Business Innovation Homepage > Green Computing

Server blades continue to gain popularity in corporate data centers. Many blade products are designed to provide innovative use of power, and some newer products are specifically touted as energy-efficient. But implementing blades brings certain data center configuration challenges.

A blade server, which is a server chassis that houses several thin, modular electronic circuit boards known as blades, offers a number of potential advantages. Because each blade consists of a processor, memory and network controllers, it can operate as a server supporting a specific application.

Blade servers deliver more processing power with less rack space, so cabling and the related management and maintenance requirements are easier; power consumption, cooling and real-estate costs are reduced.

IDC Research shows that many organizations adopt blades to improve manageability and reduce data center operational costs, says Jed Scaramella, s enior research analyst, servers, at IDC. In the firm’s surveys of organizations, density, cost reduction and improved manageability are the top reasons for blade adoption given by respondents.

Specifically, 50 percent of those surveyed by IDC said blades reduced hardware costs, 45 percent said blades lowered maintenance and deployment costs, and one-third reported savings by lowering power and cooling expenses. “Additionally, 50 percent of blade deployments are associated with a broad strategic initiative to improve IT efficiency,” of which energy efficiency is a part, Scaramella says.

But significant hurdles related to data center facilities (including power, cooling and floor space), can create challenges in blade implementation. “Data center reconfigurations have added significant costs,” Scaramella says.

There are trade-offs to running blades and highly dense systems, Scaramella says. “They do not easily fit into existing data centers,” he says. “The fact is that facilities of today and yesterday were not built to handle tomorrow’s technology.”

Power and cooling are among the key hurdles to overcome when deploying blades. “Blades are a bit of a double-edged sword for power and cooling,” Scaramella says. “They can be a solution to enable IT organizations to solve their overall energy problem in the data center. The challenge is provide the power and more cooling in a more-confined space.”

Despite the challenges, blades are clearly becoming a major part of enterprise IT infrastructure strategies. Blade servers “have been and will continue to be a growth driver for the overall server market,” Scaramella notes. Blade revenues for the first half of 2008 totaled $2.6 billion, and IDC is forecasting the blade market to grow to $13.6 billion by 2012. As more organizations look to operate greener IT environments, expect blade servers to be a key component of those efforts.

Click here for more Green Computing articles