BLADE SERVER

PRESENTED BY
D. GOKUL CHOWDARY
07Q61A1214
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
AVANATHIINSTITUEOF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
INTRODUCTION

 A blade server is a stripped down server computer

with a modular design optimized to minimize the
use of physical space and energy.

 Blade servers is a card on the server: a single

motherboard that contains a complete computer
system, including processors, memory, network
connections and related electronic devices
IBM HS20 blade server
 8U Rack mount Blade Sever Chassis
Reduced Cable Sprawl

HP ProLiant DL385
BLADE SERVER
 Blade servers allow more processing power in less rack
space, simplifying cabling and reducing power
consumption.

 Blade servers can experience as much as an 85%

reduction in cabling for blade installations over
conventional 1U or tower servers. With so much less
cabling, IT administrators can spend less time managing
the infrastructure and more time ensuring high
availability.
 Blade typically comes with one or two local ATA
or SCSI drives. For additional storage, blade
servers can connect to a storage pool facilitated
by a network-attached storage (NAS), Fiber
Channel, or iSCSI storage-area network (SAN).

 The individual blades in the chassis (also

called a cabinet) are connected using a bus
system . Combined they form a blade server
and all share a common network connection,
power supply and cooling resources.
 Each blade will have its own software and
operating system installed on it. Blades such
as storage blades with hard disk drives or
those supporting Gigabit Ethernet switches
and Fiber Channel storage switches can be
added to a blade server.

 A blade server also works well with thin

client devices (a client/server architecture in
which no data is stored).
HISTORY

 Blade server technology was initially

developed in the early millennium through a
partnership between IBM and Intel.
 Later, a number of major companies, led by
IBM, formed an “industry community” in
February 2006, with a website base at blade.org
.
 The mission of the community is to “accelerate
the growth and adoption of [blade] technologies
in the market.”
HARDWARE CONFIGERATION

The hardware of blade server contains the following

elements
•Chassis (exterior): The components of blade servers are
placed in a chassis. The chassis can hold a number of server
blades.
Components in chassis 
 Server blade 
 Switch blade 
•Management blade: The management blade is to manage the
blades in the chassis.
CPU: Central processing unit
NIC: Network interface card
• Middle plane: Middle plane is for
connecting the switch blades.
 NIC Hard disk
 Memory
 CPU
FEATURES

 Lower hardware costs :

• Sharing of power and cooling equipment.
• Management of hardware and cabling
systems
 Simplified deployment and
maintenance :
• Time-consuming and resource-intensive
process
• Sharing a number of redundant power
supply, so to minimize the wiring of the
rack
• Administrators can operate through a
network
 To reduce power consumption :
• Uses low-power processor.
• Low power consumption because fewer
components.
 To maximize the use of data center space:
• Blade servers can make the server than the
current density of rack-optimized 1U system
increased 100% to 800%.
USES

Blade servers function well for specific purposes

such as

 File sharing
 Web page serving and caching
 SSL encrypting of Web communication
 The trans-coding of Web page content for
smaller displays
 Streaming audio and video content
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

ADVANTAGES
 Condensed, high-density
 Load balancing and failover
 Power consumption & power management
 Lower management cost
 Flexibility, modularity, and ease of upgrading
 Deployment and scalability
 Disaster management
DISADVANTAGES

 Expensive configuration
 Expensive tool
 Vendor-lock
 Business case
 Heating and cooling
BLADE VS. RACKMOUNT
Blade Servers Rack mount Servers
Shared infrastructure for fans, power Each has its own power supply, fan and
supplies, Ethernet switching, storage. cables.
Networking and storage is built into the
chassis, which eliminates cables.
Small form factor can use up to half the Large physical floor space required to
space of a rack mount server. house rack mount.
Installation requires no special tools or More difficult deployment. SMB may
expertise, semi-technical or non-technical require on-site technicians to make
staff can deploy the blades. Able to hot- additions to the rack mount.
swap.
Proprietary nature limits the ability to mix More choice in system suppliers for
and match components from multiple acquisitions. Multiple  components from
suppliers in one chassis. different suppliers can be used in one
chassis.
Many blades still have cooling issues due A variety of rack mount coolers are
to shared cooling on the chassis available. Separate fans help cooling
issues.
VIRTUALIZATION

 Virtualization involves emulating multiple

servers on one hardware platform.

 Running multiple operating systems on a

single computer or storage virtualization
where you have the amalgamation of
multiple network storage devices into what
appears to be a single storage unit are
examples of virtualization
 With a blade server you have the option to
combine blades with virtualization software
to consolidate workloads, each running on
its own instance of the OS (using the same
or a different OS).
Common Blade Server Computing
Environments
 Blades are frequently deployed in data centers
and high-performance computing
environments, and can serve as application
servers, databases, e-mail or Web servers, and
more.

 Large data centers and telecommunications

service providers benefit from the use of blades
as they provide the means for a large business
to respond quickly to changes in business
conditions.
 Where a business or group would use
several different servers for different
applications, it makes sense to combine the
multiple servers into one blade server to
make for better manageability.
CURRENT RESEARCH

 To Enables High-Performance Functionality:

• blades are incorporating technology such as open
standard architectures, multicore processors, PCI
expansion for multiple I/O functionality, the ability to
house multiple OSs, low-power processors and
innovative cooling techniques, standard AC electrical
connectivity, daisy-chaining and Gigabit Ethernet ports.
 HPC Blade Implementations:
• Distributed computing,
rendering/imaging, number-crunching
processes, test and measurement data
analysis, content manipulation, server
appliances or gateways, and
heterogeneous computing using mixed
OSs are just a few of the areas expected
to utilize blades for HPC
 Industry Adoption:
• blade servers are well suited to seismic
data analysis, data manipulation, visual
rendering via FireWire interfaces and
data storage.
• Military applications are beginning to
utilize blades as well, such as signal
detection and analysis, surveillance, data
analysis and manipulation, and visual
rendering of data.
 The Emergence of Fully Capable Blade
Servers:
• High-performance, open standard
computing is becoming more
commonplace across an increasing
number of technology-rich industries.
FUTURE SCOPE

 At the component level, there are

improvements going on at the chip-level
from Intel and AMD like quad-core and
beyond.

 Virtualization assist is now happening at the

hardware level, which is making the next
level up the server virtualization software
run substantially faster.
 Continuing improvements in the power and
cooling efficiencies and capabilities.

 The newer generations of blades systems

have improving substantially, to the point
where a blade server generates less heat and
is more efficient.
CONCLUSION

 Blade servers can greatly improve the

reliability of business systems.

 It is clear that by close review of the

application and it’s power requirements
decisions can be made that will allow for
future expansion, denser cabinets, greatly
reduced costs .power redundancy and will
optimize cable and CDU requirements.
 It is only through making the power
requirements a priority at the beginning of
the project rather than an
after thought that these goals are achieved.
REFERENCES
www.wikipedia.com
www.ubiq.com
www.ubiqcomputing.org
www.teco.edu
www.personalubicom.com
www.cdtltd.co.uk/
www-3.ibm.com/
www.media.mit.edu/pia/Research/AnchoredDisplays/
www.media.mit.edu/~r/academics/PhD/Generals/Hawley.html

IEEE Computer magazine, Sep-2006

IGI.Publishing.Advances.in.Ubiquitous.Computing.Future.Parad
igms.and.Directions.Mar.2006
 ANY
QUESTIONS