Definitions:
Blade Server solutions:
In a blade chassis a set of blade servers will conventionally share power and cooling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_server
More recently there is a new trend to also share networking and storage I/O through converged network adapters (eg Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS))
Server solutions:
In contrast to the blade solution, each server is an autonomous with respect to its components - power, cooling etc - nothing is shared.
Pros and Cons:
Blade Solution:
Pros:
- Efficiency: via shared power and cooling blade servers offer better efficiency in these areas
- Density: blade servers offer higher density per rack U for CPU resources (although this can be a con if your datacenter can not handle the power and cooling density)
Cons:
- Cost: Requires the additional expense of a chassis to house the blades
- Lock-in: Chassis represents added level of vendor lockin due to the chassis investment (which may cost as much as $30,000 or several individual servers)
- more lock-in: related to lock-in are the reduced negotiating power on pricing, and loss of business agility to go with best of breed as easily as when deploying standalone servers
- All eggs in one basket (if the blade chassis has an issue or needs maintenance, all VMs hosted its blades will be down at once)
Pros:
Cost: no chassis to pay for - can take advantage of the latest competitive pricing
Business Agility: allows choice of best of breed technology (without the lock-in of the blade chassis)
Cons:
Efficiency: takes more power and cooling per rack U than the shared blade chassis
Density: offers less rack U CPU resource density
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