Server Blades; Storage Options Inside The Bladesystem Enclosure; Direct Attach Storage Blades - HP Xw460c - ProLiant - Blade Workstation Overview

Each interconnect module also provides external connectors that vary based on its particular design.
In the c7000 enclosure, pairs of single-wide interconnect modules installed in adjacent horizontal
bays provide redundant connectivity for dual-port interfaces in each device bay. Adjacent
interconnect modules also have high-speed cross-connect capability through the enclosure's NonStop
signal midplane. For double-wide interconnects such as DDR InfiniBand, two modules are installed in
c7000 interconnect bays 5 and 7 to provide redundant high bandwidth connectivity.
NOTE
The c-Class Ethernet Pass-Thru Module only supports fixed-speed
gigabit Ethernet. Because the server, storage, or other option
blades are connected through SerDes to the interconnect bays, and
SerDes Ethernet does not have an auto-negotiation protocol, a
switch is required to connect to 10/100 networks outside of the
enclosure. The NICs themselves are capable of different modes of
operation, but the outbound wiring to which they are connected
does not auto-negotiate. Note that this is a limitation of an Ethernet
Pass-Thru Module only. The Fibre Channel Pass-Thru Module ports
do auto-negotiate.

Server blades

Server blades for the BladeSystem c7000 enclosure are built according to c-Class standard form-
factors referred to as half-height and full-height. The enclosure can hold either full-height or half-height
server blades or a combination of the two. The enclosure is preconfigured with device bay dividers to
house half-height server or storage blades. Dividers must be removed to accommodate full-height
server blades.
For connectivity, every server blade ships with at least two built-in Ethernet connections. To maintain
flexibility, the server blades use optional mezzanine cards to provide additional interconnect fabric
connections such as Gigabit Ethernet, InfiniBand, and Fibre Channel.
Half-height server blades typically have two embedded Gigabit NICs and two c-Class PCIe
mezzanine option connectors. A half-height server configured with one dual-port Gigabit NIC
mezzanine card and one quad-port Gigabit NIC mezzanine card provides eight independent Gigabit
NICs. Full-height server blades typically have four embedded Gigabit NICs and three c-Class PCIe
mezzanine option connectors. A full-height server configured with three quad-port Gigabit NIC
mezzanine cards provides sixteen independent Gigabit NICs. The inherent flexibility of c-Class design
allows customers to configure up to four different interconnect fabrics without sacrificing redundancy
or performance.
The most up-to-date information about c-Class server blades is available at this website:
www.hp.com/go/bladesystem/.

Storage options inside the BladeSystem enclosure

Storage options inside the enclosure provide an alternative to local disk drives or SAN connectivity.
The c7000 enclosure supports several types of storage solutions. Tape and PCI option blades are also
available for c-Class. Each of these blades increases configuration flexibility by adding options that
would not fit inside the server blade.

Direct attach storage blades

The StorageWorks SB40c Storage Blade delivers direct attach storage for c-Class server blades, with
support for up to six hot plug small form factor (SFF) SAS or SATA hard disk drives. The enclosure
backplane provides a PCIe connection to the adjacent c-Class server blade and enables high
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