Cisco UCS B230 M2 Blade Server Data Sheet

The Cisco ^® UCS B230 M2 Blade Server is one of the industry's highest-density two-socket blade server platforms. It is a critical new building block in the Cisco Unified Computing System ^™ portfolio, offering compact performance for enterprise-critical applications within the Cisco Unified Computing System architecture. It is an excellent choice for IT departments that are looking for ways to increase computing performance and memory capacity while getting the most value from the available space in their data centers.

Cisco continues its commitment to being a trusted x86 systems provider with a wide range of system options. The Cisco UCS B230 M2 further extends the capabilities of the Cisco Unified Computing System by delivering new levels of performance, energy efficiency, reliability and security for mission-critical applications in a virtualized environment.

The Cisco UCS B230 M2 is based on industry-standard server technologies and provides:

The Cisco UCS B230 M2 is a half-width blade (Figure 1). Up to eight of these high-density two-socket servers can reside in the six-rack-unit (6RU) Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis, offering one of the highest densities of servers per rack unit in the industry.

Table 1 provides an overview of the Cisco UCS B230 M2.

IT departments are constantly looking for ways to increase computing performance and memory capacity while getting the most value from the available space in their data centers. For these environments, Cisco uses the architectural advantages of the Intel ^® Xeon ^® processor E7-2800 product family to deliver new levels of performance, reliability and security. Advanced silicon-level reliability and security features automatically manage hardware errors and protect against malicious software attacks, maintaining data integrity and increasing the availability of mission-critical services. With the introduction of the Cisco UCS B230 M2, Cisco delivers one of the industry's highest-performance two-socket blade server platforms in a dense, half-width form factor. Combining the performance of the Intel ^® Xeon ^® processor E7-2800 product family with up to 32 DIMM slots, the Cisco UCS B230 M2 delivers compact performance and exceptional memory-per-core count to improve virtualization performance, reduce software license costs, and help enable more virtual machines.

The Cisco UCS B230 M2 is managed by Cisco UCS Manager, an award-winning embedded management system that provides unified management of all system components. Cisco's innovative service profile technology embedded in Cisco UCS Manager provisions Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers and their I/O properties (for more information, please see Cisco UCS Manager At-a-Glance). Infrastructure policies needed to provision servers and deploy applications, such as policies for power and cooling, security, identity, hardware health, and Ethernet and storage networking, are encapsulated in the service profiles. Use of service profiles helps reduce the number of manual steps needed for provisioning, the opportunities for human error, and server and network deployment times. In addition, service profiles improve policy consistency and coherency across the entire Cisco Unified Computing System.

Every Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Server uses converged network adapters (CNAs) for access to the unified fabric. This design reduces the number of adapters, cables, and access-layer switches needed while still allowing traditional LAN and SAN connectivity. This Cisco innovation reduces capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenses (OpEx), including administrative overhead and power and cooling costs. Among the I/O options, and unique to the Cisco Unified Computing System, the Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1280 delivers up to 256 dynamic virtual adapters and interfaces, all tightly integrated with Cisco UCS Manager and VMware vCenter Server. Incorporating Cisco VM-FEX technology, this advanced fabric interface unifies virtual and physical networking into a single infrastructure. It provides virtual-machine visibility from the physical network and a consistent network operations model for physical and virtual servers. One of these high-performance adapters can be employed to make use of the significant processing capacity of the Intel ^® Xeon ^® processor E7-2800 product family in the Cisco UCS B230 M2.

Excellent for financial services companies and service providers, the Cisco UCS B230 M2 is designed to efficiently handle demanding database workloads, such as Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC), Microsoft SQL, and single-instance Oracle database workloads, as well as virtualized workloads using VMware ESX and Microsoft HyperV.

The powerful Cisco UCS B230 M2 offers an innovative combination of performance, density, energy efficiency and cost-effective value.

Table 2 summarizes the features and benefits of the Cisco UCS B230 M2.

Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers are designed for use in the Cisco Unified Computing System environment and require Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects, 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis, and 2200 Series Fabric Extenders to function in this integrated environment.

Table 3 summarizes the specifications for the Cisco UCS B230 M2.

Table 4 summarizes regulatory standards compliance.

Find warranty information at Cisco.com on the Product Warranties page.

Using a unified view of data center resources, Cisco and our industry-leading partners deliver services that accelerate your transition to a unified computing environment. Cisco Unified Computing Services helps you quickly deploy your data center resources and optimize ongoing operations to better meet your business needs. For more information about these and other Cisco Data Center Services offerings, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/dcservices.

Cisco has significant experience in listening to customer requirements and providing solid technology innovation for the enterprise data center. Cisco delivers standards-based solutions backed by a broad partner ecosystem of industry leaders to provide end-to-end customer solutions. Unified computing elevates the traditional product classification of network, server, storage, operating systems, and applications to a data center-wide vision. Cisco, as one of the largest technology providers in the world, has the resources, expertise, and customer focus to deliver on the unified computing vision.

For more information about Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers, visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10280/index.html or contact your local Cisco representative.