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RLX Technologies Unveils 6th Generation Blade Server

RLX Technologies Inc announced the SB6400, the 6th generation of its blade servers. The SB6400 will feature dual Intel Xeon processors with the Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T), as well as significant manageability features. RLX also announced two new managed rack-dense servers in the 1U form factor, the RM1400 and the RM1100, both of which also support the Intel EM64T architecture.

The SB6400 continues RLX's tradition of setting the standard in high performance blade servers. As with earlier generations of RLX blade servers, it has enhanced manageability via an on-board processor and a dedicated management network. Key other enhancements in the SB6400 are DDR-2 memory, an 800MHz front side bus, and PCI Express support. It also features on-board integration of Infiniband and Fibre Channel for high performance I/O, storage, and clustering. And it continues to have a non-blocking mid-plane design that facilitates better air flow and cooling.

"The SB6400 continues RLX's tradition of setting the standard in high performance blade servers," said Doug Erwin, CEO of RLX Technologies. "The blade form factor is extending its appeal into mainstream IT applications, and the Intel EM64T functionality will allow RLX to offer the higher performance of 64-bit processors for these environments."

The SB6400 will be supported by RLX's award-winning management software, Control Tower 6G, recently called by eWeek "the best management platform" for blade servers. The policy-based automation capabilities in Control Tower 6G allow administrators to go beyond basic monitoring and provisioning to advanced capabilities such as Power Management, Disaster Recovery, and Server Optimization.

"While other vendors talk about grand on-demand visions, RLX delivers this capability today," said Erwin. "The combination of the SB6400 and Control Tower 6G allows for the dynamic allocation of compute resources based on business demand. As such it is an ideal platform for scale out applications, server consolidation, and high performance compute clusters."

The RM1400 is a high performance rack server in the 1U form factor. It supports dual Xeon processors with Intel EM64T functionality, up to 4 SCSI disk drives and 8GB of DDR-2 memory. The RM1100 is an entry 1U server that is cost-optimized for large edge application deployments. It features either an Intel Celeron or Pentium 4 processor, up to 4 GB of DDR-2 memory and 2 SATA disk drives.

The major feature that differentiates both RLX rack servers from other similar 1U servers is that both are equipped with an Intelligent Management Kit. This allows the server to be managed with the full functionality of the RLX Control Tower 6G management product. This includes dynamic provisioning, policy-based automation, and monitoring of network services.

Key SB 6400 features and benefits include:

• DDR2/400MHz Memory
• Dual Intel Xeon EM64T processor support
• Agilent Management Processor
• Single or Dual on board direct attached storage (IDE or SAS)
• Industry leading connectivity of Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or Gb Ethernet through PCI-X
• Native support in all major operating systems including Microsoft Windows 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora Core for easy integration into popular operating environments