HP BladeSystem c-Class architecture Technology brief, 4th edition

Our BladeSystem enclosures accommodate half-height blades, full-height blades, or both. Server

blades can use single-, double-, or quad-wide form factors. LAN on Motherboard (LOM) adapters and

optional mezzanine cards on the server blades route network signals to the interconnect modules in

the rear of the enclosure. The connections between server blades and a network fabric can be

redundant.

The c7000 enclosure has eight interconnect bays that accommodate up to eight single-wide

interconnect modules. They can be Virtual Connect modules, Ethernet or Fibre Channel switches, or a

combination of single-wide and double-wide interconnect modules such as InfiniBand switches.

The c3000 enclosure has four interconnect bays. The bays can hold four single-wide or one double-

wide and two single-wide interconnect modules.

The c-Class enclosure also holds one or two Onboard Administrator management modules. A second

Onboard Administrator module acts as a redundant controller in an active-standby mode. The Insight

Display panel on the front of the enclosure provides an easy way to access the Onboard

Administrator locally.

The c-Class enclosures use flexible power architecture. The c7000 enclosure uses single-phase or

three-phase AC or DC power inputs. The c3000 enclosure, by contrast, only uses single-phase (auto-

sensing high-line or low-line) power inputs. You can connect its power supplies to low-line (100VAC

to 120VAC) wall outlets. In either enclosure, you can configure power redundantly. Power supplies

connect to a passive power backplane that distributes shared power to all components.

High-performance, high-efficiency Active Cool fans provide redundant cooling across the enclosure

and ample cooling capacity for future needs. The fans are hot-pluggable and redundant.

General-purpose flexible design

The BladeSystem c-Class enclosure supports many blades and interconnect device options:

• ProLiant server blades using AMD or Intel x86 processors

• ProLiant workstation blades

• Integrity server blades

• StorageWorks storage blades

• Tape blades

• PCI-X or PCI Express (PCIe) expansion blades

BladeSystem interconnect modules support a variety of networking standards:

• Ethernet

• Fibre Channel

• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)

• InfiniBand

• iSCSI

• Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

The architecture of the c-Class enclosure provides a basis for broad solutions, including the HP

CloudSystem Matrix (

www.hp.com/go/matrix). Matrix supports shared IT infrastructure services by

integrating pools of computing, storage, and networking capabilities with management tools.

The c-Class enclosure interoperates and connects with other HP infrastructure pieces, including

external storage components such as DAS (direct-attached storage), NAS (network attached storage),

and SAN (storage area network) solutions (