Comments on: HP BL495c – Virtualization Blade?

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:26:37 +0000

The BL495c is now supported by VMware and the 10Gb Virtual Connect module is available. There was never a 10Gb pass thru.

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?action=search&deviceCategory=server&productId=1&keyBasic=bl495c&maxDisplayRows=50&key=&release%5B%5D=-1&datePosted=-1&stepping=&nsockets=&ncores=&max_mem=

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?action=search&deviceCategory=io&productId=1&keyBasic=NC532m&maxDisplayRows=50&key=NC523m&release%5B%5D=-1&datePosted=-1&vid=&did=&svid=&ssid=

The BL495c is a much denser package than the Sun’s x6450. It has 2 major advantages over the BL460c; twice the memory, and Flex-10 NICs. The onboard Flex-10 NICs can be configured as up to 8 NICs with only 2 VC modules.

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/ethernet/10-10gb-f/benefits.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:40:32 +0000

VMware ESX drivers for the BL495c can be found in the following support page:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=3621782&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=135&prodClassId=-1&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=3621769

I am not an expert in virtualization, and hope that you can provide an opinion: what is the advantage of using the BL495c over say the BL460c in VMware environments?

On one of our projects, we are looking to manage disparate development, testing and staging environments and applications where the hardware and software configurations change over time.

By: Jerry Hamilton

Jerry Hamilton — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:30:36 +0000

I’m not sold on the half-height blade concept either. Keep in mind the chassis has a split mid-plane. So what happens if the upper or lower half of the mid-plane fails (and yes it can happen). If 8 blades go down that’s 80+ VMs failing instantly.

By: Ceri Davies

Ceri Davies — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:21:28 +0000

How is that better than Sun’s x6450 blade (http://www.sun.com/servers/blades/x6450/) which will take up to four six-core Xeons, has 24 DIMM slots allowing for 192GB of RAM and also manages to make it on to the supported list?