HP improves BladeSystem

Blade severs have become a platform of choice for many enterprises attempting to consolidate operations, but the resulting high-density installations can create their own management challenges, says Information Week.

Leading blade vendors such as Hewlett-Packard are attempting to address those concerns with greater operational automation.

HP on Monday announced enhancements to its BladeSystem c-Class product line, including the extension of its virtual connection technology capabilities to be able to manage up to 1 600 bladed servers from a single console. This allows users to reduce operational cost and improve quality of service.

Internap, a provider of Internet routing and other IT services, has won a five-year contract worth $16 million to host servers for SoftLayer, a provider of on-demand hosting services, reports WRAL.com.

SoftLayer will install 10 000 servers at Internap`s Seattle data centre. Internap will provide bandwidth in excess of 30Gb between SoftLayer`s data centre in Dallas and the Seattle operation.

SoftLayer is an existing Internap client. The company offers its customers utility computing capacity through its scalable, on-demand server offerings. Its service through Internap is scheduled to go live in December.

IT managers needing fast network server connections may be interested in optical fibre vendor Finisar`s new 10Gbps serial active optical cabling system, Laserwire, reports VNUNet.

The Laserwire system consists of an optical fibre cable as well as an electrical connector. The firm has also launched Ethernet adapter modules which can connect to legacy 10Gbps optical transceiver ports.

Finisar`s sales director Jan Meise said: "The challenge we`re addressing with Laserwire is the need for a low weight, low power, low latency, and high density 10Gbps server connectivity, from the network to the switch. We`re also aiming the technology at LAN on motherboard architectures."