Many people get confused as to why so many I/O modules are needed within a given blade chassis.  The basic concept is simple (in most cases) – for each port you need on a given blade server, you need to have a corresponding I/O module.  For example, if you need 4 NICs, you’re going to need [...]

IBM once again is promoting is striving to increase market share by offering customers the chance to get a “free” IBM BladeCenter chassis.   The last time they promoted a free chassis was in November, so this year they kicked in the promo effective July 5, 2011.  The promotion is for a free chassis – without any purchase, however [...]

Are you passionate about technology?  Do you stay up to date on what’s new in the x86 marketplace, especially blade servers?  Do you like to work for free?  If so, BladesMadeSimple.com could use you!

Personal Cassette Players.  Portable CD players.  Dial up Internet. Betamax.  The VCR.  Pagers.  These are all popular technologies that have gone away.  When they were hot, you would never have expected for them to one day be extinct.  Are blade servers set to follow in the footsteps of these other blade technologies?

Since the dawn of mankind (or more realistically, the early 2000’s) people have debated whether blade servers or rack servers were best for their datacenter environment.   It may surprise you that I personally don’t believe that blade servers fit everywhere.  In fact, if you aren’t running out of power/cooling, you don’t have space constraints, you [...]

If you are like me, you are constantly referring to manufacture web sites for product specs, available options, etc.  Today, I’ve put together a list of web sites that will help streamline your search.  Since links change and new ones get added, I’ve put out a “helpful links” tab at the top of my blog [...]

This week HP has its annual event, called HP Discover, in Las Vegas.  Previously this event was focused on hardware only and was called HP Tech Forum, but this year HP combined hardware and software into one uber event, called HP Discover.  If you are familiar with VMware’s VMworld – this event is very similar, [...]

I wanted to take time with today’s post to step outside the world of blade servers and say a few words about Memorial Day.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Memorial Day, it is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May created to commemorate U.S. Service Members who [...]

May 24, 2011  - IDC came out with their 1Q 2011 worldwide server market revenue report today showing that Cisco has finally entered the market standings with a 3rd place standing at 9.4% factory revenue share .  IDC’s findings also showed that both HP and IBM decreased their blade server market share from Q4 2010.

If you’ve been reading this blog over the past six months, you’ll know that I’ve continued to bust on Cisco for not providing market share numbers after selling their UCS product line for two years.  I believe the wait is now over.