Category Archives: IBM

Blades vs Rack Mount -a podcast

In June of 2011, I had the pleasure of joining Nigel Poulton, Rick Vanover and Bob Plankers  on the podcast, “InfoSmack Deep Dive” to talk about blade servers versus rack servers.  In the 47 minute discussion we talked over the pros and cons of both types of server platform.  I recently found a copy of the podcast in my Dropbox, so I listened to it and was shocked to hear that many of the same arguments and counter-points we reviewed almost 6 years ago still applies with servers today.  If you are curious as to whether blade servers or rack servers are ideal for you, I encourage you to take some time and listen to this podcast.

Special thanks to:

Nigel Poulton (@NigelPoulton, http://blog.nigelpoulton.com/)

Rick Vanover (@RickVanover, rickvanover.com)

Bob Plankers (@Plankershttps://lonesysadmin.net/)

Podcast download:  https://bladesmadesimple.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/infosmack_deep_dive_podcast_104.mp3

Listen here:

Kevin Houston - Founder, BladesMadeSimple.comKevin Houston is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of BladesMadeSimple.com.  He has 20 years of experience in the x86 server marketplace.  Since 1997 Kevin has worked at several resellers in the Atlanta area, and has a vast array of competitive x86 server knowledge and certifications as well as an in-depth understanding of VMware and Citrix virtualization.  Kevin has worked at Dell EMC as a Server Sales Engineer covering the Global Enterprise market since August 2011 and currently works as a Technical Architect supporting the Central Region.

 

Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are personal views and may or may not reflect any of the contributors’ employer’s positions. Furthermore, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any employer.

 

 

Workload Acceleration Options for Blade Servers

I recently was asked what the demand for NVMe drives was, so I pinged my peers to see where they are seeing the adoption of NVMe (in rack or blade servers forms) and got a pretty interesting response.  This got me wondering what the options were for NVMe, as well as other acceleration technologies, in the blade server world.  Here is what I found.

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IDC Worldwide Server Tracker Shows 5.1% Growth in Q3 2015

IDC published their Q3 2015 findings last week, and the results were overall positive.  In year over year revenues, the worldwide server market saw revenues increase of 5.1%, or $13.4 billion, the sixth consecutive quarter of growth while shipments grew 4.5%, or 2.49 million units.  Specific to blade servers, IDC reported Dell’s blade server revenue grew faster than that of any of the top 5 vendors at 34.8%, however Cisco remained at the #2 blade server market share holder behind HP. Continue reading

Gartner Releases New Magic Quadrant for Modular Servers – May 2015

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Gartner Magic Quadrant for blade servers as they discontinued it in 2014.  Last month, Gartner created a new Magic Quadrant to replace the older one.  The newest Magic Quadrant incorporates both blade servers and multi-node servers. According to Gartner, “the separation of the blade and multinode server markets has become harder to maintain as multinode servers adopt the technology characteristics of blade servers. With the evolution of new modular server designs, the concept of traditional server blades will fade in favor of increasingly variable ‘bricks’ or ‘cartridges.’ Consequently, a Magic Quadrant that tracked only the blade server market could only deliver partial value. This new Magic Quadrant is designed to better reflect the evolving market for any servers that display modular characteristics.”  You can view the full article here, but I’ve summarized their findings for the top modular server vendors below.

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Blade Server Comparisons – March 2015

It’s always good to have a single source of comparisons for the Tier 1 blade servers, so here is the updated list.  I realize that I should have posted this in December, but I guess it’s better late than never.  Continue reading

Worldwide Server Market Revenues Increase 4.8% in Third Quarter

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., December 3, 2014 – According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 4.8% year over year to $12.7 billion in the third quarter of 2014 (3Q14).

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IDC Reports Increased Blade Server Growth in Q1 2014

The quarterly IDC Worldwide Server Tracker was released on May 28, 2014 and it reported that in spite of a decrease in overall server sales, blade servers continue to increase with HP leading the way.  To save you the task of reading all of the irrelevant server data, here’s a summary of their blade server findings:

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IDC Reports Worldwide Blade Server Market Revenues Increase in Q4 2013

IDC came out with their Q4 2013 worldwide server market revenue report on February 27, 2014.  Unfortunately I missed the announcement due to email issues, so I’ve decided to streamline things and summarize the report.

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