The common sense of purchasing the three types of servers

mentioned the server, you will definitely think of the rack server and tower server, in fact, if the server can be divided into three types from the appearance type, respectively, tower server, rack server And the blade server, let's take a closer look at each:

Tower server

It should be said that the tower server is the easiest to accept because of its shape and the vertical PC we see. The machine is almost the same, we see the most, and the easiest to understand.

Because its shape and structure do not require space, the scalability of the machine is better. Because the motherboard of the server has strong scalability and a lot of slots, the head is bigger than the ordinary motherboard. Therefore, the host chassis of the tower server is larger than the standard new motherboard chassis, and generally enough internal space is reserved. Space for future redundant expansion of hard drives and power supplies.

The configuration of the server can also be very high, and the redundancy extension can be very comprehensive, so its application range is very wide. It should be said that the server with the highest usage rate is the tower server. The common servers we usually say are generally tower servers. It can be used to integrate a variety of common services. Both speed and storage applications can be solved with a tower server.

About the model difference of this product, the general domestic manufacturers start with the T letter, which has the beginning of the Chinese tower and the same as the English Tower, which is easy to remember.

In terms of the use of objects or usage levels, the current common entry-level and workgroup-level servers basically adopt this server structure type, but in some enterprises with high application requirements, stand-alone servers cannot. Meet the requirements, need multi-machine work together, and the tower server is too big, too independent, collaborative work is not convenient in space occupancy and system management, which is the limitation of the tower server.

To sum up, the advantage of the tower server is that the expansion is relatively easy and the space is free, so it is very convenient to maintain. The functions and performance of this kind of server can basically meet the requirements of most SME users, and the cost is usually low. Therefore, such servers still have very wide application support. However, if your conditions and environment require high space and you will purchase more than 5 units and want to put them on the rack for unified management, it is recommended that you purchase the rack server.

Rack Server:

The rack server is actually a product under industrial standardization. Its appearance is designed according to uniform standards and is used in conjunction with the cabinet. In space, U is used to measure its height. And its server has done a variety of structural optimization, its design is mainly to minimize the use of server space, and the direct benefit of reducing space is that the price will be much cheaper when the computer room is hosted.

This design not only makes the production and appearance of the server standard, but also makes them more like the IT equipment (switches and routers), can be placed on the rack, unified management will be more profession. The benefits of this are obvious: on the one hand, the device can occupy the smallest space, on the other hand, it is easy to connect and manage with other network devices, and the machine room will also appear neat and beautiful.

The rack server has a width of 19 inches and a height in U (1U = 1.75 inches = 44.45 mm). There are usually 1U, 2U, 3U, 4U, 5U, 7U standard servers. Users can flexibly adjust the height according to the elevation of their servers to store network devices such as servers, hubs, and disk array cabinets. After the server is placed, all the I/O lines are taken out from the rear of the cabinet (all the interfaces of the rack server are also at the rear). They are uniformly placed in the trunking of the cabinet, and are generally labeled with labels for easy management.

Now many Internet website servers are actually managed by professional organizations. The operators of the websites only maintain the website pages. The hardware and network connections are handed over to the custodians. Therefore, the custodians will be The height of the server is charged, and the 1U server charges a lot less than the 2U at the time of hosting, which is why the server of this structure is now widely used in the Internet business.

The general model of the rack server is represented by R, which is the first letter of Rack.

The summary here is that the rack server is greatly reduced in size compared with the tower server. Therefore, such servers are limited in terms of scalability and heat dissipation, so the performance of the single machine is limited, and the application range is also limited. More limited, can only focus on a certain aspect of the application, such as the provision of remote storage and network services, but because many accessories can not use the ordinary model of the tower server, and their own small space advantage, so the rack Servers are typically 20-30% more expensive than equivalently configured tower servers.

Blade Server

The blade server only appeared in 2001. Because it is more space-saving and more integrated, it is a big trend in the future. But the development of blade servers is not smooth, not only in China, but also in the whole world. 2002-03 is a very difficult period. However, it has already come out, and now it is accepted by more IT vendors and users. It has become a favorite product of bank telecom finance and various data centers.

In fact, the blade server is a high-availability, high-density, low-cost server platform designed for specific application industries and high-density computer environments. Each of the "blades" is actually a system motherboard. They can boot their own operating system through a local hard drive, such as Windows NT/2000, Linux, Solaris, etc., similar to a separate server. In this mode, each motherboard runs its own system, serving a different set of users, and is not related to each other. However, you can use system software to aggregate these boards into a single server cluster.

In cluster mode, all motherboards can be connected to provide a high-speed network environment that can share resources and serve the same user base. Inserting a new "blade" into the cluster improves overall performance. And because each "blade" is hot-swappable, the system can be easily replaced and minimized maintenance time. It is worth mentioning that the system configuration can be realized by a set of intelligent KVM and 9 or 10 CPU boards with hard disks. The CPU can be configured as a different subsystem. Servers in a single rack can share multiple optical drives, floppy drives, keyboards, monitors, and mice with a new smart KVM converter board to access multiple servers, making it easy to upgrade, maintain, and access files on the server.

The blade server is generally represented by B, taking the first letter of the BladeServer.

Because its technology is very special, the price will certainly not be accepted by SMEs. However, after the market for blade servers has increased, domestic manufacturers have joined in, and prices have fallen a lot.

From its characteristics, it is more suitable for the use of multi-operating system users, and can be purchased for large data centers or areas that require large-scale computing. However, it is a big problem for power supply and heat dissipation, and the average company will not purchase it.

End

Finally, I think everyone should have an understanding of the types of servers and their respective strengths and weaknesses. I will add a little more summary: that is, tower server expansion is relatively easy, space requirements are not high, management is flexible and convenient, more suitable for SMEs and users of less than 5 servers; and rack servers are very standard, mainly placed in the standard The rack is managed together with other IT equipment, which is suitable for medium-sized enterprises and large enterprise users. The blade server itself has a strong computing power, and has high security and redundant design. It is suitable for users in special industries. The application of calculations and data processing.