Top Competitive Selling Points for System x3850 X5 and x3950 X5 (As of April 11, 2013)

The x3850 X5 combines IBM innovation and industry-standard components to deliver a leadership x86 platform for consolidation and virtualization, data warehousing, and enterprise applications. The x3850 X5 features the highest performance, lowest cost of ownership, greatest scalability, and best reliability of any industry-standard server on the market today.

• The x3850 X5  features the IBM eX5 Architecture, the fifth generation of mainframe-inspired IBM Enterprise X-Architecture technology, delivering breakthrough performance and high availability using the latest generation Intel  “Westmere-EX” processors.
• Two four-socket 4U x3850 X5 modules can be converted to a single eight-socket global memory server by connecting them using the X5 QPI scalability kit.
• If additional memory is required, a MAX5 can be connected to each x3850 X5 using a quad cable kit to link it directly to the server’s QPI links.
• MAX5 allows the x3850 X5 to support 3x to 6x the memory capacity of many competing servers, up to 192 DIMMs (6.0 TB) for the two x3850 X5s and two MAX5s. The additional memory pushes the limits of virtualization with the ability to deploy the maximum number of virtual machines supported by VMware.
• The eXFlash greatly speeds I/O, delivering up to 240,000 IOPs. By selecting eXFlash over traditional hard disk drives, clients can achieve a 30x performance increase and 90% better performance per watt for local databases. Cost and complexity savings are phenomenal – a 100-to-1 replacement ratio of traditional drives and cables, $350,000 cost savings over traditional drives, a 10x reduction in energy usage, and up to 30x greater solution density compared to a traditional hard disk drive solution.
• The storage bays support up to eight 2.5-inch drives or up to sixteen 1.8-inch solid state drives. Solid state drives 1) have more than twice the MTBF of conventional drives, 2) are optimized for disk mirroring, and 3) reduce power consumption by over 87% compared to conventional drives.
• IBM’s eX5 Lab Services helps clients leverage the x3850 X5 by delivering free skills transfer and hands-on training.
• IBM eX5 Workload Optimized Solutions deliver tested and proven solutions for data management, smart business solutions, and database engine models.
• IBM Systems Director, combined with Tivoli Provisioning Manager, provides automated image deployment and pre-configured server identity. This means virtual or physical systems can easily be deployed using the automated image-deployment capability in Tivoli Provisioning Manager, nodes can easily be repartitioned remotely using the Node Partitioning feature, automatic recovery parameters can be established, automatic updates can be rolled out, and the new System Guardian capability in the Integrated service Advisor can “call home” for service when needed. Compared to the competition, IBM has a very strong management message.
• The price/performance of the x3850 X5 is superior to Itanium-based entry and midrange servers due to the technology behind the X5 chipset and the ability to support eight-core Xeon processors (Itanium is currently only available as quad-core processors). In most configurations, the x3850 X5 will deliver over twice the performance of any Itanium-based entry or midrange server, and a three-year TCO as low as a third of the Itanium system.
• Hot-swap hard disk drives and cooling fans provide for uninterrupted operations and ease of service.
• Enhanced Predictive Failure Analysis helps identify a troubled component before it actually fails. An easy, tool-less design, combined with Light-Path Diagnostics, quickly leads technicians to the specific component that needs to be replaced.
• IBM Calibrated Vectored Cooling helps keep internal components cool for optimum performance and greater longevity.

Link to ServerProven List for 7143 Models:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/info/x86servers/serverproven/compat/us/xseries/7143.html