Sunday 27 August 2017

Blade Server or Standard Server for Virtualization?

Blade or Standard Servers for virtualization is a topic of discussion which has been around from the past few years in enterprise IT world. But factually speaking, there are no definitive answers from any of the so-called experts. In order to understand this further, an unbiased analysis of the two technologies is very much needed.

Blade Servers- These servers offer real density as an advantage with rack space at premium. The highlighting advantage of using a blade server is that these server variants offer centralized management i.e. a single interface, you can see and work with all of your blade servers. Creating server profiles, adding network, adding SAN, setting-up VLANs, managing power are the major advantages offered by Blades. An IT admin can also connect to blade management system via a Secure Shell (SSH). Thus, with the help of this interface, keyboard-interactive commands to the system can be obtained.

Going with the downside, server blades are expensive and also require special power connectivity options. Generally, blade servers preference makes you lock-down to a single vendor. For instance, you can’t buy a Sun Microsystems blade, an HP blade and an IBM blade and expect to plug them into the same enclosure. And contrary to the general belief, these computing gadgets aren’t plug-n-play option supportive. Their set-up is manual and needs a bit of time than the usual standard server set-up. Moreover, though these systems are high in density, you will often see a maximum of two enclosures per rack due to their huge weight. A two enclosure blade server weighs at over 900 pounds and that’s really a high amount of stress on a small area. So, the density is offset by the lack of ability to place four enclosures into a rack.

And Blades can also be a little quirky. You will have to update firmware more often, reset individual systems fairly often and deal with some downtime, if you need to make what most would consider being petite changes.

Standard Servers- A 19 inches 1U, 2U, 3U standard server will have its own distinct power connections, network connections local disks and HBA –SAN cards that will help in plugging into a KVM or a console server. In general, some advantages in standard server deployment will prove disadvantageous when it comes to blade servers.

Standard server systems have plug-n-play feature components such as network, disk and power. This means, no need to power down the server to make those changes. Local DVD drive availability will prove advantageous. Just pop the DVR drive with related DVD software, install software or an OS and start using that software. Standard servers are independent, which means that one can insert them into any 19″ rack anywhere. So, you don’t need any special wiring, power or enclosure. And also you can put the server on the data center floor to make it work–no rack required. Most importantly, standard architecture systems are cheaper–or more affordable than their blade counterparts.

The dark side of standard servers is that they are cumbersome to work with when a full rack of systems is considered. Maneuvering, removing a top, unplugging everything, slide out the system, work with it and then reverse the process can prove tiresome. Moreover, standard architectural systems also generate a lot of unnecessary heat and pull out a lot of power compared to blade servers.

So, if you are in a search to select a server for server virtualization, here are some facts-

You can go for blade servers


  • When you can afford them and are ready for them with required technical expertise.

  • When you need higher density servers, blades can support your quest.

  • When you have skilled and trained blade admins, go for them.

  • If you don’t mind in dealing with their quirks, go for them.

  • When vendor lock-in is not an issue, then go for them.

Using standard server architecture is appreciable


  • When your budget is tight

  • For start-ups

  • When you don’t want vendor lock-in

  • When you want rapid deployment

  • When you have sufficient cooling, power and air flow to accommodate standard systems


Nowadays, Hyper Converged Software defined Storage Servers is on the rise. This unified computing resource trend has attained much value in enterprise IT worlds of small and medium scale businesses.

Consolidate your datacenter into one redundant and highly available appliance. The Unified Storage & Server appliances like the one offered by StoneFly, Inc., are the ideal hyper-converged infrastructure solution to consolidate all of your Server and Storage systems into one easy to manage appliance. Campus mirroring to a second on-premises USS appliance and asynchronous replication to a USS appliance at a remote site or in the cloud makes the USS the perfect business continuity and disaster recovery solution.

The use of virtualized operating systems allows for complete hardware utilization and considerable reduction in power/cooling costs. USS flexibility replaces the “fixed hardware model” of the past with on-demand resource allocation (such as CPU, memory, storage, etc.) based on your application needs.

The USS appliance includes a Virtual SAN Storage Appliance (SCVM™) and the ability to create additional Virtual Storage or Servers as needed. By migrating your existing Windows and Linux physical servers to VMware-compatible Virtual Machines on the StoneFly USS appliance, you can greatly reduce your hardware footprint and run many more applications on much less hardware.

For more details call 510.265.1616 or click on StoneFly USS Unified Storage & Server Hyper Converged Appliance

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Source: http://docphy.com/technology/computers/computer-servers/blade-server-standard-server-virtualization.html

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