Blade Server

Overview

Blade servers, also known as high density servers, are among the most popular types of servers available. These servers are an integral part of a computer's configuration where power, cooling, storage, and connectivity are largely provided by an outer housing known as a chassis. The chassis contains a number of specialized motherboard units. These servers are known for their small size and contain only required processing and storage elements. Blade servers are typically used in clustering of servers that are dedicated to a particular task.

Blade server technology was developed through a partnership between IBM and Intel. It started as a response to the growing needs for a data center and the requirement of a boost in server performance without an increase in size, cost, and complications in management. Later, a number of major companies came together to form a community with a mission to accelerate the growth and adoption of blade server technologies in the market.

The cost of a blade server depends on the number of servers, the brand, and the cooling system that you have set up. Expect to pay at least several thousand dollars.

Benefits

When investing in a blade server, it is important that you must take a look at its advantages. Firstly, due to its smaller size it occupies less rack space than other servers. Secondly, blade servers have more processing power, which improves the performance of the server. Blade servers require less power and fewer cords.

Blade servers do not generate as much heat as traditional servers. So, it is comparatively easy to maintain a cooling system for blade servers. Latest models of blade servers have high processing speed and adjustable fans that cool the server.

How It Works

A blade server can host up to 8 to 16 servers in a small area. In any case, you must take consider that more servers require more energy. This also means a more powerful cooling system will be necessary.

Thin modular electronic circuit boards known as server blades are present inside the blade server. Each blade acts as a server and is dedicated to a single application. This task could be sharing files, encrypting web communication, serving and caching web pages, streaming audio and video content, and deciphering web content. These blades contain memory integrated network controllers, fiber channel host bus adaptors (HBA), processors, and input/output (IO) ports. Each blade has one or two Advanced Technological Attachment (ATA) or Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) drives. Blade servers provide additional storage through Network-attached Storage (NAS), iSCSI Storage-area network (SAN), and fiber optics.

Companies/Brands

There are many companies that manufacture blade servers. Some of the leading blade server providers include IBM, Dell, Sun Microsystems, HP, and Cisco.