Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Dell 1855 blades - how configurable?

[JammyAlly]

Am thinking of taking the plunge and purchasing Dell 1855 blades. It is a 7u enclosure with 10 blades, each blade has 3.6ghz dual core, 1x36gb hard drive and 4gb RAM.

Does anyone know how configurable blades in general are?

Is it possible to use some or all of the blades to act as one server? Can I use all 10 blades (approx 72ghz cpu and 40gb RAM and 360gb drive) to act as one server?

Is it possible to use 5 blades as an SQL server and the other 5 for the website application?

I have been trying to look this up on search engines but cannot find anything that gives a clear answer. Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Spudstr]

Originally Posted by JammyAlly

Am thinking of taking the plunge and purchasing Dell 1855 blades. It is a 7u enclosure with 10 blades, each blade has 3.6ghz dual core, 1x36gb hard drive and 4gb RAM.

Does anyone know how configurable blades in general are?

Is it possible to use some or all of the blades to act as one server? Can I use all 10 blades (approx 72ghz cpu and 40gb RAM and 360gb drive) to act as one server?

Is it possible to use 5 blades as an SQL server and the other 5 for the website application?

I have been trying to look this up on search engines but cannot find anything that gives a clear answer. Any guidance would be appreciated.

a blade is nothing more than a single server turned on its side and cut in half in width on average. They don't work as a logical single server.

[Southprojects]

Originally Posted by JammyAlly

Is it possible to use 5 blades as an SQL server and the other 5 for the website application?

you should do it.
While it is "trivial" to do it for Sql Server, for a website it is not so trivial. If you have different domain and/or subdomain then may be you can runs in in a separated server but, usually 1 server is enough for a website application (since most of the work is done by the database). Also, it is possible to use a separated server for cache, for example memcached.

[Kusai]

Blades are nothing more than CPU and Ram alone. You will need additional storage for use with that unless you are comfortable with low HDD. Another thing you would need to look out before you buy blades are the power consumption, they hook up on 208v circuit x 2 or for redundant its x 4.

[JammyAlly]

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it.

The key here is that I cannot combine the 10 blades to make one giant server running at 72ghz. Back to the drawing board for me!

Darn

[Kusai]

u can make a could out of it i guess.

[JammyAlly]

Originally Posted by IPStrada LLC

u can make a could out of it i guess.

Sorry? I do not understand

[fastdeploy]

Originally Posted by JammyAlly

Sorry? I do not understand

Could = cloud I'm thinking.

[Kusai]

Originally Posted by IPStrada LLC

u can make a could out of it i guess.

My bad, i meant CLOUD

[JammyAlly]

In your opinion what would be the best way to set up a cloud or cluster server set-up using blades? And what external hardware would be required to get a cloud or cluster going.

[DUR0N]

I wouldn't recommend using the older blade generation for webhosting of any kind, they suck up way to much energy, even with the higher efficiency PSU's.
But, to answer your question: just external storage. iSCSI if you want it cheap, Fiber Channel if you want the high-end stuff.