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Archived Report
Lenovo
BladeCenter

by Karen Spring

Copyright 2017, Faulkner Information
Services. All Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00018906

Publication Date: 1707

Report Type: PRODUCT

Preview

The Lenovo BladeCenter portfolio was a family of servers designed to
operate in high-performance computing environments. The BladeCenter line was used by large enterprises as well as small branch offices and offers servers for
businesses in retail and distribution, telecommunications and rugged
environments, and high-end computing. Lenovo purchased the x86 server business
from IBM in 2014, acquiring the BladeCenter portfolio as part of this deal.
Lenovo discontinued the BladeCenter product line in 2017. 

Report Contents:

• Description
• Related Faulkner Reports
• Vendor
• Applications
• Environment
• Support
• Pricing
• Competitors
• Web Links

Description

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Lenovo’s BladeCenter line is made up of individual blade servers as well as the advanced chassis
that store the blades. BladeCenter, previously owned and marketed by IBM, was
acquired by Lenovo in 2014 upon purchasing IBM’s x86 server product line. The
BladeCenter line has been withdrawn from marketing by Lenovo, which means it has
reached its end-of-life.  

Key features of the BladeCenter family of
products are listed below.

BladeCenter Servers

HS23. The HS23 is designed for various workloads including
virtualization and cloud infrastructure. It supports the 12-core Intel Xeon
processor E5-2600 v2 product family and offers embedded hypervisor technology for
deployment. Its internal maximum storage is 2 TB and its maximum memory is 512
GB. 

BladeCenter Chassis

BladeCenter S Chassis. An all-in-one
chassis intended for small offices and distributed environments, the S is 7U
high with six bays with two disk storage module bays, and up to six, 3.5" SAS,
Nearline SAS or SATA, or combination bays.
The S Chassis integrates servers, storage, networking, I/O and applications using standard office power plugs with
110
– 240V. 

BladeCenter HT Chassis. The BladeCenter HT features a ruggedized design
for use in industrial, telecommunications, medical, military, and extreme environment
deployments. It integrates servers, storage, networking, I/O, and applications
in a flexible, modular design. It supports Microsoft Windows, Linux, AIX, and
Sun Solaris operating systems. It has a 12U
rack-optimized chassis supporting up to 12 blade server bays. 

BladeCenter H Chassis. The BladeCenter H Chassis is a 9U chassis that
is designed for the virtualization environment. It offers up to 14 blade server bays, and up to four traditional
hot-swap and redundant switch modules. 

Applications

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Many BladeCenter servers and chassis are tailored for use with most enterprise applications; others,
however are designed for use in specific environments. The BladeCenter
product line has been used in an array of industries including banking, computer
services, consumer products, education, government, and healthcare. 

Environment

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Details of Lenovo BladeCenter’s HS23 operating
platform is provided below:

HS23

• Processor: Intel Xeon
  E5-2600 processors; up to 12 cores, up to 24 simultaneous threads, and up to
  two processors.

• Memory:
  Up to 512 GB of total memory capacity.

• Operating
  Systems: Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE
  Linux Enterprise, and VMware. 

Support

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Lenovo offers self-service options on its Web site so that users can access
product literature, videos, demos, case studies, tools, and reports. Additional support
information for the BladeCenter family can be obtained directly by calling (877)
782-7134. 

Pricing

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Because pricing for BladeCenter is dependent upon an
organization’s specific configuration, it is recommended that interested parties
directly contact Lenovo’s sales staff at (855) 253-6686. The vendor accepts
major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Lenovo Preferred credit card,
and American Express) as well as other payment options like PayPal, Amazon
Payments, and MasterPass. 

Competitors

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Major competitors are:

• Dell PowerEdge Blades
• HP BladeSystem
• Cisco UCS B-Series Blades

Web Links

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• Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/
• Dell: https://www.dell.com/
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise: https://www.hpe.com/
• IBM: https://www.ibm.com/
• Lenovo: https://www.lenovo.com/

About the Author

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Karen M. Spring is a staff editor for Faulkner Information Services,
tracking high-tech industries, including network security, ERP, CRM, network
management, Internet security, and software tools. She writes regularly on
high-tech topics for publications in the k-12 and higher education industry.
Previously, Ms. Spring was a marketing specialist for two computer distributors,
working closely with such clients as 3Com, IBM, Okidata, Unisys, and Acer.

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