Blade Servers - The Leading Edge Of Servers

Blade servers are modified server configurations designed to optimise the use of physical space by employing a modular approach

. Essentially it is a stripped down motherboard unit, each of which, is a complete computing unit in itself, with processing and data storage capabilities. This is achieved by supplying electricity, cooling, connectivity and storage space through external chassis called blade enclosures. Each of these blade enclosures can hold multiple blade type servers. Together the blade computer server and the blade enclosures constitute the blade system.

The essence of blade computer server technology is that a single card contains the computer processor, memory (for example RAM), Input/output and permanent storage (in the form of flash memory and small hard disks). Hence server vendors are able to package a complete server along with its applications and operating systems in a single card. These cards are alternatively called a board or a blade, hence the name blade servers. These blades can then be housed in a single chassis and are equivalent to multiple separate server boxes. They require less space and have proven to be more efficient in terms of power requirement and convenience in server management.

The blade server architecture was first commercially implemented by Christopher Hipp and David Kirkeby at RLX Technologies based in Houston, U.S. In 2001 the company sold its first blade computer servers before being acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2005. The next step came in February 2006, when blade.org was established in order to push forward the blade server technology to the customers. It is a collaborative organisation that has a dedicated developer community, working on adoption and development of open blade server technology. HP and IBM are the dominant players in the still promising blade server market.

The use of blade technology has a lot of inherent advantages for a business. Nowadays every business has an IT department, so most of the transactions are held on the Internet. Industry watcher Rahul Neel Mani says, "Blade computer servers save space and add functionality to the new class of data centres and server farms". The major advantage for business by employing blades is the ease of management. In a blade system, we are able to plug multiple blades into a single chassis with its own bus architecture, power supply, network connectivity and storage space being shared across blades. This helps to save real estate space and the cost savings can be enormous in a city like London with sky-high real estate process. These savings are very important for a business' profitability.

Blade computer servers have higher processing density, meaning greater computing power per square-foot. With the advent of grid and cloud computing where the computing power is shared, blades are bound to become more popular in the future because blades reduce total cost of ownership by providing a complete, end-to-end technology solution, which greatly improves resource utilisation and reduces the management costs for existing data centres. It provides flexible computing power that is the need of many businesses in the present day scenario.

by: Lawrence White

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