And you'll also need a gigabit switch in the main backbone of the blade server enclosure, and you'll need the rack to put all this into, as well as power, air handling, floor space and so forth. But once you've gone through all that, the price for a chassis and 14 computer blades, and the fibre-channel switch is "pretty close to a 1U [rack-mount] server from a price perspective."
And prices should fall as more get into the market. IBM is a recent entry. You can probably expect more, because the projections are that the market is going to grow sharply. Dougherty says that the blades are "the fastest growing server product in our history." So perhaps it's time that you investigate the benefits that server blades can bring to your enterprise.
David Gabel has been testing and writing about computers for more than 25 years.
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