Chris Wagner, Sat, May 14, 2005 at 06:59:03PM -0400: > While we're on this subject, just what *are* blade servers good for? From > what I can tell they're just good for popping in more CPU's as u need them. > But is that really easier/cheaper/better than just putting in another 1U? > As in if each blade is a totally independant system that has to be > individually configured, how is that different from getting another 1U? > When used with an FC array (/var) and NFS (/), blades can be field replaceable. Having the chassis saves days racking and cabling. The management tools are well integrated - you can manage everything from your desk from the moment you power it on. The blades can have dual nics (bonding) and dual FC host adapters (fc failover); with dual switches, FC switches and power supplies in the chassis and dual controllers in the storage array you can have pretty good fault tolerance. They don't really save much space because they are power hogs and you have to satisfy power/sqft requirements. For a midrange solution I would recommend them. The trick is not to get spoiled or soft from using them. ;) -- Angus D Madden
Attachment:
pgpNAw7xLkgdI.pgp
Description: PGP signature