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Server hardware guide: Architecture, products and management

By John Moore

The explosive growth of cloud computing platforms and the preceding wave of virtualization have significantly altered the role of the server among SMBs and enterprises.

Virtualization enabled organizations to load multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single, physical box, boosting hardware utilization and offering the ability to consolidate IT resources. Virtualization paved the way to the cloud, as IT managers were able to transfer VMs offsite to run on hyperscale providers, such as AWS, Google and Microsoft. Business-critical applications -- such as CRM, HR and ERP -- previously operating on in-house servers, also journeyed to the cloud in the form of SaaS.

That said, businesses of all sizes will continue to own and operate servers. Some organizations prefer to maintain in-house servers and private clouds for particularly sensitive workloads or applications too costly or difficult to migrate to a public cloud platform.

Read on to learn more about the different types of servers, their evolving architectures and what IT buyers should look for regarding key requirements.

Types of server hardware

The mainframes of the 1950s and 1960s can be considered the original servers, but the history of servers in the modern sense starts in the 1990s with the invention of web and rack-mounted servers. Today, servers come in a range of form factors and offer varying capabilities, finding a home in settings from small businesses to large enterprises.

The following is a rundown of some of the prevalent types of server hardware:

Blade servers offer greater processing density than other server types, providing a potential price and performance advantage. Other blade server benefits include cooling -- with each blade being cooled individually by fans -- minimal wiring, low-power use and storage consolidation. Blade server systems are also simpler to repair than rack servers due to their hot-swappable, modular components. On the downside, blade servers historically have been built on proprietary architectures, making vendor lock-in a possible pitfall for buyers.

Server hardware architecture

The key components of server hardware architecture include the motherboard, processor, random access memory (RAM) and storage.

The motherboard resides at the heart of the server, providing the central nexus through which system components are interconnected and external devices are attached. Advanced Technology Extended and Low Profile Extension are the main types of motherboards, with Balance Technology Extended, Pico BTX and Mini Information Technology Extended motherboards addressing the needs of smaller form factors.

The processor, or central processing unit (CPU), resides on the motherboard. CPU components include the arithmetic logic unit, floating point unit, registers and cache memory. A server might also contain a graphics processing unit (GPU), which can support applications such as machine learning and simulations. Tensor processing units and neural processing units offer additional levels of processor specialization.

RAM microchips also plug into the motherboard, serving as a system's main memory. RAM holds the OS, applications and in-use data for fast access by the processor. As for storage, a server might use a hard disk drive (HDD), a solid-state drive (SSD), the cloud or a mix.

A server's form factor, meanwhile, influences the role it will play. An enterprise data center, for example, might consider the differences between rack and blade server form factors.

An organization seeking to run a heterogenous data center might choose rack servers because various makes and models can exist together in a common physical deployment approach. Rack servers also offer a range of power connections and network cabling choices. Large rack servers also offer extensibility, accommodating additional processors, memory and local storage disks.

Blade servers, meanwhile, are geared toward single-vendor IT settings that seek to unite compute, storage and networking within a single system. The blade server approach offers the benefits of faster deployment and simplified management.

Other trends in server architecture include disaggregation and composable infrastructure, which can be viewed as a continuation of converged infrastructure. Composable infrastructure uses software-defined methods to logically pool computer, storage and network fabric resources in a data center. Those resources become the basis for shared services, which admins can draw upon to compose compute instances on the fly.

Requirements

IT buyers in the market for servers must consider a range of factors when evaluating hardware vendor offerings, bearing in mind their current and future workload needs. An organization's requirements will naturally vary but will revolve around the following server hardware features:

Management and maintenance

Managing servers and keeping them in working order encompasses a range of activities and tools.

Server monitoring systems, for example, provide critical data that admins can use to detect issues before they escalate to problems that could result in outages. Some of the essential components and tools of server monitoring include capacity management tools that track the usage of resources, such as CPU, memory and storage.

Specialized energy consumption tools, meanwhile, enable admins to gauge a server's efficiency. Tools in this category include meters embedded in uninterruptable power supplies, which report the power consumption of connected devices. Other options include external power meters, online energy consumption calculators and hardware vendors' configuration tools.

Although proper maintenance should help extend server life, hardware degradation is inevitable. A server's physical components will eventually break down, with power, temperature, management and memory among the problem areas. At some point, servers will need to be decommissioned and replaced.

At the high end of the server spectrum, proper mainframe decommissioning calls for several steps. Initially, IT managers should take inventory of the applications running on the mainframe server. The next step is to outsource the applications to a service provider specializing in mainframes or replatforming the mainframe's applications to operate on x86 servers. Admins must also create a security plan, which could include deleting the mainframe's data or destroying hard drives.

Troubleshooting

End-of-life hardware will need replacing at some point, but until then, admins must troubleshoot a server to keep it operating. An important first step is determining the scope of the problem -- who are the affected users, and are they reporting any consistent error messages? Once the problem is isolated to a particular server, admins can consult monitoring tools for alerts, check network connections and review the server environment's topology.

Troubleshooting and the use of monitoring tools can help organizations maintain system availability. But there are other steps organizations can take as they develop approaches to prevent and recover from server failure. Those include maintaining adequate server ventilation, temperature control and following a routine maintenance regimen.

Failure to update machines also ranks among the top common server hardware issues that can result in poor performance. Organizations should develop a process for regularly updating applications, firmware and OSes. Special attention should also be paid to server security and power. The latter calls for the installation of uninterruptible power supplies and the purchase and testing of on-site generators.

Vendors and products

Customers can choose from myriad options when it's time to buy a new server. Server hardware options in the rack, blade and mainframe server market include offerings from more than a dozen vendors. The list of suppliers includes the following:

Servers for small businesses

The following are a few examples of server hardware for small business customers, which tend to purchase tower servers:

Purchasing considerations

Whether you are purchasing a server for an enterprise or a small business, the fundamentals are essentially the same: Understand your requirements and use cases and match those up against the products you evaluate. Vendors offer a wide range of server form factors, configurations and models, many of which are optimized for particular types of workloads. Buyers must be willing to conduct a careful analysis or hire a consultant or channel partner, such as a value-added reseller, to identify the server that best suits their needs.

Organizations sizing up server options should also familiarize themselves with purchasing methods. Vendors sell servers on their website, through a direct sales force, using online retailers and in partnership with authorized channel companies. Some vendors use a combination of sales outlets.

Cost is always a consideration, particularly for budget-constrained organizations, such as small businesses. SMBs should consider several factors when calculating server hardware costs. The first task is to determine hardware requirements based on anticipated uses. Although this will help scope the hardware costs, buyers must also examine server OS costs, which can rival the hardware price tag, and the cost of applications intended to reside on the server. Also factor server maintenance and administration costs into the total cost of ownership equation.

The future of server hardware

The future of server hardware must be viewed in the context of cloud computing and its growing influence. The cloud has become very popular among businesses. A report from Zippia shows that 94% of enterprises and 67% of enterprise infrastructure use cloud services. This quick adoption of cloud servers and services is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing businesses to move more workloads to cloud platforms as a business resiliency measure.

Small business and corporate data centers, however, will continue to own and operate servers, often as part of hybrid cloud environments. Outside of those organizations, service providers will likely hold sway as the key server buyers.

Servers will remain important, but how the technology is consumed will continue to change, especially with a push toward green data centers.

Editor's note: Vendors and products were chosen based on what companies have server hardware options and the likelihood a company, small or large, would use these servers. This list has been modified to show updated vendors that sell server hardware options as of 2024.

John Moore is a writer for TechTarget Editorial covering the CIO role, economic trends and the IT services industry.

16 Jan 2024

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