Blade server market into maturity or undercurrent surge?

Currently, the development of the global server market has entered a stable and mature stage, showing a slow growth trend. However, under the wave not surprised market surface, but there is a "undercurrent", namely http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13737.html "> Blade server."

Although today's blade is still only a small subdivision, because it accounts for less than 10% of the total server market, but more than 40% of the revenue growth rate for the slightly quieter server market inject a "tonic." At the same time, the blade is expanding from the high-end market to the low-end market, so as to fully penetrate the traditional server market, which let us see that the server "blade" era will eventually come.

First, the blade provides an "upgrade" option that drives the phase-out and updating of server technology. The so-called blade server, refers to the standard height of the rack-mounted chassis can be inserted in multiple card server units, to achieve high availability and high-density, each "blade" is actually a system motherboard. High computational density, save space, at the same time easy to centralize management, easy to expand and provide uninterrupted service, blade server is the most prominent characteristics, and therefore by the enterprise wide welcome.

Blade has many advantages over rack servers.

First, the blade server is more space-intensive, increasing the space density of the rack server by 50%. On the premise of the cabinet system configuration, the 1U rack optimized server system is transplanted to the blade server, the space occupied is only one-third to One-second, while in a standard cabinet environment, the blade server's processing density should increase four to five times times.

Second, the blade server scheme cable wiring is significantly better than the 1U rack scheme, because the blade server in the computer room wiring as long as the unified network cable, power cord, blade between the server does not need artificial wiring.

Third, in terms of cost, blade servers are easier to manage, provide more processing power in smaller spaces, and are less expensive because many parts can be shared. Finally, blade servers are more reliable and easier to maintain. All key components of the blade server can be redundant or hot-swappable, and removing the server for maintenance only means pulling the blade out of the chassis, as simple as removing hot-swappable hard drives.

Second, the blade server market is growing rapidly. At present, the blade server has become the overall server market in the fastest growing, the most prominent areas. In response to the 2007 performance of the server market, market consulting firm Gartner and IDC have invariably given the same server market data: In the whole year the overall market sales revenue growth of less than 4%case, the blade server sales revenue increase of more than 40%.

At the same time, the blade is still growing, and its share of the entire server market is less than 10%, a small segment of the market. However, the blade server, which shows the rapid development momentum, will become the mainstream product of the market with the rack server.

According to IDC forecasts, Blade Server sales revenue in the next few years more than 40% annual growth rate, to 2011 the global market for each shipment of four servers is a blade server. In fact, in the seductive market prospects, from foreign server giants such as IBM, SUN, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Dell, to domestic well-known brands, such as Lenovo, Wave, Dawn and so on, are actively striving to make a difference in this area.

Again, the blade server market is extending to SME users. In the 2007, server vendors launched low-end blade servers specifically for SMB users: In June 2007, IBM launched the Blade Center S Blade module system; July 2007, Intel releases the modular server platform open specification; September 2007, HP launched Blade system c3000 blade chassis; In January 2008, Intel launched its first general-purpose modular system for SMB ... In fact, a few years ago, many companies claimed that the SME market is an important engine for the birth of Blade server, and the latest blade servers have been redesigned to pay more attention to the needs of SME users. For example, HP c3000 Blade chassis is designed for two small and medium sized enterprises ' IT application environment, one is to have 4 ~100 servers, mainly running the mail system, ERP, CRM and other common business medium-sized enterprises; The other is a large enterprise remote office space, generally have 8 of the following servers.

Finally, the development of blade servers needs to address standardization issues. At present, the blade server market is still in duopoly. Data from Gartner showed that HP ranked first in the blade server market in 2007, with shipments of 41.7%;IBM, the number two of the total blade shipments, ranked second, with a market share of 30.9%.

Two companies have sales revenue of 78% of the entire blade-server sales in 2007, occupying an absolute monopoly position. With this corresponding, HP and IBM each have a set of relatively closed product standards, blade compatibility between the relatively poor, which to a certain extent, affecting the formation of benign industrial ecological environment, to achieve standardization to become an important direction in the future. At the same time, other blade server manufacturers are also actively committed to breaking the oligopoly situation.

For example, Intel joined more than 40 server vendors in July 2007 to announce that it will support the open specifications of the blade platform launched by SSI organizations. This specification provides the design reference for server manufacturers to design, manufacture, compatible and interoperable server parts in blade, chassis and management software level, and the domestic well-known server manufacturers such as Pao, Shuguang, Lenovo, wave and other enterprises will support.

In summary, the blade represents an enticing market prospect, has been pushed by many server vendors, will continue to maintain the momentum of rapid growth. However, the growth of blade servers as a mainstream server with rack servers still requires a process that relies on the demand pull of small and medium-sized enterprises, performance and functionality enhancements, and standardization progress.