* Blade servers are well on their way to making over LANs
The advent of blade servers is changing the way LANs look, and ultimately will change how they are designed.
One of the most interesting aspects of blade servers is the amount of networking that is going into them. Original blade servers didn’t have much in the way of networking built in, so network managers had to run cables from individual blades to an external switch, creating quite a mess.
That has changed. As I reported last year, Nortel created Gigabit Ethernet switch modules that can be fitted into IBM and HP blade chassis, for instance. IBM added Cisco switch modules in the spring.
More recently, IBM and HP have matched Fibre Channel switching technology with their blade chassis (and both have agreements with Brocade for that). So now storage-area networks are being grouped in as well.
Throw in a little virtualization technology, where server processing is used as needed, and you have the ingredients for the “new data center.” Instead of the more distributed arrangement that we saw emerge with the rise of LANs, we now are moving toward a more centralized model. Granted, many places still have fat clients – but centralization for control and other considerations is a growing trend. It could be called a throwback to the days of mainframes, and there are similarities. But the intelligent use of many smaller components makes it different this time around, too.
Also, by partnering with established networking vendors, the server folks are acknowledging the need for top-notch networking for their systems. Rather than look at blade servers as a universe unto itself, they seem to see them as maybe just the hub of the universe – but routes to get to that hub are just as important as the hub itself.
