Power requirements vs DL380 G5

[jcommatt]

I am trying to do a comparison between the C Class Bl460c and the DL380 G5 range of servers with respect to their power and cooling needs. The different HP power calculators are slightly confusing.
I am trying to show a customer that moving to blades will save him power and cooling in his datacentre.
Has anyone done a similar calculation ?
Thanks
Matt

[Oleg Koroz]

for C use Power Sizer
http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/347628-0-0-0-121.html

for DL use quick spec
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12477_na/12477_na.html

Probably that would be only one way how to put all numbers together

[David Claypool · Accepted solution]

Matt:

The BL460c is roughly equivalent to the DL360 and the BL480c is roughly equivalent to the DL380 due to their respective expansion.

Looking at 8 BL480c blades compared to 8 DL380 rack mounts, the totals are [comparing 2 CPU/4 drives/4GB RAM]

..........BL480c (8).....DL380 (8)
Input (W) 3523 4416 (8 x 552)
BTU 12012 15056 (8 x 1882)*

If you do it with the BL460c, it's even more dramatic:

..........BL460c (8).....DL380 (8)
Input (W) 2902 4416 (8 x 552)
BTU 9895 15056 (8 x 1882)*

...these are from the power calculators.

*BTUs aren't necessarily additive, so multiplying by 8 is a little misleading

[Adrian Clint]

Matt

Here is a sample calculation I did last month for a customer with the same request. I was doing it as BL460 vs DL360G5, DL380G5 will obviously consume more.
I used the online calculator for the blades as mentioned above and downloaded the spreadsheet calculator for the server, which I got from the a link on the power section in the quickspecs. Cant remember if I selected 230v or 240v. But make sure its the same on both. I queried this with HP blade presales and got back the response that my calculation results looked correct.


2x Dual Core Intel 5140 2.33GHz
2GB Memory
2x 36GB RAID1
Redundant Power
Redundant Network Connections
Redundant Fibre Connection (single HBA)
Specified at 50% utilization
Both using external SAN & Network switches. (Pass-thru)
One OA


Sixteen DL360 servers would consume 5136 Watts (321 each)
Sixteen BL460c server would consume 3308 Watts (588 for the enclosure and 170 each)

One thing that could affect the difference is wether the iLO power regulator power saving mode is switched on. By default on c-Class it is switched on and I assume calculations reflect this.
On DL servers it is switched off by default. So does the calculator assume it is switched on or not? I dont know but assume its on.

[Adrian Clint]

Matt,

There is also an HP NDA single page presentation showing a DL360 & BL460 comparison spec and the power calculation results. Ask at HP for it.

Basically 16x BL460 came in at 226 watts at 100% utilization and 16x DL360 came in at 340 watts

Adrian