Tracking enterprise technology transformation
Blades or rackmounts for VMWare?
http://communities.vmware.com/message/940884?tstart=0#940884
Check out this great post on the VMWare community talking about blades or rackmounts for virtualization. I’ve got mixed opinions on this. Rack servers can be a great vehicle for virtualization and I have used them in the past. This question is going to be dependent on your exposure and ‘comfort’ with blades as a platform and also volume. I see blades as more suited to virtualization projects when we’re using the volume farm type scenario. Putting in a blade solution with the integrated switches, with the right processor and memory configuration could be a powerful solution, it’s going to be dependent on the range of networks involved. You will find that blades require economies of scale, by that I mean (with no negativity) a blade solution is going to be cheaper the more blades you fit in the enclosure, because of the cost of the enclosure.
The conversation amongst the vendors and the end users are set to continue, I see blades more a volume virtualization tool. The example I like to use is one of the enterprises organizations that I spoke to last year, they were taking 800 rack servers ranging from Compaq 2500s to current day HP Proliants and virtualizing them on to blade technologies for the following reasons:
Blades allowed them to have one hardware platform – let’s say they decided on 400 IBM blades, they changed their hardware support contract and reduced it substantially, instead of 16 derivatives of servers to support there were two, the IBM blade and the enclosure.
The blades were configured for SAN boot, so a blade could be re-provisioned or the storage re-mapped in the event of a hardware failure.
The debate is set to continue, the key is to focus on what your goals are, where your strengths are and go in that direction. I’m all for blade technology as a platform in grid, hpc or as an alternative to a rack server, but they need to be used (as with anything) to the benefit of the customer first, IT second.
I agree that the conversation about what is the right server for virtualization is going to continue – as there is no one answer. As with many things – It Depends. I am the virtualization community lead on delltechcenter.com and we are hosting a conversation on this topic – to help people understand the strengths and weaknesses of blades vs 2 socket vs 4 socket vs AMD vs Intel. We are trying to just host the conversation – and focus on the technical aspects. Your post is part of the conversation that is going on all over the web – great perspective.
Todd