The cutting edge of these advancements will be platforms built around server blades. Figure 1 illustrates IDC's initial belief on how this market will develop. CompactPCI is an adaptation of the Peripheral Component Interconnect Specification, which was developed for robust industrial applications. However, the term blade was broadened to include sub-1U servers that are tied into sub rack systems, but not based on the cPCI specifications.
Server blades are the natural evolution of the rack-optimized migration.
Other product concepts increase the processing density to five or six times what is capable today in a standard rack environment. A server blade is an inclusive computing system that includes processor, memory, network connections, and associated electronics on a single motherboard. Blades are easily accessible and are typically found in a sub-U form factor and may be associated with content blades and network blades that contain the storage capacity and networking capabilities, respectively. The server blade architecture is designed primarily for computing density along with a universal modular architecture that ensures both flexibility and scalability. Notably, one of the second-round investors was IBM, which has 80 years' experience in the IT industry.