The PC-blade installation also helps to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements for securing financial information, because no accounting information is stored locally but is housed in a central location, he says.
Vertical industries such as medical, government, finance, and education are prime candidates for using PC blades, says Ron Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "The major driver right now is that it creates the potential for improved security," he says. "The market, however, has been limited in the past by the lack of a solid presence of large vendors, which HP's entry should help alleviate."
Another advantage offered by PC blades is easier system maintenance, says Rick Johnsen, senior network engineer for the Air Force Security Forces Center Headquarters at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. About two years ago, the security headquarters was preparing to move into a new building and making its regularly scheduled PC upgrade. Johnsen says he wanted to find a way to better manage the hundreds of computers used at the site for coordination of all Air Force police services and security of bases.
Johnsen considered thin clients run by traditional servers, but didn't want to force military policemen and his technical staff to have to learn programs such as Linux, Unix, and Solaris that are associated with the technology.
Instead, he went to ClearCube. About 96 Pentium 4-based PC blades were installed to handle network client stations that provide access to unclassified information. Johnsen still needed an answer for the classified network, which can't use Category 5 cable because it generates electromagnetic emanations that can be detected remotely.
ClearCube developed a fiber connection, and the security headquarters in November added 74 blades and terminals. "With all the security vulnerabilities we have to deal with every day, I needed an easier way to manage than having my system administrators run around from PC to PC to distribute security patches, do updates, and enforce policy," Johnsen says. By consolidating the processors and storage in a secured location, the technicians can now access the blades remotely for maintenance.
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