A blade server is fine, if you ever plan to fill more than a few of the slots. Otherwise, the overhead of the uh…”knife rack” *eg* is not worth it.

A few points to keep in mind:

* there is no such thing as “locally administering” a blade server, everything is done through some sort of remote administration, so be especially careful about your accounts, permissions and so on from the start.

* be certain that your blades are hot-swappable, and that you have at least two hot-swappable power supplies in the housing. Most are like this, but it’s always best to check.

* it is highly likely that the vendor you select now will be your only choice for upgrades, cross-vendor interoperability is not guaranteed. This covers racks, blades and management tools, although the compatability of third-party software is improving.

* make absolutely sure your HVAC environment is capable of sustaining such a high density of hardware and the heat it generates.

P.S.: Here is a good resource to check out, though by no means the only one:

http://www.networkworld.com/topics/serverblades.html

To add a key emphasis to Mistoffeles comment about heat loading….

Your HVAC not only needs to have the cooling capacity, you MUST be able to move enough air through the blade environment. In some cases, this may require mid-rack fans to exhaust the hot air immediately out the side, and not wait for it to be sucked out through the top.

One place I work has such high server density (1-U servers at that, not even blades) that you would start sweating in the exhaust blast from the cabinet – and most of the room is in the high 50′s to low 60′s F range.

Bob