ISP2150 Design Notes
The design of the ISP2150 was in large part guided by customer
and field input on how to improve upon LB440GX. The following
are aspects of the LB440GX that we hoped to improve with the new
product.
Industrial Design
The LB440GX had no bezel. It had a painted metal faceplate which
many customers liked for it’s strong "industrial"
look. That look was never by design; it was simply the fastest
way to get a product to market. The LB440GX also had some
practical problems associated with having no bezel including the
ability to inadvertently shut the system down by brushing
against the exposed power button. There was also no way to
secure the disk drives which in some locations would sometimes
"disappear" potentially with sensitive data on them.
The LEDs allowed a customer to see that a drive had failed, but
not which of the four drives. Historically, Intel designed
systems to be as nondescript as possible. This allowed many OEM
to take the box and using inexpensive means (stickers, etc.)
make it seem like their own design. Given the nature of our
customers and our sales process we wanted to create a more
distinct product identity, knowing that we were still not
planning to put a brand on the product.
We set out to understand what customers wanted and would
appreciate in the industrial design as well as look out into the
future and envision what full racks of Intel equipment might
look like together. This led us quickly to a strategy of shared
industrial design concept with the other Intel divisions. The
new "look" has a number of features that are shared
across multiple product lines.
Common features are the horizontal grillwork and
"forehead", which is the curved upper area. On our
unbranded platforms the "forehead" has a
"titanium" insert. We polled customers and the field
and got an overwhelming response that the bezel should be black.
We made a conscious decision not the paint the entire system
black due to the impact to quality fallout due to scratching in
the manufacturing and packaging processes.
The
new bezel is a strong, lightweight industrial plastic mounted on
metal ears. Built into the bezel are 7 LED’s to provide a
visible indication of power, LAN activity, fault indication,
drive activity and drive fault status. The bezel snaps into
place, but we created the "flip down" mechanism which
saves customers from having to find a place to put (and often
lose or break) the bezel when accessing the drives or buttons. A
lock has been mounted in the center of the bezel providing a
measure of physical security to the drives and power off
buttons. When the bezel can be completely removed if
necessary by pressing in the swing arms. The bezel itself flexes
slightly in order to prevent breakage.
The ISP2150 will ship with a heavy-duty bracket that can be
used for either front or mid-system mounting. Note: The
system must be mounted using this bracket. The metal bezel ears
are not intended for mounting the system.
Depth
The LB440GX was 28" deep. Feedback and research showed the
depth to be a problem in accounts using certain types of
enclosed racks, or at customers which had placed their racks
either back to back or too close to the wall of their
facilities.
The ISP2150 is 24" deep.
New Technology
The ISP2150 is essentially the same highly reliable product we
shipped last year in a sleeker package. The ISP2150 supports all
currently shipping SECC2 processors and will be tested with
future speeds, as they become available. The Server Management
solution remains Intel Server Control R1.9. An Intel version of
Red Hat Linux will ship with the product. This special version
has improvements in the remote installation features (PXE boot)
that have yet to be rolled into the generally available
distribution from Red Hat.
Product Naming
The naming system designates the first digit as the number of Us
(1.75") in a product, followed by the number of CPUs in the
system with the last 2 digits describing the rev of model
number. Product naming will be as follows…
- ISP1100 (1U, single CPU)
- ISP1200 (1U, DP)
- ISP2200 (future 2U, DP)
- ISP4400 (4U quad Xeon™)
The ISP2150 is an exception since it was originally a
short-term product slipped in ahead of the ISP2200. Future
iterations of this product based on the same Serverboard will
continue to carry increments of the ISP2150 series.
Packaging/Accessories
The ISP2150 will not ship with a CD-ROM installed, but with just
a floppy drive. The mounting bracket for a slim-line CD will be
included in the product and customers may purchase a slim-line
CD-ROMs from multiple third parties.
The rail kit will no longer ship with every product, but will
be available as an accessory.
Summary
The ISP2150 is essentially the same highly reliable, high
performance product that we’ve been building since last June.
New features are largely centered around a shorter chassis,
improvements in the industrial design, and packaging changes.
While there is a great deal of excitement around our soon to be
released 1U products, the ISP2150 remains a mature, high volume
product line.