Fencing over blades

SERVER BLADE TECHNOLOGY reaches into the domain of clusters, mainframes, and large-scale enterprise servers. Figuring that the initial buy-in is approximately $5,000 and that blades cost as little as $1,000 each, you could build one heck of a blade stack for the money you'd spend on a Sun Enterprise or IBM mainframe. Then again, blades can present management hassles whereas enterprise big iron has a bulletproof reputation for reliability. A cautious approach is easy to justify -- blades have not proved themselves yet -- but is it already foolish to buy server technology that might be obliterated by blades?

P.J.: Blade components in general are a nifty idea, but I have to wonder about all the noise being made over how blade computing is going to change the world. I figure customers are going to run the same software on blades that they would on conventional rack-mounted servers or even on a bunch of white-box, commodity servers. Respondents to the 2002 InfoWorld Server Blade Survey have said nothing to change my opinion -- databases and Web hosting lead the applications they expect to use on blades, at 71 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

Tom: The advantages of blades aren't compelling until you scale out to dozens or hundreds of nodes. Think of how much time and resources are wasted in a traditional cluster or farm -- every system must be installed and configured separately, no machine knows anything about the other nodes, and managing a cluster is about as easy as herding cats. z

Blades maintain the advantages of clusters while eliminating most of the redundant elements. By reducing square footage, kilowatt hours, cooling BTUs, and service time, blades recover wasted money. That translates to reduced operating costs or increased headroom for more nodes. Blades' potential for a unified monitoring and management interface could dramatically reduce staffing costs; a blade server not only gives you fewer consoles to watch but also lowers the skill level required for maintenance.

P.J.: But what's innovative? Hot-plug and hot-swap features have been around for a while, but I question how many customers really take advantage of them. I simply can't see anything that isn't a logical outgrowth of consolidating support functions onto single-chip forms or the availability of denser and denser memory modules.

Tom: By your measure, laptops and PDAs have no reason to exist. Electronics vendors don't miniaturize and integrate just because they can. They do it to reduce manufacturing costs, raise yields, improve profits, and most importantly, make customers happy. A blade is a cheap, disposable server with a birdlike appetite for electricity. Want to impress the suits? Show them your fire-breathing, ear-splitting, 6-foot rack of eight Unix servers, or make it 21 low-profile PC servers. Then show them how just one 5-inch high blade chassis holds 24 discrete systems.

You shouldn't discount serviceability; customers don't -- 75 percent of readers planning a blade purchase cite serviceability among their motivating factors.

Companies do use hot-pluggable components. Would anyone care about the ubiquitous SCSI or Ethernet if they had to power down the whole bus to add a device? And consider what it takes to replace a node in a high-density rack. While you're figuring out which screws release a toasted 40-pound server from its bracket and are untangling the cables emerging from its back panel, I've hot-swapped my burnt blade and have watched the first half of Attack of the Clones.