IBM eServer xSeries 236

As general workhorses for small businesses and remote offices, IBM's eServer 200 pedestal servers have a lot going for them. The xSeries 236 on review offers plenty of options to mix and match, as it's available as a tower or rack-mount system and has enough internal space to provide a high storage capacity. In fact, storage options are very extensive for an SME server. The 236 can be supplied with hot-swap Serial ATA (SATA) disks and, along with 3.5in Ultra320 SCSI disks, IBM is also offering hot-swap 2.5in SCSI disks.

The sleek, black chassis offers the typically high standard of build quality we've come to expect from IBM. Physical security is good, as the front panel can be key-locked, which prevents access to all devices and hard disks as well as the release lever for the side panel. One feature that IBM has always been proud of is its unique LightPath system. A display is built into the side panel for at-a-glance diagnostics. It provides LED indicators for all critical system components, including processors, power supplies, memory, disks and environmental values.

Storage options abound, as the main cage has room for up to six hot-swap hard disks. The server came supplied with a full complement of 146GB Ultra320 drives fitted in solid hot-swap carriers. Expansion options are good, as there's room above for three 5.25in devices, with the lower bay home to a basic IDE CD-ROM drive.

Versatility is the name of the game here, as the review system had a second drive cage installed ready for action. This accepts three more hot-swap SCSI drives and the backplane can be cabled directly to the second SCSI channel on the motherboard. Room for a total of nine hot-swap drives allows the 236 to expand easily as storage demands increase. Internal design is tidy enough, with easy access to all the key components. Cooling is handled particularly well. The drive cage has two dedicated fans, the large shroud covering the processors and memory contains two more, and another pair are bolted on to the outside of the rear panel. All internal fans are hot-swappable and overall noise levels are surprisingly low, making the 236 a good choice for smaller offices.

For its entry-level servers, IBM usually calls on MSI to supply the motherboard, but the 236 uses one of IBM's own boards, which provides a good range of features and options. Storage is handled by an embedded dual-channel Adaptec Ultra320 chipset, but a separate DIMM socket on the motherboard contains a cache memory module and battery backup pack. Offered as an IBM ServeRAID-7k, it takes over the SCSI channels to provide RAID0, 1 and 5 support along with hot-swap and hot-standby. You also get IBM's ServeRAID Manager software, which offers good levels of access to the controller, arrays and drives. It provides plenty of information about physical and logical drives from its well-designed interface, and allows arrays to be created on-the-fly and new disks designated as hot spares or added to existing arrays. Alerting options are superb, as the Notification Manager allows warnings to be added to the system log and broadcast to selected remote workstations. Email alerts can be sent to any number of recipients and it's possible to decide on the level of information sent to each one.

IBM didn't supply the system with an OS pre-installed, so this gave us a good opportunity to try out its ServerGuide utility. Suffice to say, it gets things off to a flying start. The bootable CD-ROM offers to lead you through setting up the hard disks, creating a system partition, installing drivers and loading your chosen OS. It also provides access to the ServeRAID Manager, allowing you to set up arrays during this phase as well. Server management comes courtesy of Director, which is IBM's standard software platform for all its workstations, laptops and servers. It requires an agent loaded locally and offers a good range of tools for local and remote monitoring of critical system components. Plenty of operational information is provided about the various hardware components. If an error or failure is detected, there's a huge selection of event actions available, with options to send alerts by email, network broadcast, SNMP trap and even posting to a newsgroup of your choice.