Know anything about HP BLc3000 blade server cases?

[tankman1989]

I picked up one of these units in a purchase and it it "came with the lot" so I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. The model number is: HP 508664-B21 and NewEgg has it listed here: HP Blade Listing

This thing is HEAVY! With everything pulled out of it that seems possible it still weighs about 120-200lbs! This means the fans in the back and the blade computers in the front.

The specs on the page and overview don't say much about it but the price is pretty high at $7.500 or so. Is this for just the case with power supply and no blades? It seems to me that it is.

Does anyone know anything about these, especially what makes them so heavy? It seems that there is incredible weight towards the middle back of the unit, across the width of it.

 

[14049752]

No, the $7500 includes the ICE license, like the newegg listing says. If you look on ebay, you'll see that the hardware is listed around $4000 - $4500.

As far as the weight of the thing....no idea. You have it in front of you, take a look at it.... I'd guess that it's the backplate for the blades that weighs a lot.

 

[tankman1989]

No, the $7500 includes the ICE license, like the newegg listing says. If you look on ebay, you'll see that the hardware is listed around $4000 - $4500.

As far as the weight of the thing....no idea. You have it in front of you, take a look at it.... I'd guess that it's the backplate for the blades that weighs a lot.

I've pulled EVERYTHING out of the rack that is possible and there is something about 35% from the back to the middle of the unit - it's something solid and heavy that I can't figure out what it is. It seems like lead casing or caste iron blocks or something. I thought maybe copper cooling fins but even that can't weigh as much as it does.

As for the ICE license, I know it stands for "Insight Control Environment" and searched it but still didn't get details about it. Does anyone have experience with this? Is the license transferable with the case?

I found this about ICE:

With Insight Control, you can manage HP servers running Microsoft Windows, Red Hat and SUSE Linux, VMware ESX, and Microsoft Hyper-V environments. You can also enjoy single-console access using Insight Control with leading third-party enterprise management consoles, like HP Operations Manager, Microsoft System Center, and VMware vCenter.

Insight Control is easy to purchase, via standalone licenses or via bundles with HP ProLiant servers and BladeSystem enclosures.

I'm guessing it is just some proprietary server monitoring software?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

As for the ICE license, I know it stands for "Insight Control Environment" and searched it but still didn't get details about it.

First hit on Google
http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/ent...ement/insight-control/index.aspx#.UoINNvnAPgw