LaserBlades With PCI Bus Extension
Frequently Asked Questions
What are LaserBlades?
As blade servers, Cubix
LaserBlades are quite straightforward. They are highly serviceable, front
accessible, front removable dual Xeon, Pentium D and Pentium 4 PC servers with
support for PCI Express, PCI-X (Xeon) and PCI adapters. There are blade server
options for multiple SATA drives.
At the heart of each
LaserBlade is a standard Intel chipset, packaged in blade format for optimal
space, power and cooling efficiencies. Unlike other blade vendor products,
there is nothing proprietary about the electronics design. By utilizing Intel
chipsets, LaserBlades are as industry standard as is possible, with support for
all OS, utilities suites and interfaces that Intel supports.
LaserBlades support PCIe, PCI-X and PCI adapters
within the blades themselves, and additional PCI adapters in the complementary
I/O blade. Other blade systems do not support any PCI adapters.
As blade
PCs, Cubix LaserBlades are configured with specialized adapters that reside in
the blade that extend the blades’ PCI bus signals over distance. The link to
this configuration option is here: _________ .
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What are LaserPoints?
LaserPoints are simply
LaserBlades packaged in standalone enclosures. The LaserPoint enclosure is
primarily a metal shell with an AC power connector that provides hardware to
rack mount the LaserBlade electronics in a standard 19” rack. The LaserPoint
can be mounted in a 2 or 4 post rack.
Oftentimes,
integrators and OEMs use LaserPoints as “starter systems” for project
initiation. After the technology is proven for the application, then the
LaserBlade core may be migrated intact to the LaserBlade enclosure. Thus, you
can achieve continuity of technology from the smallest to the largest project.
Moving the blade from the LaserPoint enclosure to the LaserBlade enclosure is
very straightforward. You simply remove the entire core, leave the shell, and
plug the core into the LaserBlade enclosure. The LaserPoint enclosure can them
be re-used on another project or simply discarded, as it is inexpensive.
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What are I/O blades?
I/O blades are
designed to expand the number of PCI slots that LaserBlades support. The
typical LaserBlade supports one PCI slot; however, there are many solutions that
require two, three, four, or five PCI adapters. VOIP, video surveillance,
telephony, fax broadcasting and process control applications are just a few of
the many system configurations that may require multiple PCI adapters.
The I/O blade is the
same form factor as a singlewide LaserBlade and it fits within the LaserBlade
enclosure. A PCI bus extension adapter is added to the LaserBlade, which
connects via a fiber optic cable to another PCI bus extension adapter in the I/O
blade.
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