Category Archives: Reviews

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.

 

 

2016 – Year in Review

As I wrap up my 7th year with this blog I wanted to take a minute to pause and say thank you.  Without your interest in this blog post, I don’t think I would have stuck with it.  I appreciate your ideas and your feedback / comments, even if I may not like what you say.  As my final post of the year, I thought I would provide you with some insights on what was popular, what has been searched on, etc.  If you don’t see something you’d like to know about, let me know in the comments below.  Thanks for your continued interest, and Happy New Year! Continue reading

2015 in Review

As another year has ended, I have to take the time to thank you.  This blog was created for my own use, to be able to access blade information at any time; but it grew into something bigger.  For each of you that use this site, I give a sincere thank you.  This site is a personal site that I’ve maintained since Fall of 2009 and I get ZERO money to run it.  No advertising dollars or anything.  It’s a hobby, so your participation is greatly appreciated.  That said, I thought for my first blog post of 2016, I’d provide you with some insight into the numbers.  So here we go.

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Blade Servers Preferred Over Rack Servers (Based on Q3 2013 Report by TBR)

In October, Technology Business Research (TBR) released a report titled, “Corporate IT Buying Behavior & Customer Satisfaction Study x86-based Servers” in which they discussed several topics around customer satisfaction such as Sales and Setup, Server Hardware and Service and Support.  Although the report (linked below) is 109 pages, below are a couple of key topics which I found interesting.

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Is it Time to Rethink Your Position On Blade Servers?

Is it time to rethink your position on blade servers?  A recent vendor neutral article from Processor.com thinks it is.  The October 5th edition of Processor magazine provided an article titled, “Rethink Your Position On Blade Servers” where they offer reasons to look at blade servers in your environment.   Continue reading

Dell Scores Editor’s Choice Award from InfoWorld

InfoWorld Editors Choice Award LogoInfoWorld.com’s Test Center awarded Dell’s blade server portfolio the “Editor’s Choice” award today.  Senior Contributing Editor, Paul Venezia, says, ” From a purely hardware perspective, the Dell PowerEdge M1000e is quite a compelling system. Continue reading