A blade server is a modularly designed server computer that is optimized to use minimal physical space and energy. Blade servers typically lack many of the components of a rack server and only have CPUs, memory, network interface cards, and occasionally storage drives to reduce the space and power consumption. Multiple blade servers slide into a blade enclosure, or blade chassis, which provide the ability to fit many servers into a single rack for high processing power.
Blade servers are most commonly used by larger data centers because they have a strong need to maximize space and power capacity utilization and efficiency, have high computing requirements, and can support a higher thermal and electrical load.
The benefits of using blade servers include:
- Reduced power consumption. Blade chassis provide power to many servers, reducing total consumption.
- Increased processing power. Blade servers allow for extremely high processing power in a minimal amount of physical space.
- Easily serviceable. Blade servers can be hot swappable, meaning if one server requires maintenance, it can easily be pulled and replaced.
- Reduced cabling. Blade servers require less cabling than rack servers.
Blade Server Management with DCIM Software
Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software is used to track and manage blade servers and blade chassis. The benefits of using DCIM software to manage blade servers include the ability to:
- Automatically track weight of entire chassis as you add each blade
- View half height or full height of blades
- Track virtual machines on individual blades
- Track network and other I/O cards, ports, internal routing and virtual networks, plus upstream connections
- Support for N, N+1, and N+N power supply configurations
- Track blade and chassis configuration information
- Map power supplies to rack PDU outlets and see full upstream power chain
Want to see how Sunbird’s world-leading DCIM software makes it easy for you to manage blade servers? Get your free test drive now!
