In the past five years, few new technologies have impacted server rooms and data centres more profoundly than the arrival of blade servers. Blades offer multiple benefits to both small businesses and enterprises. Most importantly, blades can improve flexibility and manageability while also reducing rack space requirements. Of course, blades also have their drawbacks and there are some tasks that are not well-suited to blade servers.
You can read all about what blade servers can do to improve your server environment, as well as their deficiencies, using the following resources:
Dell's new blade – home grown or not?
Dell's second-generation blade server is set for release in the near future, but there is some debate in computing circles as to exactly who designed it...
Blade servers: A thin proposition?
After a faltering start, blade servers are beginning to be taken seriously by companies looking to upgrade and rationalise their server infrastructure, but there are still problems to overcome.
IBM Whitepaper: To Blade or Not to Blade - That is the IT Question
Blade servers are selling like hotcakes these days, and with good reason. They can offer a level of rack density and network/infrastructure integration previously unknown. A key reason for the interest in blade servers is the attractiveness of physical consolidation of IT resources for better management and control, combined with lower costs. Blade servers do offer superior density, but just as a uni-processor 1U server may not be appropriate for enterprise database applications, and an eight-way 7U server isn't ideal as a file/printer server, so too are blade servers better suited for some uses than others. This paper compares IBM BladeCenter with other IBM rack-optimised servers, and shows which may work best in various environments
Intel Whitepaper: Changing the IT Paradigm: Blade Server Computing
Blade servers enable greater business agility with flexible data centre resources while cutting operating and management costs. This paper looks at the emerging modular computing paradigm and technology of blade servers what blades are, the blade server market segment and the benefits data centres can receive by adopting blade-based computing
