To meet today's complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of compute, storage, networking, and software resources. This system must be simple to deploy, and be able to quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need to be able to take advantage of broad expertise and proven guidelines in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance, and more. The IBM® PureFlex™ System combines no-compromise system designs along with built-in expertise and integrates them into complete, optimized solutions. At the heart of PureFlex System is the IBM Flex System™ Enterprise Chassis. This fully integrated infrastructure platform supports a mix of compute, storage, and networking resources to meet the demands of your applications. The solution is easily scalable with the addition of another chassis with the required nodes. With the IBM Flex System Manager, multiple chassis can be monitored from a single panel. The 14 node, 10U chassis delivers high speed performance complete with integrated servers, storage, and networking. This flexible chassis is simple to deploy now, and to scale to meet your needs in the future. This IBM Redbooks® publication describes IBM PureFlex System and IBM Flex System. It highlights the technology and features of the chassis, compute nodes, management features, and connectivity options. Guidance is provided about every major component, and about networking and storage connectivity. This book is intended for customers, Business Partners, and IBM employees who want to know the details about the new family of products. It assumes that you have a basic understanding of blade server concepts and general IT knowledge.

To meet today’s complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of compute, storage, networking, and software resources that is simple to deploy and can quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need to be able to take advantage of broad expertise and proven preferred practices in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance, and more. The IBM® Flex System™ p260 and p460 Compute Nodes are IBM Power Systems™ servers optimized for virtualization, performance, and efficiency. The nodes support IBM AIX®, IBM i, or Linux operating environments, and are designed to run various workloads in IBM PureFlex™ System. This IBM Redbooks® publication is a comprehensive guide to IBM PureFlex System and the Power Systems compute nodes. We introduce the offerings and describe the compute nodes in detail. We then describe planning and implementation steps and go through some of the key the management features of the IBM Flex System Manager management node. This book is for customers, IBM Business Partners, and IBM technical specialists that want to understand the new offerings and to plan and implement an IBM Flex System installation that involves the Power Systems compute nodes.

The deployment of server virtualization technologies in data centers requires significant efforts in providing sufficient network I/O bandwidth to satisfy the demand of virtualized applications and services. For example, every virtualized system can host several dozen network applications and services, and each of these services requires certain bandwidth (or speed) to function properly. Furthermore, because of different network traffic patterns relevant to different service types, these traffic flows may interfere with each other, leading to serious network problems including the inability of the service to perform its functions. The IBM® Virtual Fabric solution for IBM BladeCenter addresses these issues. The solution is based on the IBM BladeCenter H chassis with a 10-Gb Converged Enhanced Ethernet infrastructure built on 10-Gb Ethernet switch modules in the chassis and the Emulex or Broadcom Virtual Fabric Adapters in each blade server.

High-end workloads drive ever-increasing and ever-changing constraints. In addition to requiring greater memory capacity, these workloads challenge you to do more with less and to find new ways to simplify deployment and ownership. And although higher system availability and comprehensive systems management have always been critical, they have become even more important in recent years. Difficult challenges, such as these, create new opportunities for innovation. The IBM® eX5 portfolio delivers this innovation. This family of high-end computing introduces the fifth generation of IBM X-Architecture® technology. The family includes the IBM System x3850 X5, x3690 X5, and the IBM BladeCenter HX5. These servers are the culmination of more than a decade of x86 innovation and firsts that have changed the expectations of the industry. With this latest generation, eX5 is again leading the way as the shift toward virtualization, platform management, and energy efficiency accelerates. This book is divided into two parts. In the first part, we provide detailed technical information about the servers in the eX5 portfolio. This information is most useful in designing, configuring, and planning to order a server solution. In the second part of the book, we provide detailed configuration and setup information to get your servers operational. We focus particularly on setting up MAX5 configurations of all three eX5 servers as well as 2-node configurations of the x3850 X5 and HX5. This book is aimed at clients, IBM Business Partners, and IBM employees that want to understand the features and capabilities of the IBM eX5 portfolio of servers and want to learn how to install and configure the servers for use in production.

Altiris Deployment Solution is an industry leading management product which helps reduce the cost of deploying servers from bare metal and managing them all from a centralized location. Its user interface makes it easy to deploy operating systems and applications, apply custom configurations, and distribute software updates. Deployment Solution runs in either a virtual or physical server environment and supports deploying Linux, Windows, and ESX Server, as well as virtual machines to an ESX Server system. Deployment Solution also integrates with the IBM ServerGuide Scripting Toolkit to offer custom scripts for IBM hardware to further optimize the automation and standardization of complex server deployments on IBM hardware. Deployment Solution is a ServerProven application and is available directly from IBM. This IBM Redbooks publication describes the features of Altiris Deployment Solution and explains in detail how to implement features such as managing and deploying firmware updates and hardware configuration changes, image-based and script-based deployments, and integration with the IBM management tools. This book addresses the common issues and recommends best practices to overcome many of the challenges that arise during initial deployment setup. Update September 2006: Added 4.1.4, "Additional updates" on page 109 describing how to deploy updates such as server diagnostics using Altiris Deployment Solution and the ServerGuide Scripting Toolkit.

The IBM eServer X3 Architecture servers are the new third-generation Enterprise X-Architecture servers from IBM. The xSeries 366 was announced in February 2005, the xSeries 460 was announced in May, and the xSeries 260 was announced in August. These X3 Architecture servers are ideal for random commercial workloads with high processor and memory bandwidth requirements. Although aimed at different client sets, they share common components and options. The x460 is targeted at clients who need to implement a large single image “scale-up” configuration of up to 32 processors and 512 GB of RAM. The x366 is targeted at the high-performance environment where rack space is a premium. The x260 is for clients who need high performance but also require large amounts of internal disk storage. This IBM Redbooks publication provides a detailed technical description of the three servers and explains how to plan, install, configure, and manage these high-performance servers running 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and VMware ESX Server.

The systems management hardware that is part of IBM xSeries and BladeCenter servers serves as an important part of the overall management strategy for customers. This hardware, either integrated into the server or BladeCenter chassis, installed at the factory as an adapter, or available as an option, provides vital information back to the administrator and gives the administrator the ability to remotely control the server, even when the operating system is not running.

The IBM eServer xSeries 455 is the second-generation Enterprise X-Architecture server using the 64-bit IBM XA-64 chipset and the Intel Itanium 2 processor. Unlike the x450, its predecessor, the x455 supports the merging of four server chassis to form a single 16-way image, providing even greater expandability and investment protection. This IBM Redbooks publication is a comprehensive resource on the technical aspects of the server, and is divided into five key subject areas: --Chapter 1, “Technical description”, introduces the server and its subsystems and describes the key features and how they work.

The IBM eServer xSeries 450 is IBM’s new 64-bit Itanium Processor Family (IPF) Architecture server and is the first implementation of the 64-bit IBM XA-64 chipset, as part of the Enterprise X-Architecture strategy. This IBM Redbooks publication is a comprehensive resource on the technical aspects of the server, and is divided into five key subject areas: Chapter 1, Technical description introduces the server and its subsystems and describes the key features and how they work. This includes the new Extensible Firmware Interface, which provides a powerful replacement to the BIOS facility found on the IA-32 platform. Chapter 2, Positioning examines the types of applications that would be used on a server such as the x450. Chapter 3, Planning describes the considerations when planning to purchase and planning to install the x450. It covers such topics as configuration, operating system specifics, scalability, and physical site planning. Chapter 4, Installation covers the process of installing Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server on the x450. Chapter 5, Management describes how to use the Remote Supervisor Adapter to send alerts to an IBM Director management environment.