What are the advantages of blade server?

Answer 1

Blade servers use shared power and cooling across a common enclosure. This allows switch-mode power supplies to run more efficiently by running some of the power modules at near full capacity, and others at near idle. Cooling system fans can be made larger and airflow can be targeted since the enclosure can be designed without adhering to very small height constrictions. Better power and cooling translates to less electrical energy consumption. Connectivity for optical transport links, such as Fibre Channel Storage, and Fiber Ethernet, can be carried to the first interconnect device over the backplane traces inside the enclosure via fibre-over-copper links, reducing the cost of HBAs and the number of optical GBICs required for the switches. The number of cables required to carry outbound data is drastically reduced since the Ethernet and Storage switches are integrated into the back of the enclosure. Finally, the footprint of the combined servers and interconnects takes up less space than typical rack servers and switches, which can be converted into real estate savings by most entities. A rule of thumb is that you should start with at least half the enclosure populated with blade-servers to realize any savings, since the enclosure itself must be absorbed into the total cost of the deployment.

Answer 2

Blade server technology has a number of useful features that makes it a fine solution for many of today's server configurations. Utilizing blade server technology allows for a system that delivers high performance in a limited footprint. As hot-swappable devices, individual blades can be brought offline and replaced without interruption to the overall system. It should be noted that while blades from a wide range of vendors can theoretically all work together simultaneously, systems containing units from one common manufacturer tend to be easier to optimize and support.