Blade Server: Competition only begins

Server

December 12, 2005, Business Week in the United States launched a set of special reports on the next generation of computers. One of the articles deals with blades that are currently interesting in both the server and PC Realms ("virtual" pcs). The article not only introduces the ins and outs of the blade server, but also introduces the "Industry blade racks" of IBM's latest integrated application software:

A few days later, when fans see the surreal face of digital "King Kong" in a movie theater, they may be thankful for the "creepy" entertainment experience of the most popular technology in the IT industry. Similarly, Air Force officers in the Texas State Randolph Brooks access to the Federal Credit Union have benefited from the technology.

This is the magic of the blade server. In the past, they have been used as heavy equipment in a handful of enterprise computing centers. Today, these skinny "rack-style servers" have become the Swiss Army knives of the contemporary calculation. Their shadow everywhere, from the synthesis of 3D special effects video processing computer, Web server, Enterprise Data Center, has been to the SME "rollout" information system.

Blade servers are even starting to replace desktop computers. With the popular "Blade PC" technology, more than 10 users can simultaneously share the resources of a blade server and build multiple "virtual PCs". "The blade platform is by no means just a solution for a large enterprise data center," said John Humphreys, an analyst at IDC, a High-tech market research firm. ”

At present, Blade server is becoming a market that cannot be neglected in the IT hardware industry. This year, according to IDC, sales of Blades will double on the basis of $1.2 billion trillion last year, and the market will increase to $10 billion by 2009. At present, blade server accounted for only 2% of the revenue of server sales, shipments accounted for 5%. If IDC's forecasts become reality, 4 years later, the proportion of Blade server sales will increase to 15%, and shipments are raised to 25%. It will also be one of the fastest growing computers in history.

Blade server is an incredibly disruptive technology that is replacing larger, more expensive servers, and is seen as a typical transition for servers to standardized goods, because most "blades" use Intel and AMD microprocessors, as well as Windows or Linux operating systems.

At the same time, "Blades" give server manufacturers more opportunities for innovation. With its unique "innate" design, blade servers simplify computing tasks, quickly recover from system crashes, and quickly switch between servers in the event of a failure. It is amazing that this kind of server has achieved a high level of innovation at low cost.

In fact, what the industry sees today is just the initial stage of the blade server's rise. Doug Balog, deputy general manager of IBM's Blade server division, said the cell processor developed for the Sony PlayStation 3 game would be ported to a blade server for high-end applications, including medical imaging. And this kind of performance requires a very high application only need a "blade", not a supercomputer. "The popularity of blade servers is not that far away," Balog said. ”

The so-called "blade server" In essence is a circuit board, 30 cm high, 35 cm deep, it is vertically inserted in the metal rack, a plurality of racks constitute a cabinet. These servers can share power and cooling facilities. When a blade fails, the room manager only needs to replace it with a different blade. There is also a widely circulated joke in this field that the future data center will be equipped with only one administrator and one dog in addition to the row of blade server racks. The manager's only job was to replace the faulty blade with a good one, and if he did something else, the dog would bite it.

As of now, "King Kong" is about the coolest application of Blade server. New Zealand's Weta Digital company has recently been responsible for the final special effects rendering for King Kong. The company has been famous for the special effects of The Lord of the Rings trilogy in Hollywood blockbusters. It is reported that the company has 1900 Blade Server computing resources, its overall computing power to make the company's system to become the world's 109th fastest supercomputer. These servers can synthesize the characters and scenes into 2D images of the movie.

"With strong computing resources, we can get the job done faster," says Milton Ngan, chief technology officer at Weta. We can also get more feedback from the film dealers to improve the quality of the special effects. "It is this kind of feedback--the improvement process that has created stunning movie effects."

The same powerful computational power can run simple applications on a smaller scale. New York State, a anaconda company that produces sports equipment and uniforms, uses a blade server to support its E-commerce Web site. The 200-person company used traditional servers, but the frequent system crashes have cost them their business. "In the past, we thought the blades were for big companies and we weren't amorites," said Rob Meyer, head of E-commerce at the company. It now seems to have a very reasonable cost and a remarkable performance. ”

The case of the Texas State Randolph Brooks Federal Credit union gives a stark contrast between cost and space. The company has a tight office space at its headquarters in San Antonio, but they continue to add the size of the pizza box to Windows or Linux servers. And according to the company's vice president of information technology Pat Tolle said the blade server saves 30% of hardware investment.

Traced to the history of the "blade", its originality came first from the dotcom bubble period. Emerging network companies and large companies are gradually outsourcing Web servers to the management of professional firms with large data centers. Many small, innovative companies have pioneered the adoption of blade servers, but after the dotcom bust, most of these companies have been "blown to ashes". In fact, HP and Compaq before the merger were the first two giants to enter the blade server.

IBM was a successor in this field, but when it was discovered that the blades would become a multi-purpose computing technology, the "Big Blue" started to overtake and become the industry leader today. According to Gartner, IBM's blade servers accounted for 37.2% of global shipments and 45.1% of sales revenue in the three quarter of this year. HP is in the second place and Dell is behind.

Back to 2001, at the time, within IBM, more than 30 engineers took part in a server development project code-named "Excalibur", which took months to teach customers how to use a blade server. Team members concluded that "blades" can be used to perform a wide range of computing tasks, and that the blade can fully gain mainframe reliability and flexibility through a special "packaging" approach. Tim Dougherty, who was the director of the IBM Blade Server promotion, said: "We have a completely different understanding when the public thinks the blades can save energy and reduce space consumption." ”

At the time, IBM executives realized that blades would be a huge market potential, so they decided to invest a lot of human and financial resources in relevant research and development projects, and to give the company a "new business opportunity" status to support. Finally, by 2002, IBM's first blade server came out and they started to take off.

IBM's latest move is to launch a blade server rack for integrated applications to specific industries, with 6 "industry racks", one for banks, called "box banks". In this rack, IBM plugs into a server for a network server, a mail server, video surveillance devices, and other functions. Early next year, IBM also plans to launch a "retail blade rack".

Competition for the "King of Blades" is far from over. HP claims to have a better software product for blade servers and related storage device management. The company also trumpeted the leading technology in power and cooling. "We are IBM's strong competitors and sooner or later we will surpass IBM," said Rick Becker, general manager and vice president of the company's Razor blade system product line. ”

IDC analyst Humphrey pointed out that IBM must continue to develop new technologies to maintain the leading position on the blade server, he said: "In my opinion, today's blade server market competition is actually the two major industries between the heavyweight battle." ”

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