HP Blade Center

[hermiod]

We are currently in the process of planning for a new network environment (new domain, beefed up WAN, VMs, Thin Clients, the works).

We have a single blade chassis currently which is ringfenced from the rest of the network as it contains the new prototype domain. It is currently populated with 5 blades.

We are in the situation where the new environment isn't going to be ready in time for September and we are desperately in need of some new hardware for one of our systems. The system in question is Celcat and is currently running on an ML370 with Windows 2000/SQLS2000 and is creaking. We will be starting to use Celcat Attendance next year, and we fear the server just won't handle the additional work.

Even though the chassis is ringfenced from the rest of the domain (using ACLs on the switches I believe), is it possible to have a single blade in the chassis hooked up to the network via the front I/O port.
Can this port be used for ethernet?

If this doesn't work, we may be in the situation where we have to buy a much more expensive rack-mounted server which will be surplus to requirements in a few years - not something we are eager to do!

Would be interested in hearing any ideas that the Pros on Edugeek might have.

[john]

Could you not look at buying a refurbished server from ICT Direct (an Edugeek Sponsor) to help get you through the gap?

I would think you would be best having another good server as well as the 1 blade centre in-case something really bad occurred with the blade centre and John had servers from as little as £199 which really isn't that bad!

Servers for schools and colleges from ICT Direct Ltd

[hermiod]

Could you not look at buying a refurbished server from ICT Direct (an Edugeek Sponsor) to help get you through the gap?

I would think you would be best having another good server as well as the 1 blade centre in-case something really bad occurred with the blade centre and John had servers from as little as £199 which really isn't that bad!

Servers for schools and colleges from ICT Direct Ltd

Thanks for the tip John, I will look in to it.
While I wouldn't normally go for refurbed servers, it might be worth it in this case...

[john]

Thanks for the tip John, I will look in to it.
While I wouldn't normally go for refurbed servers, it might be worth it in this case...

I will vouch for ICT Directs quality of kit its brilliant, and I know many members on here have bought PCs and Servers from him and they are great kit. Very much worth a look at

[james_yale]

I'm not sure if you can use the port on the front of the bladecenter to directly connect through to a blade's network interface (strongly suspect not) but you certianly can directly map it to one of the free switch ports on the back of the bladecenter.

I'd suggest leveraging your investment in your new infrastructure would be preferable to buying more legacy servers too.

[hermiod]

Thanks for all your replies guys.

We opted for a HP DL160 G6 in the end, not the greatest build quality in the world, but it wasn't too expensive and we can use it as a UAT server once the new Blade-powered environment comes in, so it won't be completely wasted hardware in a few year's time.