I have always liked blade servers, since I first began deploying blades on HP platforms. Then, when I was introduced to Cisco UCS blades, I saw that the data center world was being reinvented. In fact, when I left the corporate world for consulting, being able to work with UCS was one of my requirements. Not to knock other blade platforms, I just saw something truly innovative in UCS and wanted to be associated with that kind of technology.
Now, some years later, I have come across a new innovation that is causing me to look back at rack mount servers…while I wait for blade manufacturers to adjust to this new trend. The trend is one of grouping local storage together into a centralized and highly available storage pool. There are many options to achieve this, and I discuss this further in my recent TechTarget article “Cutting the other direction: Why blade servers are losing their appeal“.
To be clear, I am not turning my back to blade servers. Blades are still my preferred platform. However, I see this new storage trend as one that can take off, and blades will need to hold more than two hard drives to play in that world.
As always, please come back here and leave any comments on the article. I look forward to the conversation.
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