495 G5 or 685 G5 for ESX Consolidation?

[DerekS_1]

We are in the planning stage of a ESX consolidation project for a few dozen physical servers into BladeSystem servers with ESX 3.5.

One thought is to use ~16 495 G5 servers since they have the embedded 10G Ethernet NICs. They would be dual processor equipped with 32GB or 64GB of RAM.

The other thought is to go with ~8 695 G5 servers with 64GB, quad processor configuration.

The VMs will not have a high workload, so equipping each 695 with a single dual port 4GB FC card should not be a problem.

On the pro 695 side is: Less physical servers to manage, potentially less cabling and interconnect modules, and fewer ESX hosts to manage. On the 495 side is built-in 10G, maybe better performance. I know we can easily add 10G to the 695s.

Does anyone know what the 685 G6 will offer and a potential release date?

Thoughts?

[DerekS_1]

I should add that the pricing two 495s is substantially less than one 695 that is configured with 2x the 495 specs. So the 495 route seems much cheaper, even if it is more ESX hosts to manage.

[Ken Henault · Accepted solution]

Another advantage of going with the BL495c is the smaller number VMs running on each ESX host. It's common to run 15 to 25 VMs on a BL495, and 30 to 50 VMs on a BL685. The larger number of VMs on a single system is more difficult to manage in the case of a system failure, or in case you need to take one offline for maintenance.

I prefer to size the environment so that I can take one system offline for maintenance, and still survive another unplanned outage. That is significantly more expensive with a four socket system than a two socket system.

ESX licensing is significant cost of this solution, but you license by the socket, so either way the sofware cost is the same.

You'll need to get in touch with a HP representitive to get the futures under a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

[DerekS_1]

Thanks for the reply! Ya after looking at the cost of the blades and your good points, the 495 seems like the best route.