In "Pitching Blades", contributing editor James E. Drews rounds up a smorgasbord of blade servers from Dell, HP and RLX. These blade offerings run from sub-$2,000 systems to a $32,923 device with bells and whistles out the wazoo. But all offer reductions in server space, cables and software licenses, and deliver tantalizing flexibility and ease of management.
Once you decide that server consolidation is in your future, here's how to get started:
1. Get your physical inventory up-to-date.
2. Determine how many resources are being used on all servers.
3. Prioritize each software subsystem according to business importance. Go where it makes sense first, balancing the benefits of server consolidation with the risk involved in moving a given application or business-process system.
For help with inventory and resource monitoring see:
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