SuperBlade Servers

I came across a press release for a new quad core SuperMicro SuperBlade today. I'm not currently in the market for one of these, but I was shopping around for blade servers about a year ago.

I wonder how long Supermicro will support this platform? I also wonder if they offer support contracts and SLA's for parts. You're putting a lot of eggs into one basket with these chassis'.

Back then, I found that the market was pretty bleak -- the products from Dell and IBM were silly. You might as well buy 1U servers -- they were more powerful and the density was around 1.1 servers/u (of course, you get management and power savings). The IBM machines didn't have hot swap drive bays. The Dell blades were 7U's tall.

HP's c-Class chassis was the exception back then. It was well thought out and had a good density. Since then, they've even come out with a half sized chassis. Their blades were their 1U and 2U servers crammed into a blade and included hot swap drive bays. You could even install a storage module for additional drive attachments.

When I was doing the price comparision, the break even point seemed to be around a half filled chassis -- if you were buying 8 blades, it was cheaper than the equivalent 8 stand alone machines. That included networking modules in the chassis, but no networking for the stand alone machines.

Last year, when I was meeting with the HP reps, they said the c-class chassis was their blade platform for years to come (I'm thinking at least 5 years).

I've been using Supermicro servers for ages. They were always cheaper than the big names and they ran reliably. Recently, I 'grew up' to using HP and Dell servers. I've learned that there are some advantages to buying name brand servers instead. They tend to work better as a unit -- they are well thought out and easy to service.

The biggest issue I ran into with Supermicro was getting replacement parts (like power supplies) for 2 year old Supermicro machines. We've had to throw out a few perfectly fine machines due to lack of parts. With a support contract on a Dell or HP machine, you'll get the part you need.

I won't be in the market for a blade server for a while now, but t least there is another product on the market for comparison when it is time.