HPE Servers

Blade Line (BL)

BL server models are enclosure-based. They are made specially for use in a blade enclosure and cannot be used without such. Blade systems aim towards maximum density and manageability at limited rack space.

There are two models of blade enclosures: HPE BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure (8 Bays for Blades), and HPE BladeSystem c7000 Enclosures (16 Bays for Blades).

One advantage of HP/HPE Blade Enclosures compared to competitors (such as IBM Blade Systems) has been that the older generation enclosures have been able to accommodate new generation BL servers just by upgrading the firmware for OA in the enclosure (Onboard Administrator). However improvements to back-plane of the enclosure in the new generation enclosures have enabled faster I/O capabilities (such as 10Gbit/s Ethernet adapters and switches, and Infiniband). The physical design of the enclosures has not changed since the first versions (other than the larger LCD screen at the front compared to the first generation enclosures, and new plastic covers and HPE branding on the 3rd generation enclosures).

ProLiant MicroServer

The HPE ProLiant MicroServer line of products are entry-level, low power, compact, and affordable servers meant for small business, home office, or edge computing. They offer user upgradable components and easy access to hard drives. There is the option to purchase the server with ClearOS installed in order for users to be able to enable applications via an easy-to-use web-GUI with minimal effort.

Details

ProLiant servers are separated into four main product lines – ML, DL, BL, SY, and Apollo – which generally denote form factor. The ProLiant ML line comprises tower-based servers (convertible to rack mount) with capacity for internal expansion of disks and interconnects, while the DL line comprises general purpose rack mount servers. The BL line comprises blade servers which fit within the HP BladeSystem, the SY comprises the Synergy Blades, and the Apollo line comprises servers for scale out and High Performance Computing environments. The MicroServer product line addresses small and home businesses.

ProLiant servers are also split into several series which denote processor configuration. The 100, 200, 300 and 400 series comprise single and dual socket capable systems, the 500 and 600 series comprise quad socket capable systems, and the 700 and 900 series comprise eight socket capable systems. The 900 series supports up to 80 CPU cores and up to 4 TB of RAM.

Models with a ‘0’ in the last digit use Intel processors while models with a ‘5’ in the last digit use AMD processors.^[8]

The ProLiant forms part of the HP Converged Systems, which use a common Converged Infrastructure architecture for server, storage, and networking products.^[9] Designed to support 50 to 300 virtual machines, the HP ConvergedSystem 300 is configured with ProLiant servers.^[10] A system administrator can manage ProLiant servers using HP OneView for converged infrastructure management.^[11]. HP also provide drivers a software for managing servers such as Management Component Pack which includes hp online configuration utility (hponcfg), Agentless Management Service amsd, Smart Storage Administrator (SSA) ssa, Smart Storage Administrator (SSA) CLI ssacli and Smart Storage Administrator Diagnostic Utility (SSADU) CLI ssaducli.