IBM System x3650 M4 review
A 2U rack server, which comes with Intel Xeon processors and introduces IBM's pay-as-you-grow design.
Our system included the IMM2 Advanced upgrade which activates the dedicated Gigabit port at the back. The browser interface sees a substantial redesign over the older IMM and provides a lot more information about critical components. However, it comes up short of Dell's iDRAC7 for features and is beaten soundly by HP's new iLO4 controller.
The new IMM2 management interface includes KVM-over-IP remote control with the Advanced upgrade
IBM System Director
IBM's System Director utility is much easier to use than Dell's Management Console or HP's Insight Control software. Designed to manage all network devices, it provides discovery, software deployment, inventory, file transfer and VNC based remote control tools. The Active Energy Manager plug-in talks to the IMM2 and provides power capping plus trend graphs of power consumption and system temperatures.
IBM is lagging behind in the deployment stakes as you still have to boot its servers with the ServerGuide DVD to get an OS on it. Dell did away with the need for this task three years ago and HP's Gen8 servers have the new Intelligent Provisioning feature.
IBM's System Director is easy to deploy and the Active Energy Manager plugin provides power monitoring graphs and trending
The server is virtualisation ready as its internal USB port uses a key to boot into VMware ESXi or vSphere 5. However, HP's DL380p Gen8 provides internal USB and SD card slots but Dell goes one step beyond as its PowerEdge R720 has dual internal SD card slots for hypervisor redundancy.
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