Blade Server Technology Daniel Nilles Herzing

BLADE SERVERS – PROCESSING POWER IN A DIFFERENT FORM FACTOR 1

February 24

th 2010

Blade Servers

Processing Power in a Different Form Factor

Daniel J Nilles

IS185 – Computer Architecture and Troubleshooting

Herzing University


Abstract

This paper discusses an interesting progression in computer hardware technology.

Advances have made it possible to have the processing power and functionality of a

server computer in a slim modular form factor, known as a “blade”. The report will give a

brief history of computer technology and introduce and describe what a blade server is.

It will consider three main areas of blade server technology; its features, its uses and

some advantages. Also considered are some challenges of implementing this

technology.

Keywords: blade, blade server.


Blade Servers, Processing Power in a Different Form Factor

Have you ever heard the term “think out of the box”? This is what I recommend you do

when considering a blade form factor computer. As an IT professional, especially in

computer networking you may be called upon to understand and support this

technology. Computer hardware advances are moving along at an amazing rate.

Consider the first personal computer or PC, introduced August 12th, 1981 by IBM. It ran

at 4.77MHz processer speed and had one or two 160 kilobyte 5.25'' disk-drives.

Compare this with today, (February 2010) where computers run multiple processor

cores and have terabytes of storage capacity available for the user. As computer

hardware and software progressed, the need to connect them together or network them,

to share information, resources and services from one computer to another was

realized. A small company may have only 5 computers connected together, a large

cooperation may have thousands of computers connected together in different locations

around the world to organize and share data. To accomplish this task, dedicated

computers are setup to perform specific jobs. Some may be used to serve in organizing

email sent and received to each person in the company, others to run software

programs, host web sites or organize databases. Because of this large need, many

computer server boxes are required along with all the cables and other hardware to

connect everything together; these data centers can fill an entire room. User demand

continues to increase and the associated cost to run all these computers and keep them

cool can be quite expensive. Thinking out of the box so to speak, blade server computer

technology was developed to address space and power requirements while also


recognizing the need for more computer performance. All of this sounds good, so what

exactly is a blade server?

A blade server is basically a server computer on a single printed circuit board,

designed to be slim and modular, and optimized to use less physical space and energy.

� Pictured here for example is an

“HP ProLiant ML370 G6” series tower computer and an Emerson Network Power

“ATCA-7350” blade computer. As with standard computer boxes; power cords, network

cables and other I/O cables are plugged into the computer itself. Blade servers are

carefully designed and have components removed to optimize space and minimize

power consumption. This is realized when we consider for example the approximate

width of an ATX computer case being 7” wide in comparison to the width of a blade

computer board at 1.2” One could fit 4 blade server computers in the same space as a

standard tower computer box! This begs the question, so what do blade computers plug

into or fit in?

A blade chassis or enclosure is required with slots for the blade server boards to

slide into. The blade boards connect to a backplane attached to the back of the chassis,

A backplane is a circuit board that contains connectors or sockets for the blade server

boards to plug into. This allows each of these servers to communication with one

another without the need of extra cables or wires. The backplane also provides a


connection to power, external networks, storage devices, monitors, keyboards and other

services. Because of its design, these backplane circuit boards can allow for high data

transfer rates, up to 40Gb/s. Also the blade server chassis has built in cooling and

power management features. It is important to note that different blade providers design

backplanes, blade chassis’s and server boards to fit their specific system. Blade server

boards from IBM will not plug into a blade chassis from HP (Hewlett Packard). But there

are blade chassis and backplanes that use standard bus architecture, such as

“Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture”, (AdvancedTCA) that will allow blade

servers from different providers to plug their boards in the same rack.

Blade servers and their features vary depending on the tasks they are designed to

perform, like a standard motherboard; blade servers can have a processor, (CPU) or

dual CPU’s, which will most likely have dual or quad cores per CPU. Some processors

are designed for networking and may have 16 or more cores per CPU chip. Also the

blade motherboard may have RAM or high speed cache memory. Because of the

importance of data integrity and stability, especially in telecom and server applications

the RAM memory used is registered or buffered memory and has address error

detection and correction. Blade sever motherboards may also have controller and

communication chips so the board can talk to the outside world or other servers, these

chips route bus signals such as; 1Gb, 10Gb or Fiber Ethernet, USB, SATA, SAS and

PCI Express. Some blade servers may have removable hard drives or flash memory

storage on the board as well. Another aspect of blade server technology is that these

boards can be designed to be removed and replaced from the blade chassis without

powering down the whole system, they are hot swappable. These basically become a


Field Replaceable Unit, (FRU) which could then be sent to a service center, repaired

and swapped back in at a later time. With this processing power, flexibility and

functional, we now start to realize the potential that blade servers and blade technology

can offer. Let’s focus on some uses and real world applications. One field that is

growing very fast is Virtualization. Software creates a number of virtual operating

systems or virtual machines on one or more computer servers. According to Barb

Goldworm, industry analyst and author of Blade Servers and Virtualization, “Blades and

server virtualization have become very hot topics within IT organizations and the data

center as strong foundational building blocks to address issues that have been

challenging IT for years… I take this large number of underutilized servers, I consolidate

them using server virtualization – so now I can run four to 20 virtual servers on one

physical server.” (Goldworn, 2007).

Another segment that is starting to benefit from blade design is “cluster computing”,

this where many computers are closely linked together to share processing power and

resources to form a single super computer. Agencies like NASA or projects from

“CERN”, (European Organization for Nuclear Research) that need to analyze large

amounts of data for scientific research would benefit from the performance, power and

efficiency of blade technology. Also, Web hosting services, Telecom, where the need to

route voice and data are important. Universities and hospitals could benefit from the

flexibility of a blade server system, as the student base or hospital staff grows,

upgrading by hot swapping in additional servers would be a very desirable feature. One

interesting use is that of digital video surveillance data storage and retrieval used by law

enforcement, gaming and financial organizations. These examples highlight that blade


technology has and will have many uses. The advantages besides the scalability, small

form factor and power savings, include; simplified chassis cabling, standard rack mount

server box’s while helping keep servers in a central location, create a wiring challenge.

Blade servers because of the use a central backplane can reduce cable and wire

requirements greatly. According to HP Bladesystem How to guide, for medium-sized

businesses, up to 87.5% cable savings can be had from an HP ProLiant 8 server setup

to an HP Blade system.

While blade technology does offer many advantages, one has to have a balanced

view. There are challenges to implementing blade systems, as mention earlier is the

current proprietary nature when it comes to providers of blade systems. You could not

install an IBM blade server board in an HP, (Hewlett Packard) chassis. Another

challenge is in cooling blade servers, you essentially have 5 – 12 or more server

computers in slots right next to each other with multiple CPUs, RAM memory and high

speed communication chips per board that generate heat. The heat generated needs to

be removed from the blade chassis as efficiently as possible. High-speed fans or fan

trays are used that can monitor temperature and increase or decrease air flow to the

system. Some blade rack designs incorporate liquid cooling as part of the rack to

remove the heat, the IBM iDataPlex rack being one. Finally consider your need, if you

have a small business that only requires a simple server. The blade server may not

make sense at this time.

In conclusion, computer hardware technology has advanced incredibly in the last 29

years from the introduction of the IBM PC to servers and data centers handling

thousands of users and terabytes of data and virtual machines running with the aid of


blade servers. As we continue to think out of box, blade technology will continue to

progress as well, providing many benefits over current rack mount server computers.

Power savings, reduced space and scalability to name a few. While benefits are many,

there are also challenges, as with any new technology. Cooling all this computing power

located in a relatively small space being one. Also making blade chassis and

backplanes standardized, still these issues are being addressed.

So the next time you hear the term to “think out of the box”, recall blade servers and

look ahead to new applications for this technology!


References

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BLADE SERVERS – PROCESSING POWER IN A DIFFERENT FORM FACTOR

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