Blade System?

[SerialThriller]

I was wondering what people mean when they talk about a blade system or a blade?

Plz let me know if this is a dumb question, but answers are nice.

Ty for any replies.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Blade = super-small, and sometimes combined with other blades into a single box.

In a data center, the server racks are standardized sizes and are x "units" high. A 16-unit rack could hold 16 "1u" server cases, but blades might be packed even more tightly, for example with 4 blade servers crammed together into a single "2u" 2-unit-high case.

In a box like that, each blade works as a standard separate server, it's not a dual- or quad-processor single server.

Reasons for using include space, power, heat, and maintenance.

 

[Sunner]

There are some quite beefy blades these days.
HP's smallest are Pentium-M based, and you can fit 20(IIRC) blades into a 3U enclosure(a full height rack is 42U).
Their biggest ones OTOH are 4-way Xeon MP's with 4 SCSI disks, you can only put 3 or 4 of those in one 6U enclosure.

 

[WackyDan]

Blades are referred to mostly in the server market, though there are some vendors out there with blade style workstations.

A blade is essentially a server with all of the included utility stripped off, meaning the blade is essentially a mobo with some connectors that help it connect into a host chassis. The blade has no power supply, ideally no fans, perhaps no local storage, and is more densely rackable than a standard rack mount server which includes all of it's own utility.

The blades slide into a chassis that provide power to all the other baldes in the chassis, as well cooliing, perhaps connectivity, and very importantly, systems management.

The up front costs are higher due to the chassis, but there is a break even point as you populate the chassis to it's full potential.

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: Sunner
There are some quite beefy blades these days.
HP's smallest are Pentium-M based, and you can fit 20(IIRC) blades into a 3U enclosure(a full height rack is 42U).
Their biggest ones OTOH are 4-way Xeon MP's with 4 SCSI disks, you can only put 3 or 4 of those in one 6U enclosure.

IBM is leading the market with their Blades. Denser than HP-up to 14 blades per chassis, far more cable reduction-connectivity within chassis, and not a single fan on any of their blades-vs HP that still puts fans on blades.

HP puts fans on their their blades, which 1. means they don't have a grasp on the thermals involved with the density of blades and 2. it's highly inefficient as every fan produces heat which in that environment is not welcome.

IBM has a commanding market share for those reasons and more. Over 40% of the blade server market belongs to IBM, and Since Intel co-designed the IBM BladeCenter, Intel also OEMs' the same chassis. When you add the Intel OEM and IBM market shares you come out with over 50% share on the IBM design.

Yes.... I work with blade servers. How'd you guess?

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: WackyDan

Originally posted by: Sunner
There are some quite beefy blades these days.
HP's smallest are Pentium-M based, and you can fit 20(IIRC) blades into a 3U enclosure(a full height rack is 42U).
Their biggest ones OTOH are 4-way Xeon MP's with 4 SCSI disks, you can only put 3 or 4 of those in one 6U enclosure.

IBM is leading the market with their Blades. Denser than HP-up to 14 blades per chassis, far more cable reduction-connectivity within chassis, and not a single fan on any of their blades-vs HP that still puts fans on blades.

HP puts fans on their their blades, which 1. means they don't have a grasp on the thermals involved with the density of blades and 2. it's highly inefficient as every fan produces heat which in that environment is not welcome.

IBM has a commanding market share for those reasons and more. Over 40% of the blade server market belongs to IBM, and Since Intel co-designed the IBM BladeCenter, Intel also OEMs' the same chassis. When you add the Intel OEM and IBM market shares you come out with over 50% share on the IBM design.

Yes.... I work with blade servers. How'd you guess?

And I work with HP servers, couldn't guess that one eh?

Anyway, IIRC HP's marketshare is bigger in Europe, while IBM holds the US market.