IBM X3850 M2 Product Manual

Also see for System x3850 M2: Brochure & specs User guide Reference Installation guide User guide

Contents

Combining high-performance architecture with high-performance Xeon processorsPlease see the Legal Information section for important notices and information. 1Product GuideSeptember 2008IBM System x3850 M2 / x3950 M2ArchitectureOverviewCONTENTSArchitecture Overview 1Key Highlights 2Key Features 3Key Options 11x3850/x3950 M2 Images 12x3850/x3950 M2 Specs 14The Bottom Line 16For More Information 19Legal Information 19Outstanding performance, superior mainframe-likereliability, and fault-tolerant memory characteristicsIBM® has been designing and implementing chipsets under the X-Architecture™ name since2001. eX4 technology represents the fourth generation of products based on the same designprinciple IBM began with in 1997: to offer systems that are expandable, offer “big iron” reliability,availability, and serviceability (RAS) features, with extremely competitive price/performance onan Intel® Xeon® processor-based system.The eX4 technology is primarily designed around three major workloads. These workloads aredatabase servers, server consolidation using virtualization services, and Enterprise ResourcePlanning (application and database) servers.If you are adopting industry-standard Xeon EM64T servers for running business criticalapplications, the systems that run these applications need the type of technology designed intoIBM’s eX4 technology systems. The eX4 chipset represents a $100M+ investment in designinga flagship offering that can harness the power of 4-socket-and-up 64-bit x86 (x64) Xeonprocessors. The eX4 design includes two 4U 4-socket rack-optimized chassis (x3850 M2 andx3950 M2) with the ability to scale up to 16 sockets and up to 96 cores. In fact, you can startwith a single-node x3850 M2 chassis, and by adding a ScaleXpander Option Kit, you can turnit into an x3950 M2, ready to expand into a multi-node configuration providing more flexibility indeploying your scalable solution than ever before.The x3850 M2 now offers selected models integrated with VMware ESXi 3.5 preloaded on anIBM 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Key. It operates in a diskless configuration, offers a smaller memoryfootprint, extremely high performance, and stronger security, making getting a system up andrunning in a virtualized environment faster and easier than ever before.IBM X-Architecture pioneered XpandOnDemand™ (“pay as you grow”) scalability, which allowschassis to be simply cabled together to form larger scale-up systems. This unique capabilityallows IBM to sell a large SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) system at entry price points. OtherIntel OEMs can’t match this capability. If they offer a 16-socket product at all, they require you tostart out with a 16-socket chassis, whether you’ll ever grow into it or not. WithXpandOnDemand, you can start small, with a 4- or 8-socket configuration, and later expand asyour needs change, without requiring you to buy more than you need up-front or throw awayparts later as you expand.IBM’s eX4 technology-based systems are the ideal solution for scale-up database-servingapplications on Microsoft® Windows® with Microsoft SQL Server® or IBM DB2®, as well as Linux®with Oracle 9i RAC and 10g, or IBM DB2. Database hosting demands ultimate server reliabilityfeatures, and once installed, they grow and grow. The eX4 design offers two strong sellingarguments against the competition: lower initial purchase price, and potentially much lower long-term TCO.Another strong application area for the eX4-based systems is enterprise server consolidationactivities. Larger servers have more processor, memory and I/O resources, which makemaximum use of any applicable virtual machine software licensing fees and deliver superiorsystem utilization levels. The name of the game in consolidation activities is to deploy the fewestnew servers possible and help IT staff manage more images with the same or fewer overallpeople.One of the fastest growing application areas for eX4-based systems is ERP workloads, includingSAP and Oracle. eX4-based systems can offer considerable savings over UNIX deployments,using our certified solution stacks on either Windows or Linux.The 4-socket eX4 servers are designed to protect your data with high performance, highreliability, and high availability. They support the latest six-, quad- and dual-core Intel® Xeon™processors, designed with high-performance quad 1066MHz front-side buses (FSB), 64-bitextensions (EM64T), and either 8MB (dual-core); 4MB, 6MB, or 8MB (quad-core); or 9MB ofL2 cache; 8MB, 12MB or 16MB (six-core) of L3 cache, and up to 256MB of L4 cache perchassis (all models), to help provide you with the computing power you need to match your