it is instantly disabled and the mirrored memory in the backup channel becomes active (primary) until the failing DIMM is replaced. One-third of total memory is available for use at any one time with mirroring enabled. (Note: Due to the double writes to memory, performance is affected.) Because the third channel is disabled with mirroring active, there is no point in populating it with memory.

Mirroring is handled at the hardware level; no operating system support is required.

DDR3 memory is currently available in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB RDIMMs. DIMMs are installed individually (not in pairs). However, for performance reasons, in a 2-processor system, it’s best to install a DIMM per processor.

Maximum memory capacity and speed in 2-processor configurations include:

Memory Frequency

DIMMs per Channel

Max. Memory Capacity

5600 Series 5500 Series

1333MHz (1.35V)

1 (6 DIMMs)

96GB X5650, L5640,

E5650 and above X5550 and above

1333MHz (1.5V)

2 (12 DIMMs)

192GB X5650, L5640,

E5650 and above X5550 and above

(via CTO)

1066MHz 2

(12 DIMMs) 192GB

E5620, L5609 and above

E5520 and above

800MHz 3

(16 DIMMs) 192GB All

E5503 - E5507 and above

800MHz-1333MHz

(Mirroring)

3 (12 DIMMs)

192GB total (96GB

available) All All

High-Performance Adapter Slots

The dx360 M3 configurations offer up to three PCIe (PCI Express) Gen 2 adapter slots—one in the server, and two in the I/O tray. PCI Express Gen 2 is the next-generation of high-performance, low-latency, serial I/O bus.

The dx360 M3 includes a physical/electrical x16 Gen 2 slot (up to16GBps7), which supports x1,

x4, x8, or x16 Gen 1 or Gen 2 cards at their native speeds. The I/O tray replaces the base slot with a 3-slot riser. This riser provides two physical/electrical x16 Gen 2 slots and one physical/electrical x8 Gen 2 slot (up to 8GBps). Together, these slots can support three high-

throughput adapters, such as two GPUs and one InfiniBand card, or three High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapters.

The slot in the server is full-height/half-length, and the slots in the I/O tray are full-height/full-length.

Because the SAS/SATA, dual Gigabit Ethernet, IMM and video controllers are integrated onto the system board, the adapter slots are all available, which offers you a wide degree of latitude in expansion options.

Video Controllers

A Maxim VCS452 (Matrox G200eV core) controller contained on the IMM provides up to 1280x1024 resolution, with a color depth of 32 bits at 75Hz refresh rate.

The optional NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 controller uses 1GB of onboard GDDR3 memory to provide digital 2560 x1600 resolution, with a color depth of 32 bits at 60Hz refresh rate, or

7 Actual throughput achieved depends largely on the adapters used, and may be less than the maximum.




analog 2048 x1536 resolution, with a color depth of 32 bits at 85Hz refresh rate, and a maximum bandwidth of 51.2 GBps. The FX 3800 includes 3 digital outputs (up to 2 active at a time) and 1 analog output. It requires a PCIe slot and consumes up to 108W of power. Up to two are supported in the I/O tray.

For more graphics-intensive workloads, up to two NVIDIA Tesla GPUs are supported.

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)

For those customers with heavy graphics processing needs, the dx360 M3 supports up to two NVIDIA Tesla M1060 Processors or two M2050, M2070, or M2070Q Computing Modules per I/O Tray in a 2U iDataPlex chassis. Each adapter requires one PCIe slot.

• The M1060 generates up to 78 gigaflops of double-precision floating-point performance (933 gigaflops single-precision) and includes 4GB of 800MHz GDDR3 memory (102 GBps bandwidth). The memory capacity allows large data sets to be held in memory to reduce data transfers and maximize performance. Each M1060 GPU can deliver greater than 8X the double-precision horsepower of a quad-core x86 CPU. The M1060 GPU consumes up to 190W of power.

• The M2050, M2070, and M2070Q generate up to 515 gigaflops double-precision (1,030 gigaflops single-precision) and include 3GB (M2050) or 6GB (M2070, M2070Q) of 1.55GHz GDDR5 ECC memory (148 GBps bandwidth). Each M20xx GPU can deliver greater than 10X the double-precision horsepower of a quad-core x86 CPU. The M20xx GPUs consume up to 225W of power. (The M2070Q is the same hardware as the M2070; only the software stack is different, designed for professional graphics visualization.)

Two M1060 or M20xx GPUs can work together on a common workload for double the performance.

Disk Controllers

All iDataPlex models include an integrated six-port Serial ATA II (SATA II) controller. This controller supports up to five (depending on the configuration) internal simple-swap (SS) SATA II drives, or 4 SS SSDs. Hot-swap SAS or SATA HDDs, or simple-swap SAS HDDs, require an optional adapter.

The 3Gbps8 (x4 PCIe) ServeRAID-BR10il v2 controller offers hardware RAID-0/1/1E support

(no cache) for up to 4 HDDs or SSDs.

The 6Gbps (x8 PCIe) ServeRAID-M1015 SAS/SATA controller supports RAID-0/1/10 (no cache) for up to 16 drives (limited by available bays). The IBM ServeRAID M1000 Series Advance Feature Key adds RAID-5 with SED support.

The 6Gbps (x8 PCIe) ServeRAID-M5014 SAS/SATA controller offers enhanced performance with 256MB of cache memory, and supports RAID-0/1/10/5/50 for up to 16 drives (limited by available bays).

The 6Gbps (x8 PCIe) ServeRAID-M5015 SAS/SATA controller offers enhanced performance with 512MB of cache memory and battery backup, and supports RAID-0/1/10/5/50 for up to 16 drives (limited by available bays).

The 6Gbps (x8 PCIe) ServeRAID-B5015 SAS/SATA controller provides enhanced SSD performance with SSD-optimized microcode, offering the highest IOPS performance for SSDs in a RAID controller. It supports RAID-0/1/5 for up to 8 drives (limited by available bays). Because of the throughput of the SDS storage, no cache is needed for top performance.

The IBM ServeRAID M5000 Series Advance Feature Key adds RAID-6/60 with SED support to the M5014 and M5015. The IBM ServeRAID M5000 Series Battery Key adds battery backup support to the M5014.

The ServeRAID controllers provide SAS data transfer speeds of up to 3Gb per second in each

direction (full-duplex), for an aggregate speed of 6Gbps. The serial design of the SAS bus allows maximum performance to be maintained as additional drives are added. Both controllers support either SAS or SATA, hot-swap or simple-swap, 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives. However these drives cannot be intermixed. All drives must be the same type, the same physical size, and use the same interface.

SATA II drives also operate at a data transfer speed of up to 300MB per second (but in half-duplex mode). This throughput is similar to that of Ultra320 SCSI, with lower latency.

Flexible Internal Storage

The iDataPlex nodes offer a wide array of storage options, supporting between 1 and 12 (3.5-inch) or between 2 and 8 (2.5-inch) hard disk drives, or up to 8 2.5-inch solid-state drives (SSDs), depending on the chassis used and the configuration. The drives can be high-

8 Data transfer rates depend on many factors and are often less than the maximum possible.




performance Serial-Attach SCSI (SAS) drives, high-capacity enterprise-class Serial ATA (SATA) drives, or high-reliability, high-IOPS SATA-interface SSDs. The 3.5-inch SAS/SATA HDDs are offered in both hot-swap and simple-swap formats. The 2.5-inch SAS/SATA HDDs and SSDs are available in simple-swap format only. Drive options include:

3.5-inch HS SAS

• 15K RPMs — 146.8, 300, 450, or 600GB (7.2TB maximum capacity, using 3U chassis)

• 7.2K RPMs — 1 or 2TB (24TB max., using 3U chassis)

3.5-inch SS SAS

• 15K RPMs — 146.8, 300, 450, or 600GB (2.4TB max., using 2U chassis)

• 7.2K RPMs — 1 or 2TB (8TB max., using 2U chassis)

3.5-inch HS SATA

• 7.2K RPMs — 250, 500, or 750GB, 1 or 2TB (24TB maximum capacity, using 3U chassis)

3.5-inch SS SATA

• 7.2K RPMs — 250, 500, or 750GB, 1 or 2TB (10TB maximum capacity, using 2U chassis)

2.5-inch SS SAS

• 15K RPMs —146.8GB (1.174TB max., using 2U chassis with 1U Storage tray)

• 10K RPMs —300, 600GB (4.8TB max., using 2U chassis with 1U Storage tray)

2.5-inch SS SATA

• 10K RPMs — 300, 500GB (4TB max., using 2U chassis with 1U Storage tray)

• 7.2K RPMs — 160, 500GB (4TB max., using 2U chassis with 1U Storage tray)

2.5-inch SS SSD

• SATA interface — 50GB capacity (400GB max., using 2U chassis with 1U Storage tray)

High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapter

• x8 PCIe slot — 160 or 320GB capacity (960GB, using the 2U chassis and 1U I/O tray)

Maximum capacity of each type of drive depends on the configuration of server and chassis. Supported configurations include:

2U Chassis with 2 1U Server trays

• 2 3.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (1 per server)—using the onboard controller

• 2 3.5-inch SS SAS HDDs (1 per server)—requires ServeRAID-BR10il v2 or M1015

• 4 2.5-inch SS SAS HDDs (2 per server)—requires ServeRAID-BR10il v2 or M1015

• 4 2.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (2 per server)—using the onboard controller or ServeRAID-BR10il v2

• 4 2.5-inch SS SATA SSDs (2 per server)—using the onboard controller, ServeRAID-BR10il v2, B5015, or IBM 6GB SSD HBA Card

2U Chassis with 1 Server and one 1U Storage tray

• 5 3.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (1 per server, 4 per tray)—5 using the onboard controller or ServeRAID-BR10il v2

• 4 3.5-inch SS SAS HDDs (0 per server, 4 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-BR10il v2, M1015 M5014, or M5015

• 4 3.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (4 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-BR10il v2, M1015, M5014, or M5015

• 8 2.5-inch SS SAS HDDs (0 per server, 8 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015, M5014, or M5015

• 8 2.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (0 per server, 8 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015, M5014, or M5015

• 8 2.5-inch SS SATA SSDs (0 per server, 8 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015, M5014, M5015, B5015, or IBM 6GB SSD HBA Card

2U Chassis with 1 Server and one 1U I/O tray

• 2 3.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (1 per server, 1 per tray)—using the onboard controller or ServeRAID-BR10il v2

• 2 3.5-inch SS SAS HDDs (1 per server, 1 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-BR10il v2, or M1015

• 4 2.5-inch SS SATA HDDs (2 per server, 2 per tray)—using the onboard controller, or ServeRAID-BR10il v2 or M1015

• 4 2.5-inch SS SAS HDDs (2 per server, 2 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015




• 4 2.5-inch SS SSDs (2 per server, 2 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015, M5014, M5015, B5015, or IBM 6GB SSD HBA Card

3U Chassis with 1 Server and one 2U Storage tray

• 12 3.5-inch HS SATA HDDs (0 per server, 12 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015, M5014, or M5015

• 12 3.5-inch HS SAS HDDs (0 per server, 12 per tray)—requires ServeRAID-M1015, M5014, or M5015

Notes: Enterprise-class 500GB or higher SATA drives offer increased reliability compared to lower-capacity SATA drives. Simple-swap drives are not hot-swappable (the system must first

be powered off); however, no tools or jumpers are required for installation and removal, allowing for faster, simpler servicing than fixed drives. If you need more storage space, terabyte capacities are possible with external direct-attach, NAS and SAN solutions.

Due to the statistically higher failure rates for traditional spinning media, IBM recommends the use of the solid-state drives (SSDs) as an alternative. They store data on flash memory chips, rather than on magnetic media. Like HDDs, SSDs can be used as boot media and for random access storage. However, SSDs offer higher thresholds of shock and vibration, and a higher operating temperature range (between 0 and 70 degrees C). This yields a failure rate only 1/3 that of HDDs (approximately 3,000,000 hours MTBF vs. 1,000,000 hours). In addition, the 50GB 2.5” Solid State Drive uses as little as 2W of power per drive vs. as much as 7-10W for a 2.5-inch HDD. This reduces the storage power requirement and heat output by as much as 80%, compared to 2.5-inch HDDs. If used as a boot device, no special device drivers are required.

Hot-Swap/Redundant Components

System availability is maximized through the use of hot-swap and redundant components, including:

• Dual 750W AC power supplies that are bussed together inside the power supply container, providing 900W total in redundant mode, with two discrete line feeds to split power to separate PDUs

• Redundant memory protection (with Chipkill ECC correction)

• Hot-swap, redundant 3.5-inch SAS and SATA hard disk drives (with optional RAID-0/1/10/5/50/6/60), depending on configuration

Gigabit Ethernet Controller

The iDataPlex dx360 M3 server includes one integrated dual-port Intel 82575 Gigabit Ethernet controller. This controller enables up to 10X higher maximum throughput than a 10/100 Ethernet controller

The controllers also support highly secure remote power management using IPMI 2.0, plus Wake on LAN

® and PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) flash interface. Optional PCIe

adapters offering failover and load balancing between adapters are available for added throughput and increased system availability.

Ultra-Efficient Cooling

Large, strategically located fans, combined with efficient airflow paths, short distance front to back, and the optional rack-mounted Rear Door Heat eXchanger for iDataPlex, provide highly effective system cooling for the iDataPlex rack and the entire data center. The 2U and 3U chassis include four fans in a replaceable fan pack. The extra-large 80mm fans are high-efficiency/low-energy-draw devices, to help improve airflow and reduce energy costs. In fact, the fans in a 2U chassis containing two server trays draw approximately 1/6 the energy of the fans in two typical 1U servers. To put it another way, the fans draw approximately 2% of the total power of an iDataPlex server, vs. the 10-20% power usage of typical 1U server fans. The larger fans are also quieter than typical 40mm fans.

The fans automatically adjust speeds in response to changing thermal requirements, depending on the internal temperature. When the temperature inside the server increases, the fans speed up to maintain the proper temperature. When the temperature returns to a normal operating level, the fans return to their default speed. Why not simply run the fans at 100% capacity all the time? For several good reasons: to reduce the ambient noise, reduce the wear-and-tear on the fans and reduce the server power draw. The reduction in ambient noise and power draw may be relatively minor for a single server, but put hundreds in a data center and it can make a big difference.

The IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger for iDataPlex is a closed-system water-cooled door mounted on the rear of the iDataPlex rack to cool the air exiting the devices inside the rack. A supply hose delivers chilled water to the Rear Door Heat eXchanger. Another hose returns the warmed water to a Coolant Distribution Unit (CRU).




For customers able to cool their data centers with water, the Rear Door Heat eXchanger can withdraw 100% of the heat coming off a rack of servers (at least 100,000 BTUs/30kW) to alleviate the cooling challenge that many data centers experience. By selecting the correct water inlet temperature and water flow rate, you can achieve the optimal heat removal. In fact, depending on the amount of heat generated within the rack and the temperature of the water, it may even be possible to remove more heat from the data center than that generated by the rack, lowering the overall data center ambient temperature. With enough iDataPlex racks (and Rear Door Heat eXchangers), a data center might be able to eliminate the air conditioning requirement altogether (except for minimal conditioning for humidity control).

This cooling scheme is important because newer, more powerful processors generate a significant amount of heat, and both server and data center heat must be controlled for the system to function properly.

Energy-Smart Features

IBM servers work hard to keep your energy bills low—from high-efficiency power supplies and fans to lower-draw processors, memory, and solid-state drives. Technologies such as these, along with the Xeon 5500/5600 Series processors that intelligently adjust their voltage and frequency, help take costs out of IT:

• 40W 4-core processors use 50% less energy than 80W processors.

• 60W 6-core processors use 37% less energy than 95W processors.

• 1.5V DDR3 DIMMs consume 10-15% less energy than 1.8V DDR2 DIMMs used in older servers.

• 1.35V DDR3 DIMMs consume up to 19% less energy than 1.5V DDR3 DIMMs.

• Solid-State Drives consume up to 80% less energy than 2.5-inch HDDs and up to 88% less than 3.5-inch HDDs.

• Operating at as much as 92% efficiency, high efficiency power supplies use less energy than competitive power supplies that average only 70-80% efficiency, and produce less waste heat that needs to be cooled.

• Dynamic fan speeds — In the event of a fan failure, the other fans will run faster to compensate until the failing fan is replaced. Competitive fans must run faster at all times, just in case, wasting power.

Other Features

• USB 2.0 ports — Provides flexibility to add high-speed external devices. The USB 2.0 specification supports up to 480Mbps transfer rates. (Note: Not all USB 2.0 devices are capable of achieving this rate.) Two ports are provided on the front of each dx360 M3 server.

• Toolless chassis — The cover can be opened without tools, and many components can be removed and replaced without tools, including the server, I/O, and storage trays, hot-swap and simple-swap HDDs, power supply, and PCIe adapters. This can save a servicer significant time.

Rack Cable Management

The snarl of cabling behind most racks is at best inconvenient to work around and at worst an expensive logistical nightmare that requires the rewiring of servers, PDUs, KVM switches, and other equipment whenever a rack server is added or removed. Even worse, the veil of cables blocks rack airflow and can actually contribute to equipment failure due to overheating.

The design of the iDataPlex Rack provides side vertical cable management channels to simplify cabling and reduce the clutter, eliminate air blockage behind the servers, and minimize installation time when interconnecting many rack-mounted servers.

System Support Features

The IBM services and technical support portfolio provides world-class, consistent, high-quality service and support. The iDataPlex solution offers a number of tools and services designed to make ownership a positive experience. From the start, IBM programs make it easier for you to plan for and purchase iDataPlex servers, get them running and keep them running long-term. These features include IBM ServerProven

®, Product Customization Services, IBM Global

Financing, and extensive technical support offerings.

The IBM ServerProven program provides the confidence that specific options and operating systems have been tested on the server and are officially supported to work together. It is updated frequently to ensure that the latest compatibility information is always at your fingertips.

The iDataPlex offering features several hardware validation and test services, collectively referred to as Product Customization Services. These services include the integration of




hardware and software on Intel processor-based iDataPlex servers in state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. You can deploy systems in almost any IT environment. This means your IT resources can be better used elsewhere. In addition, iDataPlex manufacturing offers specific services for the iDataPlex called Cluster Systems Validation and Test to confirm that all system settings are enabled and tested to enable smooth on-site deployment. Here are just a few of the services offered for iDataPlex. For a complete list, contact your IBM representative.

• Planning Datacenter for iDataPlex, including power and cooling study

• Site Readiness Assessment

• Data Center Planning, Design and Construction Services

• Data Center Energy Efficiency Assessment

• Facilities Cabling Services—Fiber Transport System

• iDataPlex Datacenter Management Jumpstart (mgmt appliance)

• Perform testing (Stream, PingPong) to place load on the cluster

• Quarterly health check assessment, update and performance tuning subscription service

• Backup and Recovery Services

• Security Services

• Consultancy Services

• Outsourcing

IBM Global Financing has expanded current leasing and financing products and offerings to include iDataPlex. These can enable you to better manage technology acquisitions via:

• Achieving payment and term flexibility

• Accelerated project implementation

• Improved financial measurements

• Mitigated technology obsolescence

IBM Project Financing also offers tailored capital solutions to help you manage cash flow and assets, and build upfront and ongoing costs of investment into existing budget structures. Project Financing is available for investments in IBM products and services, for selected non-IBM assets, and for combined multi-vendor solutions.

IBM offers extensive technical support by phone and via the Web. Support options include links to forums/newsgroups, problem submission, online shopping support, service offerings, device drivers for all IBM product lines, software downloads and even upcoming technical seminar worldwide schedules and registration. Also available are remote installation, configuration and usage support for System x hardware and software, as well as onsite custom services to provide the level of expertise you require.

Advanced Systems Management Capabilities

The iDataPlex solution has a high level of systems management capabilities that are well-suited to remote locations as well as to stand-alone environments. Features include the Integrated Management Module (IMM), IBM ToolsCenter, Dynamic System Analysis, Automatic Server Restart, Wake on LAN

® support, PXE support, IBM Systems Director, and Systems Director

Active Energy Manager.

The Integrated Management Module (IMM) provides industry-standard Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) 2.0-compliant systems management. It provides a number of important system functions, including:

• Monitoring of system and battery voltage, system temperature, fans, power supply, processor and DIMM status

• Fan speed control

• Product ID and Family ID detection

• Highly secure remote power on/off

• System reset control

• NMI/SMI detection and generation

• System diagnostic LED control (power, HDD, activity, alerts, heartbeat)

• IPMI over LAN

• Serial Over LAN

• Proxy server support

• LAN messaging and alerting

• Text console redirection over LAN




• Predictive Failure Analysis for system fans

• Web-based out-of-band control

• SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) support

• Enhanced authentication and encryption algorithms (RMCP+ and AES)

• VLAN support

• Local update of IMM firmware

• Firmware firewall

• Support for IPMI v2.0 compliant management software (e.g., xCAT)

• Other mandatory and optional IPMI IMM functions

The IMM alerts IBM Systems Director to anomalous environmental factors, such as voltage and thermal conditions—even if the server has failed.

The dx360 M3 also supports an optional Virtual Media Key for additional systems management capabilities, including:

• Latest OS failure screen capture

• Graphical console redirection over LAN

• Remote virtual floppy and CD-ROM

• High-speed remote redirection of PCI video, keyboard and mouse

IBM ToolsCenter consolidates 42 needed tools for managing servers individually into an integrated suite of 8 tools. They are organized by function: deployment, updates, configuration and diagnostics. Tools are now simpler to access and use with a single webpage for access, a common look and feel and a common command line interface for the scripting tools. The ToolsCenter Bootable Media Creator offers significantly more functionality than past tools with the ability to add more tools to the bootable image and to automatically download the bootable environment if needed. Bootable Media Creator allows you to create bootable CDs, DVD, and USB keys for updates customized to your systems.

The IMM alerts IBM Systems Director to anomalous environmental factors, such as voltage and thermal conditions—even if the server has failed.

Dynamic System Analysis (DSA) programs collect and analyze system information to aid in diagnosing problems. The diagnostic programs collect the following information:

• System configuration

• Network interfaces and settings

• Installed hardware

• Service processor status and configuration

• Vital product data, firmware, and BIOS configuration

• Hard disk drive health

• RAID controller configuration

• Event logs for ServeRAID controllers and service processors

The diagnostic programs create a merged log that includes events from all collected logs. The information is collected into a file that you can send to IBM service and support. Additionally, you can view the information locally through a generated text report file, or you can copy the log to removable media and view the log from a Web browser.

Automatic Server Restart (ASR) helps reduce downtime by restarting the server automatically in the event of a system lockup. ASR technology is a combination of hardware circuitry tied into the server’s system reset function and a device driver. As long as the server continues running, the ASR watchdog timer will keep being reset, but if the operating system crashes or the hardware freezes somehow the ASR software will be unable to reset the hardware timer. If the timer is not reset within five minutes, it automatically triggers the ASR hardware, which immediately restarts the server (and logs an ASR event with IBM Director). These features are designed so that no more than five minutes can pass before the server is restarted.

Wake on LAN permits the server to be remotely powered on if it has been shut off. Once powered up, the server can be controlled across the network, using the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE).

IBM Systems Director software for advanced workgroup management is included with the server. IBM Systems Director comes with a portfolio of tools, including Active Energy Manager, Service and Support Manager, and other tools. System Availability (a no-charge download) and Capacity Manager (sold separately) are available as add-ons for additional server management and increased availability. IBM Systems Director provides a single uniform graphical interface for all of these systems management functions.

IBM Systems Director enables you to customize thresholds and monitor system components (for




things like temperature, voltage regulation, etc.) to help maximize uptime.

In order to put control of processor power-saving features at the fingertips of administrators, IBM developed IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager. Active Energy Manager is designed to take advantage of new processor features, such as balancing the performance of the system according to available power input. It provides the ability to plan and predict power consumption based on your hardware configuration. It also helps you reduce the infrastructure required for redundancy, by using fewer servers on smaller power feeds and potentially lowering your overall data center support costs. It does this by inventorying all components at the server level, then adding up the power draw for each server and tracking that usage. In failure mode, Active Energy Manager (through the IMM) might request that certain servers throttle down to reduce power consumption.

Key Options IBM options for iDataPlex solutions help you take your data center to a higher level You can rely on iDataPlex options to supply a complete solution for your business needs. Options help you create an optimized server system to meet your data protection, storage and availability needs. Every IBM option is designed and tested for peak performance and flexibility, helping to maximize your return on investment. The combination of iDataPlex servers, chassis, racks, and options lets you keep your fingers on the pulse of your e-business.

Processors — The Intel Xeon 5600 and 5500 Series processors provide high clock rates, 64-bit extensions, a large cache, Hyper Threading Technology, Turbo Boost Technology, energy-saving features, and advanced features for availability and manageability. Large cache size and multiple cores, combined with 800MHz, 1066MHz or 1333MHz memory access speed, reduce memory latency and facilitate the movement of data through the processor and I/O devices. (Note: System performance depends not only on the number of processors in the server but also on the power and functionality of each processor, as well as the number, capacity, and arrangement of the DIMMs.) Adding a second processor may be a cost-effective way to achieve significant performance improvements.

Memory — Memory is a significant factor in systems application performance. Adding more memory to an iDataPlex server is one of the most effective ways to increase application performance. For best performance in a server with a 6-core processor, there should be 50% more memory available than for a 4-core processor. Note: Fewer large-capacity DIMMs may provide better performance and use less energy than more lower-capacity DIMMs.

Power Supplies — The dx360 M3 comes standard with a high-efficiency nonredundant 900W power supply. For higher availability, the dx360 M3 offers a 750W dual-AC power supply. For lower energy needs, there is also a high-efficiency nonredundant 550W power supply.

Video controllers and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)s — The dx360 M3 supports up to two NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 video controllers or Tesla M2070/M2070Q, M2050 or M1060 GPUs. Each requires one PCIe slot.

Hard Disk Drives — IBM hard disk drives help you improve the transaction and cost performance of your iDataPlex servers. The choice of hard disk drives can be a critical aspect of maximizing the I/O throughput of the system. 3.5-inch hot-swap and simple-swap SAS drives are available, at speeds from 7200 to 15,000 RPMs, in capacities ranging from 146.8GB to 600GB. Hot-swap and simple-swap SATA drives are also available in 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch sizes, with 7200 to 10,000 RPMs, and capacities ranging from 160GB to 2TB.

Solid State Drives — IBM offers a 50GB simple-swap 2.5-inch solid-state drive as an alternative to internal HDDs. They can be used as a highly available boot drive or for storing disk images.

High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapters — For storage media offering up to 250 times the I/O operations per second (IOPS) and up to 7 times the bandwidth of 15,000-RPM HDDs, IBM offers the 160 GB High IOPS SS Class SSD PCIe Adapter, the 320 GB High IOPS SD Class SSD PCIe Adapter, and the 320 GB High IOPS MS Class SSD PCIe Adapter. These adapters offer near-DRAM performance, with extremely high data retention (up to 25 years) and RAID-grade data protection, with 160GB or 320GB capacities.

ServeRAID Controllers — IBM ServeRAID technology allows an array consisting of multiple physical hard disk drives to be treated as one logical drive. ServeRAID technology also allows data to be stored redundantly, across multiple hard disk drives—enhancing both the integrity and the availability of the data. SAS and SATA ServeRAID controllers offer enhanced performance due to onboard processors and cache. Because IBM ServeRAID controllers can help significantly improve data transfer rates, this technology is extremely effective when implementing demanding, transaction-oriented applications. By employing the advanced fault tolerance of IBM ServeRAID technology, companies can effectively implement networked business systems that require large amounts of storage space for data and applications that must be available for their businesses to continue operating.

The ServeRAID-BR10il v2 SAS/SATA Controller offers RAID-0/1/1E support, with up to




3Gbps per SAS port. The IBM ServeRAID-M1015, x8 PCIe and 6Gbps, offers RAID-0/1/10; optionally RAID-5 with SED support. The IBM ServeRAID-M5014, x8 PCIe and 6Gbps, provides 256MB cache and RAID-0/1/10/5/50; optionally RAID-6/60 with SED, and battery backup). The IBM ServeRAID-M5015, x8 PCIe and 6Gbps, has 512MB of battery-backed cache and RAID-0/1/10/5/50; optionally RAID-6/60 with SED. The IBM ServeRAID-B5015, x8 PCIe and 6Gbps, is optimized for SSDs, providing greater performance than HDD-optimized controllers, along with RAID-0/1/5 support.

The IBM ServeRAID M1000 Series Advance Feature Key adds RAID-5 and SED support to the ServeRAID-M1015. Similarly, the IBM ServeRAID M5000 Series Advance Feature Key adds RAID-6/60 with SED support to the M5014 and M5015. The IBM ServeRAID M5000 Series Battery Key adds battery backup support to the M5014.

External Storage — The IBM System Storage DS3300, DS3400, and DS3500 storage subsystems provide a powerful shared storage family with integrated management software designed to meet midrange and enterprise needs.

iDataPlex Rear Door Heat eXchanger — The water-cooled rack door is designed to dissipate heat generated from the back of an iDataPlex Rack to reduce the overall room temperature. The width and height of the Rear Door Heat eXchanger enable it to fit within the iDataPlex Rack, adding a mere 120 mm (4.7 in) to the depth of the rack. Yet a single door may remove 100,000 BTUs/hr of heat (approximately 30kW), or more. The door swings open to provide access to electrical components. Sealed coils, filled with chilled water, passively remove the heat generated in a fully populated rack. This cooling efficiency can help reduce the need for CRACs.

Enterprise PDUs — The new IBM DPI C13 Enterprise PDU and DPI C13 Enterprise PDU+ make it quick and simple to deploy, protect and manage your high density System x iDataPlex rack environment. They share a common space-efficient, power dense design across the line, with 12 IEC-320-C13 (10A) receptacles. With single phase 30A, 32A, and three phase 32A and 60A solutions available. IBM iDataPlex Enterprise PDU models combine receptacle density with advanced intelligent power management capabilities that seamlessly integrate with IBM Active Energy Manager.

10Gb Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) from QLogic and Brocade offer 150K IOPS throughput, hardware offload engines, and support Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).

Blade Network Technologies Ethernet switches — RackSwitch G8000 is a cost-optimized switch designed specifically for the data center. It offers 48 1Gb Ethernet ports and up to four 10Gb Ethernet ports. The RackSwitch G8100 is a high-performance, low-latency switch with twenty-four 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports (twenty 10Gb CX4 and four 10Gb SFP+ ports). Both switches offer cooling-optimized directional airflow, ideal for aggregating servers and network storage arrays.

Cisco Ethernet switches — The Cisco Catalyst 2960G-24 offers entry-level, enterprise-class, fixed configuration switching, optimized for access-layer deployments requiring intelligent services, such as fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet to the desktop configurations. It’s ideal for entry-level enterprise, mid-market, and branch office environments, and compact switches for deployments outside the wiring closet. The Cisco Catalyst 4948-10GE delivers wire-speed throughput with low latency for data-intensive applications using a 136Gbps switching fabric with a 102 million packets per second forwarding rate in hardware for Layer 2 through Layer 4 traffic. High-performance switching is delivered regardless of the number of route entries or Layer 3 and 4 services enabled. Hardware-based Cisco Express Forwarding routing architecture allows for increased scalability and performance. Includes dual redundant power supplies and a redundant fan tray.

Force 10 Ethernet switches — The S50N is a fixed configuration 1U switch that delivers the reliability and scalability that data centers demand. It offers 48 1Gb ports, with 4 10Gb optical uplinks. Scalable stacking technology supports 144 GbE ports in up to three S50N switches.

SMC Ethernet switches — The 1U TigerSwitch 10G 8708L2 Managed Layer-2 switch offers eight 10Gb ports and eight expansion slots. The 1U SMC 8848M Tigerstack II 1000 Stackable 48 Port 10/100/1000 Managed Layer 2 Switch provides high-port density and migration protection in a small footprint, offering 48 1Gb ports and 2 expansion bays for 10Gb uplinks, with a redundant power supply.

8GB Fibre Channel HBAs from Brocade, Emulex, and QLogic offer twice the performance of older 4GB FC adapters. The additional throughput enables greater virtualization by supporting more VMs than before.




iDataPlex Images

dx360 M3 Server

2U Dual dx360 M3 Compute Server Configuration

Hexagonal

Ventilation Holes

Serial Port

2 dx360 M3 Server Trays

Status LEDs

PCIe Slots

3.5” Drive Bay

USB Ports

Gb Ethernet Ports

Video

PortPower Button

Sys Mgmt Ethernet Port

Hexagonal

Ventilation Holes

Serial Port

2 dx360 M3 Server Trays

Status LEDs

PCIe Slots

3.5” Drive Bay

USB Ports

Gb Ethernet Ports

Video

PortPower Button

Sys Mgmt Ethernet Port

HDD Carrier 2.5” or 3.5” SAS, SATA,

SSD

Serial Port

VGA Port

2 GbE Ports

GbE Management Port 2 USB

Ports

x16 PCIe Riser Card

Virtual Media Key

Battery

Mini PCIe SAS Card slot

CPU 0 / Heatsink

CPU 1 /

Heatsink

8 DDR3 DIMM Slots for CPU 1

8 DDR3 DIMM Slots for CPU 2

6 SATA Ports




2U I/O Server Configuration

2U Storage Server Configurations

2U Chassis (GPU configuration)

I/O Tray PCIe Slots 3.5” SAS/SATA Drive Bays

dx360 M3 Server Tray


Storage Tray PCIe Slot 2.5” Drive Bays

Storage Tray PCIe Slot 3.5” Drive Bays

dx360 M3 Server


2.5” Drive Bays

PCIe Slots containing GPUs

PCIe Slot in Server 2U Chassis

I/O Tray




2U Chassis (Rear)

3U Storage Server Configuration

iDataPlex Server/Chassis Specifications

Machine type 6391-AC1 (Server tray)—3 yr warr. 6385-HC1 (2U Flex Chassis)—3 yr warr.

6386-HC1 (3U Chassis)—3 yr warr.

Form factor 1U (dx360 M3 server tray, I/O tray, or storage tray)

2U (2U Flex Chassis) 3U (3U Chassis)

Processor type

6-core Xeon (L56xx/X56xx)

2.26GHz (L5640), 2.4GHz (X5645) 2.53GHz (X5649) 2.66GHz (X5650), 2.86GHz (X5660), 2.93GHz (X5670), 3.06GHz (X5675)

4-core Xeon (E56xx/L56xx/

X56xx) 1.6GHz (E5603)

1.86GHz (L5609), 2.13GHz (E5606) 2.13GHz (L5630), 2.26GHz (E5607) 2.4GHz (E5620), 2.53GHz (E5630), 2.66GHz (E5640), 3.06GHz (X5667), 3.2GHz (X5672)

4-core Xeon (E55xx/L55xx/

X55xx) 2.0GHz (E5504), 2.13GHz (E5506), 2.13GHz (L5506), 2.26GHz (E5520), 2.26GHz (L5520), 2.4GHz (E5530), 2.4GHz (L5530),

2.53GHz (E5540), 2.67GHz (X5550), 2.86GHz (X5560), 2.93GHz (X5570)

2-core Xeon (E550x)

1.86GHz (E5502)

Maximum processor power draw

95W (X5550/ X5560/X5570, X5650/X5660/ X5667/X5670/ X5672/X5675)

80W (E5502/ E5504/E5506/ E5520/E5530/ E5540, E5603/ E5606/E5607/ E5620/E5630/ E5640/E5645/

E5649)

60W (L5506, L5520, L5530, L5640)

40W (L5609, L5630)

QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) speed (gigatransfers per second)

6.4GTps (X5550/X5560/X5570, X5650/X5660/X5667/ X5670/X5672/X5675)

5.86GTps (E5520/E5530/E5540,

L5520/L5530, E5620/E5630/E5640/E5645/E5649, L5609/L5630/L5640)

4.8GTps (E5502/E5504/E5506,

L5506, E5603/E5606/E5609)

# of processors standard / 1 / 2

3.5” SAS/SATA Drive Bays


3.5” SAS/SATA Drive Bays


4 Double- Height Fans DIMM Slots

Power Supply Fan/Plug 2U Chassis Hexagonal Ventilation Holes




maximum

Internal L2 cache

12MB shared cache (E5620/E5630/E5640/

E5645/E5649, L5609/L5630/L5640, X5650/ X5660/X5667/X5670/X5672/

X5675)

8MB shared cache (E5520/E5530/E5540, L5520/L5530, X5550/

X5560/X5570, E5603/E5606/E5607)

4MB shared cache (E5502/E5504/E5506/L5506)

Chipset Intel 5520

Maximum memory 256GB

Standard memory type Registered 1333MHz PC3-10600 DDR3 ECC

Maximum memory access speed

1333MHz—X5550/X5560/X5570, E5645/E5649, L5640, X5650/X5660/X5667/ X5670/X5672/X5675

1066MHz—E5520/E5530/E5540/

L5520/L5530, E5603/E5606/E5607/E5620/E5630/E5640, L5609/L5630

800MHz—E5502/E5503/E5504/E5506/

E5507, L5506

DIMM capacities supported 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB

PC3-8500 (1066MHz max)

8GB quad-rank x8 1.5V

DIMM types / capacities supported

PC3-10600 (1333MHz max)

1GB single-rank x8 1.5V 2GB single-rank x4 1.5V 2GB dual-rank x8 1.5V 4GB dual-rank x4 1.5V 8GB dual-rank x4 1.5V

PC3L-10600 (1333MHz max)

2GB single-rank x4 1.35V 2GB single-rank x8 1.35V 2GB dual-rank x8 1.35V

4GB single-rank x4 1.35V 4GB dual-rank x4 1.35V 4GB dual-rank x8 1.35V 8GB dual-rank x4 1.35V

PC3L-8500 (1066MHz max)

8GB dual-rank x4 1.35V

# of DIMM sockets total / available

16 / 16

# of 2.5” HDD drive bays total / available

1 – 8 (2U chassis), depending on configuration

# of 3.5” HDD drive bays total / available

1 – 5 (2U chassis), depending on configuration; 1 – 12 (3U chassis), depending on configuration

# of 5.25" bays total / available 0 / 0

Storage technologies supported Hot-swap 3.5-inch SAS;

Hot-swap 3.5-inch SATA

Simple-swap 3.5/2.5-inch SAS; Simple-swap 3.5/2.5-inch SATA;

Simple-swap 2.5-inch SSD PCIe adapter SSD

3.5-inch HS SAS 24TB (12 x 2TB, using 3U chassis)

3.5-inch SS SAS 4.0TB (4 x 1TB, using 2U chassis

with 1U storage tray)

2.5-inch SS SAS 4.8TB (8 x 600GB, using 2U chassis


2.5-inch SS Solid-State

400GB (8 x 50GB) simple-swap (using 2U chassis with 1U

storage tray) Maximum storage capacity (some HDDs support 3Gbps and some support 6Gbps)

3.5-inch HS SATA 24TB (12 x 2TB, using 3U chassis)

3.5-inch SS SATA 10.0TB (5 x 2TB, using 2U chassis


2.5-inch SS SATA 4.0TB (8 x 500GB, using 2U chassis


PCIe Adapter Solid-State

960GB (3 x 320GB, using 2U chassis

with I/O tray)

3.5-inch HS SAS 146.8, 300, 450, 600GB — 15K

RPMs; 1 or 2TB 7.2K RPMs

3.5-inch SS SAS 146.8, 300, 450GB — 15K RPMs; 1TB

7.2K RPMs

2.5-inch SS SAS 300, 600GB — 10K RPMs; 146.8GB —

15K RPMs

2.5-inch SS Solid-State 50GB

Storage capacities supported

3.5-inch HS SATA 250, 500, 750GB, 1

or 2TB — 7.2K RPMs

3.5-inch SS SATA 250, 500GB, 1 or

2TB — 7.2K RPMs

2.5-inch SS SATA 300GB — 10K

RPMs; 160, 500GB — 7.2K RPMs

PCIe Adapter Solid-State

160, 320GB (MS, SD, SS Class)




# of HDDs standard 1 – 12, depending on the chassis/tray configuration

# of optical drives standard None (USB-attached)

# of diskette drives standard None (USB-attached)

Integrated disk controller Six-port SATA II (integrated into chipset)

# of disk drives supported per port

1

External disk drives supported standard

No

Integrated RAID controller / cache

None

Optional RAID controllers supported

3Gbps ServeRAID-BR10il v2 (0MB cache)—internal SAS/SATA HDDs 6Gbps ServeRAID-B5015 (0MB cache)—internal SATA SSDs

6Gbps ServeRAID-M1015 (0MB cache)—internal SAS/SATA HDDs/SSDs 6Gbps ServeRAID-M5014 (256MB cache)—internal SAS/SATA HDDs/SDDs 6Gbps ServeRAID-M5015 (512MB cache)—internal SAS/SATA HDDs/SSDs

External storage supported Via IBM System Storage controllers and storage devices

# of PCIe physical/electrical x16 Gen 2 slots (16GBps)

2 full-height/half-length—2U chassis,

2 Server trays

2 full-height/full-length—2U chassis, 1 Server tray, 1 I/O

tray)

1 full-height/half-length—2U chassis, 1 Server tray, 1 1U

Storage tray

1 full-height/half-length—3U chassis, 1 Server tray, 1 2U

Storage tray

# of PCIe physical/electrical x8 Gen 2 slots (8GBps)

0—2U chassis, 2 Server trays

1 full-height/half-length—2U

chassis,1 Server tray, 1 I/O tray)

0—2U chassis, 1 Server tray, 1 1U

Storage tray

0—3U chassis, 1 Server tray, 1 2U

Storage tray

# of video ports 1

Video controller standard Maxim VCS452 (Matrox G200eV core) standard;

(NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 optional)

Video memory 128MB DDR2 standard (shared with IMM);

1GB GDDR3 on NVIDIA card

Maximum video resolution at 32-bit color

1280 x 1024 at 75Hz standard; analog 2048 x1536 resolution, with a color depth of 32 bits at 85Hz refresh rate, or digital

2560 x1600 resolution, with a color depth of 32 bits at 60Hz with optional FX 3800 controller

Optional GPUs NVIDIA Tesla M2070/M2070Q (6GB)

NVIDIA Tesla M2050 (3GB) NVIDIA Tesla M1060 (4GB)

Gigabit Ethernet controller Dual-port Intel 82575

# of Gigabit Ethernet ports 2 (front)

# of RJ-45 ports 2 (plus 1 for systems management)

# of serial ports 1 (front)

# of parallel ports None (USB-attached)

# of mouse ports None (USB-attached)

# of keyboard ports None (USB-attached)

# of USB 2.0 ports 2 ports (front)

Integrated systems management controller

Yes (IMM)

Optional systems management adapter

None (integrated IMM)

Light path diagnostics support No




Predictive Failure Analysis support

Memory, HDDs

Power supply size 900W HE universal,

autoswitching (standard) 750W dual-AC power

supply, 220V only (optional) 550W HE universal,

autoswitching (optional)

# of power supplies standard / maximum

1 / 1

Hot-swap/redundant power supported

No

# of fans/blowers standard / maximum

4 / 4 (plus one in the power supply)

Hot-swap/redundant fans supported

No

Chassis rack mount method Rails

2U Chassis heat emitted: as shipped / maximum

594 / 2,862 (BTUs) 174 / 838 (Watts)

3U Chassis heat emitted: as shipped / maximum

594 / 1,694 (BTUs) 174 / 496 (Watts)

Maximum altitude 7,000 ft / 2,133 m

Operating temperature range 50 – 95º F; 10 – 35º C (up to 3,000 ft / 914.4 m) 50 – 90º F; 10 – 28º C (3,000 ft to 10,000

ft / 914.4m to 3048m)

2U Chassis dimensions (HWD) / weight

3.39” (866mm) H 17.6” (446mm) W 20.2” (513mm) D

15.6 lb / 7.1 kg (minimum); 46.1 lb / 22.7 kg (maximum)

3U Chassis dimensions (HWD) / weight

5.1” (130mm) H 17.6” (446mm) W 20.2” (513mm) D

34.0 lb / 15.4 kg (minimum); 62.0 lb / 28.1 kg (maximum)

Rear Door heat eXchanger dimensions (HWD) / weight

78.5” (1995mm) H 46.9” (1190mm) W

4.7” (120mm) D 170 lb / 77.3 kg (empty)

Cabinet and front/back doors with feet 82.4” (2093mm) H

47.25” (1235mm) W 23.6” (600mm) D

With casters 33.07” (840mm) D

Rack dimensions (HWD)

Cabinet, casters, and front door/Rear Door Heat eXchanger 37.8” (960mm) D

Rack dimensions weight 395 lb / 180 kg (empty);

2,800 lb / 1,270 kg (full: 42 2U chassis, 2 Ethernet switches, 4 PDUs)

Operating systems supported (server-specific)

Microsoft® Windows Server

® 2008 (Standard/Web/Enterprise/HPC Editions) 64-bit, Windows

HPC Server 2008, Microsoft Windows® HPC Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 Compute

Cluster Edition, Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux®

(RHEL) 5/6 64-bit, with and without Xen, RHEL 4 64-bit, without Xen, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10/11 64-bit with and without Xen, VMware ESX/ESXi/vSphere Hypervisor

3.5/4.0/4.1

Length of limited warranty 3 years (parts and labor)

9 — 6385, 6386, 6391

1 years (parts and labor) — 6313

9 For terms and conditions or copies of the IBM Statement of Limited Warranty, call 800-772-2227 in the U.S. In Canada call 800-426-2255. IBM makes no representation or warranty regarding third-party products or services including those designated as ServerProven or ClusterProven. Telephone support may be subject to additional charges. For warranties including onsite labor, a technician is sent after IBM attempts to resolve the problem remotely. International warranty service is available in any country in which this product is sold.




The Bottom Line The iDataPlex solution offers extremely powerful systems, incorporating leading-edge industry-standard features and adding IBM-unique design innovations:

Price/Performance • High-throughput processors — 2.26 to 3.06GHz 6-core Xeon 5600 series processors (12

cores per server), 1.66 to 3.2GHz 4-core Xeon 5600 series processors (8 cores per server), 2.0 to 2.93GHz 4-core Xeon 5500 series processors (8 cores per server), or 1.86GHz 2-core Xeon 5500 series processor (4 cores per server)

• Energy-efficient low-voltage processors — 60W 6-core and 40W 4-core Xeon processors

• Large cache — 12MB, 8MB, or 4MB (processor-specific)

• Fast memory access — 1333MHz, 1066MHz, or 800MHz access (depending on the processor model and DIMMs used)

• Fast Graphics processing — Optional NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 controller; supercomputer-level graphics processing via optional NVIDIA Tesla M2070 or M2070Q, M2050, and M1060 GPUs

• Fast storage technology — Optional 6Gbps ServeRAID SAS/SATA HDD/SSD controllers

• High IOPS solid-state technology — 50GB 2.5-inch solid-state drives, and 160GB or 320GB solid-state drives on PCIe adapters

• Fast communications — Integrated Gigabit Ethernet controller(s)

• Fast I/O — PCIe x16 Gen 2 (16Gbps) and x8 Gen 2 (8Gbps) adapter slots

Flexibility

• Large memory capacity — 192GB of memory in 16 DIMMs

• A choice of 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch simple-swap or 3.5-inch hot-swap SAS or SATA drives, 2.5-inch solid-state drives, and PCIe adapter solid-state drives

• High-capacity storage — Using various combinations of server, I/O and storage trays, 2U and 3U chassis, up to 10TB of internal simple-swap or 24TB of hot-swap SATA storage; or 24TB of HS SAS or 4TB of SS SAS using 3.5-inch drives; up to 4.8TB of internal 2.5-inch SS SAS storage or 4TB of SS SATA storage; up to 400GB of 2.5-inch solid-state drives, or up to 960GB of solid-state storage using three PCI adapters

• A choice of three power supplies (900W HE, 550W HE, and 750W dual-AC)

• High-performance external expansion — Two 480Mbps USB 2.0 ports

• Optional RAID support for RAID-0/1 or RAID-0/1/10/5/50/6/60

• Up to three PCIe slots adapter slots per chassis

Manageability, Serviceability and Availability

• Integrated Management Module (IMM):

� IPMI 2.0 compliance, including highly secure remote power control

• Optional dual-AC power supply

• Optional hardware-based RAID-0/1/10/5/50/6/60

• Ultra-efficient cooling, including the optional Rear Door Heat eXchanger for iDataPlex

• Hot-swap and simple-swap hard disk drives and simple-swap solid-state drives

• Toolless chassis and toolless slide design simplify installation and removal of the server from the rack




Server Comparison

The following table shows the suggested uses for the respective IBM System x iDataPlex servers, including comparisons of the uses for which each server is best suited:

iDPx

Theme Key Workloads

Sca

lability

Flo

atin

g P

oin

t

Pe

rform

an

ce

Me

mo

ry

Thro

ug

hp

ut

Inte

ge

r

Pe

rform

an

ce

I/O a

nd

Sto

rage

Den

sity

Hig

h A

va

ilability

Sys

tem

s

Ma

na

gem

en

t

Se

curity

Dis

tribute

d

De

plo

ym

en

t

dx36

0

M3

Cluster / HPC3 1 1 2 2 1 3 3 3 3 �

Modeling & Simulation2 1 1 1 3 1 3 2 3 3 �

High Performance DB2 2 1 1 1 3 2 2 3 3

Business Intelligence2 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 1 3 �

Search3 1 1 1 2 1 3 3 1 2 �

Content2 2 2 2 2 1 3 3 2 2 �

Communities1 2 2 2 1 1 2 3 2 2 �

Commerce2 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 �

Collaboration 2 3 2 3 2 1 2 3 2 2 �ERP/SCM 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 CRM 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 3 � �Best

Hosted Client 1 3 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 Point of Sale

3 3 3 2 1 3 1 1 1 1

Branch Office2 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 2 1 �Better

Virtualization1 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 3 �

Business Continuity2 3 3 3 1 2 2 1 2 2

Database2 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 2 3 Good

Email/Collaboration2 3 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 2

Security2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 3

Web Serving3 2 2 2 3 1 2 1 3 3 �

File & Print 2 3 2 3 1 2 2 1 3 3

Important1

Web 2.0 /

Web 3D

Nice to Have2

Can do without3

Requirements

HPC

Business

Applications

Infrastructure

Applications




For More Information IBM System x and iDataPlex Servers http://ibm.com/systems/x

IBM Systems Director Service and Support Manager http://ibm.com/support/electronic

IBM System x and BladeCenter Power Configurator http://ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/resources/powerconfig.html

IBM Standalone Solutions Configuration Tool http://ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/configtools.html

IBM Configuration and Options Guide http://ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/configtools.html

IBM ServerProven Program http://ibm.com/systems/info/x86servers/serverproven/compat/us

Technical Support http://ibm.com/server/support

Other Technical Support Resources http://ibm.com/systems/support

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© IBM Corporation 2011

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Produced in the USA February 2011

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For a copy of applicable product warranties, write to: Warranty Information, P.O. Box 12195, RTP, NC 27709, Attn: Dept. JDJA/B203. IBM makes no representation or warranty regarding third-party products or services including those designated as ServerProven or ClusterProven. Telephone support may be subject to additional charges. For onsite labor, IBM will attempt to diagnose and resolve the problem remotely before sending a technician.

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MB, GB and TB = 1,000,000, 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, respectively, when referring to storage capacity. Accessible capacity is less; up to 3GB is used in service partition. Actual storage capacity will vary based upon many factors and may be less than stated.

Performance is in Internal Throughput Rate (ITR) ratio based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput that any user will experience will depend on considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user’s job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve throughput improvements equivalent to the performance ratios stated here.

Maximum internal hard disk and memory capacities may require the replacement of any standard hard drives and/or memory and the population of all hard disk bays and memory slots with the largest currently supported drives available. When referring to variable speed CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs and DVDs, actual playback speed will vary and is often less than the maximum possible.

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