Blade server recommendations?

[James Flinton <james.flinton@gmail.com>]

Good afternoon,

We're looking to buy some blade servers, and wondered if anyone could
offer advice on which to buy or avoid?

I have read that HP support Woody on their servers, although this
article was dated 2002.
I have also read that Intel/IBM are pushing their "open" blade
architecure, and seem to be winning.

My primary concerns are:
 1. Will it run Debian 3.1?
 2. Heartbeat - no serial cables.
 3. HP, IBM/Intel or someone else?

Should a blade act like any other machine, and work out of the box, or
are there any particular things to watch out for? We don't want to use
binary drivers, thery're too much trouble.

As for heartbeat, we prefer to use serial connections for heartbeat,
rather than tcp/ip, but we have not seen any blades with serial
connections - do they even exist?

Any recommendations, on or off list would be welcomed.

Regards,
James Flinton