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IBM improves cluster

Opinion
Jun 17, 20032 mins
IBMNetworking

* IBM enhances its cluster server offering

IBM is expected to announce this week that its eServer Cluster 1350 can now use its blade servers, Ethernet interconnects and management software.

The IBM eServer Cluster 1350 is built with Intel Xeon processor-based BladeCenter servers and Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet interconnections between servers. Optionally, users can configure the cluster with the Myrinet 2000 interconnect, with xSeries 335 servers as compute nodes and with xSeries 360 servers as storage nodes.

The xSeries 335 server has a faster processor and front-side bus than the BladeCenter and is intended for customers that require higher performance. The xSeries 360 server is designed to connect to storage-area networks. IBM’s BladeCenter servers only connect to network-attached storage devices via integrated Gigabit Ethernet adapters.

The Myrinet 2000 option is only available for 1350 clusters configured with xSeries 335, 345 or 360 servers. In addition, the cluster can be connected to IBM’s FAStT200 and FAStT700 storage arrays.

Software included with the cluster includes IBM’s Cluster Systems Management (CSM) for Linux Version 1.3.1. An optional General Parallel File System (GPFS) for Linux Version 1.3 is also available. The cluster runs Red Hat or SuSE Linux. CSM offers simplified administration of the cluster.

The Cluster 1350 supports as many as 512 compute nodes. Custom configurations are available that extend the number of compute nodes.

The cluster is available now from IBM. It is priced by individual configuration.