By IT Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
Servers are a vital part of IT infrastructure, providing data and services to other computers (often termed “clients”) on a particular network. Depending on the environment and network requirements, IT professionals might opt to purchase or build servers with a particular physical form factor. Rack, blade, and tower servers are some of the more popular designs.
- Tower servers: Tower servers are standalone units that resemble desktop PC towers. They don’t require a mounting rack or specialized hardware, and can be easily integrated into existing networks. They are ideal for small to midsize businesses (SMBs) that don’t have the need or resources for a huge network.
- Rack servers: Most rack servers are designed to fit on a standardized frame that’s 19 inches wide. Thanks to that standardization, IT professionals can quickly provision and scale a network simply by stacking rack servers within a data center, even servers from different vendors aimed at different uses (provided they’re all the same width).
- Blade servers: These modular servers are often smaller than rack servers and are installed within a chassis (also referred to as a server bay or a blade enclosure), allowing for a higher density of servers within a relatively constrained area. Blade servers may only contain a CPU, memory, and network controllers, and rely on pooled external storage (such as a SAN); they may also have their own storage. Blade servers are generally more expensive than rack servers, and can be optimized for high-performance computing (HPC).
IT pros’ choice of server often depends on the workload. For example, a sysadmin working for a startup might opt for a tower server to power its decentralized network, while their colleague working for a larger tech company might opt for rack servers to help with web hosting and virtualization. Meanwhile, a CISO at an enterprise-level company might want to spend the money on blade servers for compute-intensive, highly specialized workloads.
