What Is a Blade Server?
Blade servers allow more processing power in less physical space. Instead of all the components being in one enclosure, only core components are in the "blades," while nonessential components are in an enclosure. Since being introduced in 2001, the servers have become popular with web providers and data processors.
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History
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Blade servers can trace their roots back to the 1970s when computers were built into racks. The term blade server was first used when manufactures included a processor, memory, and applications together on one board. The first modern blade server technology was manufactured in 2001 by RLX Technologies, a company started by former Compaq Computer employees.
The Server Blade
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The blade is a stripped-down computer server, which houses only a processor, memory and storage, as well as software and applications. All other functions are assigned to the blade's enclosure. As a result, blades are easy and inexpensive to manufacture.
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The Enclosure
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The enclosure provides all nonessential features of the computer not related to processing information, such as power, cooling and networking. The enclosure also is a scalable solution that maximizes computing power and minimizes space. Since the enclosure is not part of the blades, the system can run numerous tasks independently on each of the blade components.
Uses
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Blade servers, because of their scalability, are used for web hosting and mass cluster computer processing. Website providers and data processors can increase bandwidth by upgrading individual blades instead of the entire enclosure.
Manufacturers
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RLX Technologies, the first major provider, was acquired by Hewlett-Packard 2005. Today, the largest manufacturers are IBM and HP. Others include AVADirect, Sun Microsystems, Egenera, Super Micro, Hitachi, Fujitsu-Siemens, Dell and Intel.
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