Last month, IBM unveiled a new four-core, Power 6+ processor-driven JS23 BladeCenter that can be doubled up to make an eight-core JS43. The JS23 and JS43's predecessors, the JS12 and JS22, raised questions about their lack of physical disk support, lock-in to Big Blue SANs and the absence of a tape adaptor. Do the new i-driven blades answer these concerns?

"Not really," says Qcubed's Glenn Robinson. "They are only providing more memory and faster processors. iOS 6.1 on a blade only supports SAN virtualised disk. IBM has announced support for attachment of other SANs via the IBM San Volume Controller (SVC). This unit sits between the SANs and the servers and presents the storage to the servers using virtualisation software. This means that a customer could be using HP storage and have SVC present this to the VIOS on the blade which then presents it to i6.1."

Robinson has been something of a standard bearer for the Power blade. As well as presenting seminars and writing about blade deployment, his company is having some success selling the new hardware to UK I users. "We’re talking to three customers about it this week," he says. "One is a new i customer, the other two are existing users with multi-LPAR Power5 systems."

Reservations aside, can the JS23 and JS43 give the blade concept more traction in the i market? Robinson says: "They are very powerful processors and are in a P10 software group so I think it will help. I think the major issue for most customers are that i-on-blade has to use the VIOS. It’s seen as a retrograde step in that we are now dependent upon another LPAR on the blade to get storage and networking. Plus, the VIOS is a subset of AIX which scares i customers."

Although Qcubed is keen to spread the blade message, other IBM business partners (BPs) in the UK seem rather less proactive. Mike Mernagh, business director at Power i hardware distributor Avnet Technology Solutions, says: "Blade technology in the i world is a relatively new technology. There is no doubt it will take time for the value-proposition to percolate into tangible demand for these benefits. Avnet has had a number of positive conversations with business partners. There is certainly interest in how this technology can be used."

Mernagh points to Avnet's own efforts to promote blades to the British business partner community including live demos its Bracknell training centre, which it calls THE[resource]. Robinson says: "My feeling is that those BPs/ISVs with an i-based software product are testing their software on blade as they are concerned about I/O throughput. Once they are happy, then I think we’ll see more BPs proposing i on blade."

IBM featured a fully-loaded BladeCenter chassis at April's i-Fidelity conference in Manchester and the comments the hardware provoked amongst delegates were interesting. Many seemed struck by how small the blade servers were. Perhaps being able to see, touch and play with the technology is all that is needed to make users more alert to its potential.

"Visual comparison of blade technology with traditional form factors can crystallise the advantage of the technology in terms of footprint, ease of management, consolidation of IT, the green agenda and the security aspect," says Mernagh. "Avnet has blade technology in the THE [resource] where business partners can not only come along and see for themselves but also interact directly with the technology and its management systems to get a real feel for its potential."

Feedback from System iNetwork indicates that some users see blades as IBM relegating the i to just another server alongside a bunch of Intel counterparts and somehow irrelevant to the platform's greater "struggle". Could they be right?

"When the AS/400 was announced, I remember a lot of people laughing at the mainframe," says Robinson . "This was new and mainframe was old hat. Many of the same people from back then now appear to have that mainframe mentality. The business edge has been provided by the OS itself so IBM i on a blade or a block shouldn’t concern people. Also, a lot of the hardware technology for which the AS/400 and iSeries is renowned for has found its way into BladeCenter technology."

Robinson likens migrating to i on blade to migrating from CISC to RISC. "From a technical standpoint it was exciting," he says. "The reality is that it’s really dull. The OS is the same, you still see disks, you still see network adapters but this is IBM i’s strength. You move from one hardware technology to another and it just works. This is so important to businesses and something which must not be overlooked."

As for future Power i blade developments, Robinson says: "My personal opinion is that, at some point in the future, IBM i, as well as AIX, running on blade or blocks will have to use VIOS. The functionality VIOS provides is similar to VMware and Hyper-V so it makes sense to have similar virtualisation technologies across all your hardware platforms."