The Server Blade Summit 2003 tradeshow and conference has issued an announcement summarizing the results of its recently concluded event and about the overall state of the associated market.

According to the show's organizers . . .

• Interest in the emerging blade computing market has more than doubled since last year, as measured by attendee and exhibitor participation
• Industry analyst IDC forecasts that server blades will generate $3.7 billion in revenue by 2006
• IMEX Research, a technology market research and consulting company, predicts that the market for computing blades is poised to explode from less than one percent in 2002 to 23 percent in 2006 of all entry and small server shipments
• Representatives from more than 30 companies attended the inaugural meeting of the Server Blade Trade Association

What are server blades?

From the Server Blade Summit's announcement . . .

Server blades are a new generation of highly advanced, ultra-dense server environments. A server blade is essentially an entire server that fits on a single card, or blade, and contains the CPU, memory, and networking components necessary to run applications. These blades are plugged into a single chassis that can accommodate upwards of 24 server blades in the space previously occupied by one traditional server. When comparing a standard 6-foot data center rack, administrators could deploy 336 server blades, vs. 42 1U servers. In addition to delivering an ultra-dense server environment, server blades offer extremely low power consumption, breakthrough “economies of scale” and a new level of “economies of skill” through its plug-and-play design.

 
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