Quiz: Blade servers

Blade servers. They're one of the biggest topics in the data center right now. They take up less room than racks, which is good because as your server needs increase, your data center size doesn't. The focus turns to consolidation, and that's where blades come in.

So what's the problem? Two things. Heat and power. It's great that blade servers save space, but they're also working just as hard as the rack servers, which means despite the smaller size, they're giving off more heat. Which means that using blade servers can produce more heat than rack servers. The same thing goes for power requirements. Even so, data center managers are still finding that the TCO is more favorable with blades than racks, which is why, in today's data centers, you're more likely to find--you guessed it--blades.

We've created this quiz to test (and refresh) your blade server knowledge.

1. A server ________ is a thin, modular electronic circuit board containing one, two, or more microprocessors and memory, that is intended for a single, dedicated application (such as serving Web pages) and that can be easily inserted into a _______ server, which is a space-saving rack with many similar servers.
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2. The place where a blade server is housed is called a _________.
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3. Each blade is a server in its own right, often used for a single _____________.
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4. People like blades over racks because blades offer more power in less ________.
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5. A fully populated blade rack weighs nearly one _________ .
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6. Excessive heat can affect the performance, availability and __________ of blade servers.
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7. Many data centers suffer from abandoned ________ issues which create an air dam and may keep cooling units and chillers from operating at peak efficiencies--not all data centers need to revamp their power and cooling to accommodate blades.
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8. Before buying a full chassis of blades, enterprises ought to make certain they have a sufficient workload to justify the cost. A good rule of thumb is that a half-populated chassis will cost as much to run and operate as an equal number of ______ servers.
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9. Lots of cold air leaks out of a multitude of openings in the _______ tiles, doing virtually nothing.
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10. Another issue, besides heat in a data center, is the _________--which is why data centers should have a vapor barrier.
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