IBM and Intel unleash blades
IBM and Intel unleash blades
IBM and Intel have released the design of their blade computer servers to encourage other companies to make components that are compatible with them inside data centres and the telecommunications industry.
The two companies hope that the specifications will help hardware vendors to develop and build BladeCentre compatible networking switches, adapter cards, and appliance and communications blades for enterprise networks.
Blades integrate storage, servers and networking in a single chassis so that customers can manage the server from one single point.
IBM has said that it and Intel will not charge any royalty fees or patent licencing for the release of the designs, which are made up of small components that can be conveniently removed or added.
Technical support will be provided to assist with product development, which includes design guidelines. IBM and Intel hope that eventually BladeCentre based deployments will integrate seamlessly into the IT infrastructure of enterprise customers.
In addition, telecommunications vendors can now get hold of the specification for IBM's eServer BladeCentreT, designed for dense, computer-intensive server platforms, which enables a common infrastructure between a carrier's enterprise and IT infrastructure.
Blade servers compete with popular rack servers but are seen as space saving and easier to use than bigger systems.
IBM has been gaining a market share in this area since it introduced its blade servers in November 2002.
Blade server sonly accounted for three percent of all server computers sold in 2003, but IDC expects them to achieve 29 percent of total servers sold by 2008.
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