eWEEK Visits HP’s Houston Development Lab, Reviews c3000

HP’s c3000 blade server, which is aimed at small and midsize enterprises, rests on a utility cart prior to testing. Three of the blade slots in this chassis are actually empty and are covered by blanks, which serve to maintain proper air flow for cooling.

Recalling the memory of its Compaq predecessors, the c3000 features a green and white screen in the center of the device. This one pops out from a slot on the bottom, however, and instead of running CP/M, this screen reveals HP’s Insight Manager. You can

The rear of the c3000 blade server supports access to external infrastructure as well as the switching features on the backplane. You can install a variety of Ethernet or Fiber Channel switches into slots on the rear of the device.

The HP c3000 starts its day of testing by eWEEK Labs. This shows the machine in the configuration in which it was delivered to channel partners. There are many more blades available for this chassis than appear in this photo — or that will fit into the d

The HP BL460c server is the blade version of the ProLiant DL360 server. This Intel-based computer will do everything that its larger sibling will do, except for holding the same number of disk drives.

HP developed the HP StorageWorks Ultrium 448c tape blade for the c3000. This LTO drive provides 400GB of backup capacity, and is designed for networks that are not connected to a SAN (storage area network).

The HP SB600c AIO (All In One) storage server blade consists of two parts. One part is essentially the same as the BL460c server blade, while the other is an iSCSI SAN server. This SAS device will hold up to 1.6TB of data. The two blades must be adjacent

Each of the c3000’s blades connects to the chassis, and therefore to the other blades, using a backplane connector, shown here. The blades slide into their places from the front of the device, and a locking bar holds them in place.

The c3000 will also support full-height (or full-width, depending on the orientation) blades, such as this BL680c server blade. This blade will support up to four Intel processors.

These are some of the switches that you can use in the c3000. They are (from top) HP’s GbE2c layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet switch; Brocade’s 4GB Fiber Channel SAN switch; Cisco’s MDS9124c Gigabit Ethernet switch; HP’s 4GB Fiber Channel Interconnect Module; and

HP has just introduced a second full-height server blade, the BL685c. This one supports up to four AMD processors.

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