What your blade server offers

The design of the blade server takes advantage of advancements in chip technology, memory management, and data storage.

The blade server uses the following features and technologies:

Baseboard management controller (BMC)
The enhanced BMC for the PS703 or PS704 blade server is a flexible service processor that provides support for the following functions:
- Alert Standard Format (ASF) and RS-485 interfaces to the management modules
- Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
- The operating system
- Power control and advanced power management
- Reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features
- Serial over LAN (SOL)
- Continuous health monitoring and control
- Configurable notification and alerts
- Event logs that are time stamped and saved in nonvolatile memory and that can be attached to email alerts
- Point-to-point protocol (PPP) support
- Remote power control
- Remote firmware update and access to critical blade server settings
Disk drive support
The blade server supports either serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) solid-state drives (SSDs) or serial-attached SCSI (SAS) hard-disk drives (HDDs) in the following configurations:
- Up to two 1.8" SATA SSDs or one SAS HDD for the PS703
- Up to four 1.8" SATA SSDs or two SAS HDDs for the PS704
Note: It is recommended, but not required, that you install the first HDD in your blade server's base unit.
IBM® Director
IBM Director is a workgroup-hardware-management tool that you can use to centrally manage the PS703 or PS704 blade server, including updating the PS703 or PS704 firmware.
Impressive performance using the latest microprocessor technology
The blade server comes with two POWER7® microprocessors for the PS703 and four POWER7 microprocessors for the PS704.
I/O expansion
The blade server has connectors on the system board for optional CIOv and High Speed expansion cards, such as Fibre Channel and InfiniBand expansion cards, for adding more network communication capabilities to the blade server.
Large system memory capacity
The memory bus in the PS703 server supports up to 128 GB of system memory and the PS704 server supports up to 256 GB of system memory. For the official list of supported DIMMs, see the at ServerProven® website (http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/).
Light path diagnostics
Light path diagnostics provides light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to help you diagnose problems. An LED on the blade server control panel is lit if an unusual condition or a problem occurs. If this happens, you can look at the LEDs on the system board to locate the source of the problem.

For more information, see Light path diagnostics LEDs.
Power throttling
If your BladeCenter® unit supports power management, the power consumption of the blade server can be dynamically managed through the management module. For more information, see the online management-module documentation or the IBM support site at http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/.

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