Are blade servers right for all types of application loads?
Almost–most applications scale well on today’s blades, although some databases, for example, may benefit from servers with more than the four central processing units found on today’s biggest blades. The net result? Blades work well for scaling out in the Web and application tier, but companies that can’t use clustered databases like Oracle 9i RAC will still need plenty of 16- and 32-way systems. Don’t blades cost more than “regular” servers? It depends. When fully populated, most blade frames are very close in price to a comparable number of rack-optimized servers. The catch? Buyers pay for every slot, whether they use it or not. For example, each slot in IBM’s 14-slot blade chassis costs about $350, and the blades themselves can be up to 20 percent more expensive than rackable servers. On the other hand, products like Egenera’s BladeFrame can substantially reduce network port costs by consolidating all I/O for the frame over 2-gigabit Ethernet and two Fibre Channel ports. Do blade s
