What Is Blade Server Technology?
A server is a computer used to provide servers to other computers over a network. Generally, servers are more powerful computers than laptops or PCs. The machines take up more space, are kept in a special secure room and are accessed only by authorised personnel. A blade server is a stripped-down server with many noncore functions shifted to the housing unit.
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Features
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If an organization requires many servers, the machines are kept in a common location. The responsibility of maintaining the servers is shared by the support staff. The blade server concept takes this sharing concept one step further. A server has a cooling system and power supply. With blade servers, these functions are moved to the rack, or chassis, which is like a cupboard with shelves. Each shelf is a slot to house a blade server, which is little more than motherboard.
History
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IBM formed the Blade Computing Community together with other manufacturers of the technology in 2006. This organization has a website at blade.org, where Blade standards are published and available for download. HP, Hitachi, Sun Microsystems and Dell also produce blade systems.
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Function
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Not all blades are processors. A blade may provide storage management functions to other blades in the same chassis or networking services.
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References
- Photo Credit stock illustration of computer server icon image by Ruslana Stovner from Fotolia.com
