Network cable form used in any infrastructure of network serves as the most significant networking aspect in several industries.

Types of Network cables

Coaxial cable

A single conductor of copper is there in the middle of coaxial cable. Insulation is provided by plastic layer between center conductor and braided metal shield. The outer interference that comes from the fluorescent lights, motors and other computers is blocked by the metal shield.  Installation of coaxial cable is complex and offers extreme signal obstruction resistance. Enormous lengths of cable between devices of network are handled by it compared to twisted pair cable. Thick coaxial and thin coaxial are the two forms of coaxial cables.

The coaxial cable has the unique design that allows its installation near metal objects as well without any losses in power that takes place in lines of transmission. The transmission capability of coaxial cable is 80 times more in comparison to the twisted pair cable. The main use of such cables is in the feedlines that connect radio receivers and transmitters with antennas, cable television distributed signals and connections of computer network.

Unshielded twisted pair

This form of network cable is the most admired one in the world and is perfect for both computer networking and conventional telephone networking. Following are the various schemes of wiring available for UTP:

• CAT 1 useful for the telephone wire
• Speeds of upto 4 Mbps are supported by CAT2 and are frequently used for the token ring networks.
• For the token ring networks that have higher speeds of network, the wiring scheme used is CAT 3 and CAT4.
• CAT5e has replaced CAT5 since they offer improved crosstalk specification that allows support speeds of up to 1 Gbps. This is world’s most used specification of network cabling.
• Speeds of over 1 Gbps are supported by CAT6 for over 100 meters of length and for 55 meters, the speed is 10 Gbps. A distinct cable analyzer must be used by companies using CAT6 cabling for requesting overall test report.
• A fresh pattern of copper cable is CAT7 that supports 10 Gbps speeds and 100 meters length.

STP or shielded twisted pair cable

This distinct copper telephone wiring form is used in the installations of businesses. The general telephone wires of twisted pair are added with external shield that acts as the ground. STP serves to be the most suitable solution if you are in search of cable for the place having electrical current risk in UTP or potential interference. With the help of shielded cables, the distance between cables could also be expanded.

Fiber optic cable

Center glass core is there in the fiber optic cable and several protective material layers surround it. The electrical obstruction problem is removed by this cable with the transmission of light in place of electronic signals. This is the reason why they serve as the perfect options for some atmospheres having electrical interference in enormous amount. For networks connection between buildings, it serves as the standard choice on account of its resistance to moisture and lighting.

A glass threads bundle is present in the fiber optic cable, each having the capability of spreading the messages that are modulated on the light waves. The structure and design of fiber optic cable is complicated. Outer optical casing is there in this form of cable that surrounds light and catch it inside central core. Configuration of inner section of cable must be done in two ways: multi-mode and single mode. While the difference is small, the fiber optic cables usage and performance are affected tremendously.

Comparison Table

Download the comparison table: types of network cables comparison

Today we look more in depth to understand network availability, redundancy, resilience and diversity enablers, how different they are from each other but still inter-related to each other.

Network Availability

Is network uptime which is a measure of how seamlessly clients could access resources such as servers, printers available on network. Network availability calculation is based on two key values: 

• network uptime 
• total duration of the given period 

It is constantly monitored within organizations to maximize availability of their hosted services and applications. Determining overall availability and uptime requires tracking network devices for configuration errors, CPU over usage or other performance issues which could lead to network slowdown and failures. Network availability can be improved further by building redundancy of key components, diversification of them and self-recovery and self-healing resilient systems.  

Network Redundancy

In network redundancy backup network resources are used to minimize or prevent downtime due to power outage, hardware issues, human errors, systems failure or cyber-attacks. Running critical core network services and building duplicate network infrastructure is required to achieve redundancy. 

It ensures multiple pathways of data transmission are available to route traffic to alternate routes. If one path fails or becomes unavailable due to any said factors there is always an alternate path. But being redundant does not necessarily mean you are full proof from network outages. So we need to look at other enablers also to understand what role they play.

Network Resilience 

Redundancy acts as a measure to enhance resilience which allows proactive or reactive response to changes which would impact systems. Requirements of resilience could be diverse and may be evolving, specifically in environments which are dynamic and scalable and any fault of one system would have a cascading effect on the entire chain of services. 

Resilience is more prophetic in nature and involves forecasting of faults, isolating impacted components, providing protection against potential faults, removing faults and initiating recovery from fault state and restoring systems to optimal performance. Resilience is measured in terms of systems availability at any given instance, having frequency or delays in fault occurrences and speed of recovery from faulty state. 

Network Diversity

A duplicate or alternate instance does not mean the organization network is fully protected so network diversity comes into picture here. It takes network redundancy to the next level while duplicating network infrastructure geographically on a diverse path in another data center or on cloud. 

Geographically diverse networks protect against natural calamities such as weather events, construction and localized incidents at a single location. If a redundant site is in different city, or state or region then chances of incident impacting both locations at the same time is remote possibility, however to achieve near to absolute resiliency one can opt for cloud based disaster recovery solutions. 

Conclusion

In a nutshell though network availability, redundancy, resilience and diversity seems differ from each other but these are crucial components of resilience disciplines as redundancy is for fault tolerance, diversity is for survivability, resiliency is self-healing and recovery from faults and end objective is to achieve network availability in a seamless manner.

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Top 10 Trends Impacting Infrastructure & Operations

Colocation vs Carrier Neutral Data Center : Detailed Comparison

In this article we will look at some Tower servers which made their place in top 10 and shaped the IT and business landscape.  Understand their strength and features.

Top 10 – Tower Servers 

Dell PowerEdge T30

It can be brought as bare bone or a fully configured server. It has Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5, supports six SATA disks, 64 GB memory. It has fast quad – core Xeon processor and can accommodate six internal disks. However, it has few limitations single Gigabit network port, no hot swapping of disks.

Dell PowerEdge T20

It has bare bone version without hard disks. It has Haswell-based Pentium processor which has clock speed of 3GBz and supports up to 32 GB DDR3 ECC RAM, expansion capabilities include four SATA ports (32 TB if use 8 TB hard disks), four I/O slots and 10 USB ports. It is cost effective model and compact mini tower Dell Server having easy access to internals. It has certain limitations such as it is more of a desktop than server CPU and it has no drives or OS.

Lenovo ThinkServer TS150

It has built on best of ThinkServer tradition. It is 4U enterprise class server and it comes with support for RAID 0,1,10 and 5 via an onboard controller. It can accommodate up to four 3.5” HDDs and it can go up to 40 TB of storage. It has 64 GB of memory. It is most affordable ThinkServer model and quite in operations.

HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen 10 

It is packed with Intel Xeon scalable processors, and offers big performance boost over earlier models. It requires separate storage however but supports wide support for graphics and computing options. it can be turned into rack server as business grows without additional investment. It supports up to 16 GB memory and scalable and decent in design. Limitations are it is a hefty machine and don’t come with hard disks.

Fujitsu Primergy TX1310 M1

It is an entry level, SMB focused server. It is designed to run silently 24/7 and has RAID 0/1/10 but not 5. This model has Intel Xeon E3-1226 V3, two 1 TB hard disks and 16 GB memory. It comes with optical drive and two Gigabit Ethernet ports for redundancy, four DIMM slots and four storage bays, this server supports up to 32 TB of storage and 32 GB of memory. It has some plus features such as good guarantee and has an optical drive. Some limitations are no RAID 5

HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8 

It is small in size and light weight. It has Intel Xeon E3 family, up to 16 GB memory, system management processor, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one PCIe slot, support for RAID 0/1/10, a DVD writer, up to four hard disks, an internal MicroSD card slot, integrated Matrox G200 graphics chip and seven USB ports. It is professional built with ease of access and compact in size. It has no hot swap disks and quieter in operation.

Lenovo ThinkServer TS460

It is a big server with 50 Litre volume and 25Kg weight, this is 5 U server runs on Intel Xeon E3 model with Turbo Boost technology with three years onsite warranty. Supports up to 64 GB of memory, and integrated RAID controller with four RAID types, DVD writer, four fans, a 300W PSU and two Gigabit Ethernet ports. Up to eight hard drives and eight USB ports, lockable door and support for ECC memory, Serial and VGA connector. Limitations are costly and a big machine.

HP ProLiant ML350 G9 5U

Expensive but loads of features such as dedicated, integrated graphics card, three years onsite warranty, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and support for 12 Gbps SAS (takes only 2.5” drives). Runs on Intel Xeon E5-2603 V3 processor, and supports two CPUs, it has six cores and 24 memory slots allows to hit 3 TB of memory, lockable front door, and storage controller. It has six core CPU which is ideal for intensive loads but definitely highly priced.

Scan 3XS SER-T25

Specially designed for SMB segment, Two broadband based Intel Xeon E5-2603- V4 processors with 12 cores and 30 MB of cache. 64GB of DDR4 ECC memory, 1 TB WD enterprise class hard drive, two Intel Gigabit Ethernet ports, a 1000W Gold PSU and support for eight hard disk drives. It is compact and powerful but highly priced.

ASUS TS500 

It has latest Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 V3, eight DDR4 DIMMs, six expansion slots, three 5.25” media bays and single 500W 80 plus bronze power supply. It has four 3.5” hot swap SATA/SAS HDD bays upgradable to eight HDD bays for flexible storage requirements. Other key specs included 10 SATA ports, a DVD write, eight USB ports, a PS2 port, a VGA one and three Gigabit Ethernet ports. It is perfect for server and workstation use and robust power and flexibility.

Comparison Table: Tower Servers

Below table summarizes the comparison between all these products:

PRODUCT	PROCESSORS	MEMORY	DRIVES SUPPORTED	FEATURES
Dell PowerEdge T30	Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5	64 GB	Upto six SATA	Fast quad core processor
				Six internal disks
Dell PowerEdge T20	Intel Pentium G3220	4 GB	No drives	Very cheap
				Compact mini tower
Lenovo ThinkServer TS150	Intel Xeon E3-1200 v6	64 GB	Up to 40TB HDD	Most affordable
				Whisper quiet
HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen 10	Intel Xeon Scalable 4210	16 GB	No drives	Scalable
				Decent design
Fujitsu Primergy TX1310 M1	Intel Xeon E3-1226 v3	16 GB	2 *1 TB HDD	Good guarantee
				Optical drive
HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8	Intel Celeron G1610T	4 GB	No drives	Good quality
				Compact in size
Lenovo ThinkServer TS460	Xeon E3-1200 v6	64 GB	80 TB	Three years onsite warranty
HP ProLiant ML350 G9 5U	Intel Xeon E5-2603	8 GB	No drives	Six-core Xeon CPU
Scan 3XS SER-T25	Dual Intel Xeon E5-2603 v4	64 GB	1 TB HDD	Compact and quiet
ASUS TS500	Intel Xeon E5-2600	As per order	No drives	Good fit for server / workstation use

Download the comparison Table: Top 10 Tower Servers

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Top 10 Blade Servers

Top 10 Rack Servers

In this article we will look at some blade servers which made their place in the top 10 and shaped the IT and business landscape. Understand their strengths and features.

Top 10 – Blade Servers 

Dell PowerEdge FX2 Chassis

FX2 chassis has density and efficiency of blades with lower costs and simplicity. It has rapid ability to scale up and come up as a popular option for big server farms which want stripped down compute blades. It comes in a 2U rackmount form factor which can be configured to hold 4 half-width, 8 quarter width sleds or 2 full width sleds. It is a great option to reduce downtime as so many blades are packed together which can failover without impacting others. It is a good choice for an entry level infrastructure but lacks storage and computing power of many other products available in the market. 

HPE ProLiant BL460

It is designed for a wide range of configuration and deployment choices. The standalone blades are not expensive but with the BLc7000 enclosure price shoots up. It can scale up to 26 cores, 12 GB SAS and 2.0TB of HPE DDR4. Keeping security in mind, major firmware is anchored directly into the architecture, running millions of lines of firmware code before the server operating system boots. It offers a secure recovery option as well and firmware can be recovered to a good state after compromised code is detected. It is a good choice for the small and medium business segment.      

Lenovo ThinkSystem SN550

It is part of Lenovo Flex system orchestration platform, having claims of ability to run applications with up to 80% better density than a standard rack based deployments.it has flexible blade servers which are optimized for cloud, server virtualization, database and virtual desktop infrastructure. It supports up to 28 cores.

Cisco UCS B200 M5

They are considered smart choice for those already using Cisco. They are a good option for those who focus on networking rather than computing on storage. It has 28 cores per socket, up to 24 DDR4 DIMMs for improved performance, up to two GPUs. It can also accommodate up to two small form factor (SFF) HDD/SSD/NVMe drives or 2 SD cards or M.2 SATA drives. 

Huawei Fusion Server E9000 

It is a converged architecture-based blade server having four socket blades that puts it in the upper category. Its infrastructure is designed to converge computing, storage, networking and management.  It has 16 slots in a 12U chassis which includes a redundant power supply unit, heat dissipation modules, management modules, and switch modules. It can be installed in a standard 19” rack at depth. It supports management features like lifecycle management, automated firmware upgrade, automated OS deployment, stateless computing and Restful APIs.

Fujitsu Primergy BX400 S1

It is considered a data centre on wheels. It is a dual socket server blade ideally suited for web infrastructure workloads and HPC. It harnesses Intel Xeon E5-1600 v4 processors, up to two with 44 cores each, 2 TB of memory, two hot plug disk drives, and two additional mezzanine cards. It offers direct attached storage and can support up to 10 hot pluggable SAS or SATA hard disks. 

NEC Express5800 Blade Enclosure M

It is one of the cheapest blade server’s ideal for reducing computing footprint or upgrading an aging server in infrastructure. It is also built to have easy setup and configuration connectivity through its management module. It is not meant for large organizations however due to its managing, storage and networking options are not enough. 8 compute blades and six switch modules can fit into the chassis. It provides monitoring status of each blade, easier cabling using KVM switches, redundant power supply modules and fans to ensure servers run with high availability. 

Dell PowerEdge MX840C

This model is part of PowerEdge MX Kinetic infrastructure ecosystem, with dense compute, and loads of memory. expandable storage subsystem, it is meant to deliver flexibility and agility required for demanding and shared resource environments. It can scale up to 448 cores per chassis. It has 48 DDR4 DIMMs slots and 8 2.5” drive bays for SAS/SATA disk drives. It enables maximum utilization, and avoids over provisioning. 

HPE Synergy 660 

It can host four Xeon scalable processors. Quick deployment of IT resources via single interface. It supports both two socket and four socket full height compute modules, as well as 6 TB memory, and up to four SFF drives. It is ideal for higher performance and scalability requirements centric applications. 

SuperMicro SuperBlade 

Each node includes up to four 28-core Xeon scalable CPUs with 3 TB DDR24 2666 MHz in 48 DIMM slots. Chassis has support for NVMe/SAS3 HDD blades, option 100G EDR InfiniBand/Intel Omni-Path or 10G mezzanine HCA.

Comparison Table: Blade Servers

Below table summarizes the comparison between all these products:

PRODUCT	PROCESSORS	CORES	RAM	FORM FACTOR	FEATURES
Dell PowerEdge FX2 Chassis	4 Intel Xeon E5-4600	36	512 GB	Full/Half/Quarter width	Scalable, Entry level for large server farms
HPE ProLiant BL460	2 Xeon scalable	52	2 TB	Half height	Good for SMBs
Lenovo ThinkSystem SN550	2 Xeon scalable	56	3 TB	Full width	Fit for IBM environments
Cisco UCS B200 M5	2 Xeon scalable	56	3 TB	Half width	Ideal for cisco networks
Huawei Fusion Server E9000	2 Xeon scalable	56	1.5 TB	Half width	Good performance
Fujitsu Primergy BX400 S1	2 Xeon E5-2600	88	2 TB	Half height	Ideal for web infrastructure workloads
NEC Express5800 Blade Enclosure M	2 Xenon 5500 series	8	128 GB	Full width	Server consolidation
Dell PowerEdge MX840C	2 Xeon scalable	112	9 TB	Double width	High end, high performance
HPE Synergy 660	4 Xeon scalable	96	6 TB	Full height	Top line performance
SuperMicro SuperBlade	4 Xeon scalable	112	12 TB	Half height	Budget price, 4 socket Xeon

Download the comparison Table: Top 10 Blade Servers

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Blade Server vs Rack Server vs Tower Server

Top 10 Rack Servers

In this article we will look at some Rack servers which made their place in the top 10 and shaped the IT and business landscape in the year 2021.  Understand their strengths and features.

Top 10 – Rack Servers 

Cisco UCS C240 M6

It is a 3rd generation AMD EPYC processor. It includes 32 DIMM slots, 8 TB capacity, RAID control, and an internal dual M.2 drive option. It is a two socket, 2 RU form factor and offers high performance computing. It has upgrade capacity for additional DDR4 DIMMs, right PCIe 4.0 slots, 28 storage interface slots, up to 960 GB for M.2 boot options, and support up to five GPUs. This server is ideal for an array of tasks including storage, I/O intensive applications, and high-performance computing. 

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 

It offers 24 NVMe drivers and eight PCIe 4.0 slots for throughput. It has 3rd Gen Intel Xeon scalable processors (80 Nos). for memory it carries 32 DIMM slots, up to 8 TB capacity, and can take six different disk types.

It is designed to manage demanding high workloads ranging from database analytics to Artificial intelligence, virtualization, and machine learning. 

Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX4770 M5 

It is a 2U, quad socket server having 3rd Gen Intel Xeon processors. Having 28 cores per socket and 12 DIMM slots per CPU, this server can have 15 TB of memory. It is flexible and supports twelve operating systems to choose from. 16 general slots for NVMe adapters and 8 PCIe 3.0 slots. 

HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 

It is meant for high performance computing segments, data warehousing and analytics operations. It has 2 Intel Xeon scalable processors, up to 28 cores, 3 TB with 24 DIMMs and 2666MT/s, up to 16 GB NVDIMMs option, up to 8 PCIe 3.0 slots, and maximum storage of 232 GB. It has a robust security feature which includes a series of validation checks between system components which run every 24 hours to test and verify any modifications or changes to easily detect any malware and compromised code.

Huawei Fusion Server Pro 2288H V5

It is a 2U, 2-socket server that is well suited for an array of workloads. From big data processing to databases and cloud computing it is suited for modern tasks and power consumption reduction is 15% without any change in performance. It has 28 NVMe drives. 12 intel Optane persistent memory modules, the 228H V5 can achieve up to 7.5 TB memory capacity and has 10 PCIe 3.0 slots.

IBM Power System S922 

It has IBM homegrown POWER9 processor and is fit for organizations requiring resilient and cloud enabled servers. It has top notch processing power with 4 TB memory, easing cloud applications, analytics, and any other demand intensive workloads. 

It has fifteen PCIe 4.0 slots and two U.2 modules slots for expansion. It has an embedded POWER VM hypervisor which can consolidate workloads to reduce overhead costs.

Inspur NF8480

This 4U four socket module server which is fit for high performance computing, Artificial intelligence, and has 50 slots of SAS, SATA and NVMe drives. Has 19 slots for PCIe 3.0 drives with memory capacity of 7.5 TB. It is highly scalable and flexible who need full height and half height options for I/O balance and expansion.

Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630 

It has 7.5 TB memory capacity, 123 TB storage capacity. It comes with the latest Intel Xeon processors, four PCIe 4.0 slots, and four NVMe ports. It is able to cope up with harsh environments and keeps energy costs low as compared to the amount of raw computing power it has. 

Oracle Server X8-2

Newest server in X86 series for middleware and application workloads. It has 1 U module which allows 64 TB of memory and 51.2 TB of storage space. It is based on the Platinum or Gold 2nd Gen Intel Xeon scalable processor. 

Dell EMC PowerEdge R840 

Four socket rack servers, 24 NVMe drives, and supports two GPUs for workload acceleration. It has 6 TB capacity and can be expanded up to 15 TB while using DC persistent memory and load reduction DIMM (LRDIMM). It is designed for data intensive workloads and ideal for high frequency trading, CPU virtualization and workload acceleration. 

Below table summarizes the comparison between all these products:

PRODUCT	FF /SOCKET	PROCESSORS	MEMORY	DRIVES SUPPORTED	FEATURES
Cisco UCS C240 M6	2 U – 2	Intel Xeon scalable	3 TB	26	I/O intensive applications
Dell EMC PowerEdge R750	2U – 2	3rd Gen Intel Xeon	8 TB	24	General purpose server
Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX4770 M5	2U – 4	3rd Gen Intel Xeon	15 TB	24	Enterprise class UNIX system
HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10	2U – 2	2nd Gen Intel Xeon	9 TB	30	General purpose server
Huawei Fusion Server Pro 2288H V5	2U – 2	2nd Gen Intel Xeon	3 TB	31	Ideal for big data processing
IBM Power System S922	2U – 2	IBM POWER9	4 TB		Ideal for mission critical workloads
Inspur NF8480	4U – 4	3rd Gen Intel Xeon	12 TB	50	I/O balance and expansion
Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630	1U – 2	3rd Gen Intel Xeon	6 TB	16	Compute intensive applications
Oracle Server X8-2	1U – 2	2nd Gen Intel Xeon	64 TB	8	Scalable and meant for intensive workloads
Dell EMC PowerEdge R840	2U – 4	2nd Gen Intel Xeon	15 TB	26	Ideal for virtualized applications

Download the comparison Table: Top 10 Rack Servers

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Blade Server vs Rack Server vs Tower Server

What is a Terminal Server?

Nowadays in the IT community we define with the term Terminal Server, any hardware device or computer server that provides terminals, such as PC computers, printers and other devices with a common connection point to a local (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). 

The common architecture used for terminal servers is by connecting the one side with their RS-232C interface, a RS-423 serial port or UDP and the other side of the terminal server connected through network interface cards (NIC) to a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), Dial-Up modems, to an X.25 network or a 3270 gateway.

How a Terminal Server Works?

Although the way a Terminal Server works depends on different vendor characteristics, Windows based Terminal Servers use the Operating System OS in order to support multiple user sessions. This is different from multi-session environments that Windows file servers mainly use, because the operating system renders a user interface (UI) for each of these sessions. 

Most end users connect to a terminal server by applying the remote desktop protocol (RDP) client. The RDP protocol is a desktop or mobile application whose job it is to connect to the terminal server and display the session’s contents.

On this type of architecture, the RDP client communicates with the terminal server through a connection port. The presence of a session manager component keeps all the user sessions separate and handles the relevant tasks such as allowing a user to reconnect after accidentally closing the RDP client. 

This kind of sessions are actually executed as a part of the terminal server services and the session manager is responsible for managing them. When a user asks for an interaction with a session through keyboard, mouse or touch inputs, those inputs are inserted within the RDP client. Then the RDP client transmits the inputs to the terminal server for processing. Finally, the terminal server is also responsible for executing all the needed graphical rendering, although it is the RDP client that actually makes the session visible to the users.

Advantages 

In the IT industry, many large enterprises have adopted Terminal Server technology for many years. The most essential advantages are presented below:

• Remote Access to Systems: The most essential advantage as mobility needs grow fast, is related to business executives and employees that need a robust remote access to their contacts, calendars and documents regardless of the current location and time. Therefore, Terminal Servers with a Remote Desktop environment, provide a great solution for today’s mobility requirements.

• Single Point of Maintenance: The next most essential advantage is that using a Terminal Server environment, most crucial applications are installed on a terminal server rather than on individual terminal desktops. As a result, all the required application updates become much easier because there is only one copy of each application. There is no need to verify that application-level patches are applied to every desktop in the company’s IT infrastructure.

• Hardware Optimization: Finally, last but not least is the fact that Terminal Servers offer to the IT department’s the ability to squeeze more life out of their desktop computers. As the economy has seen better days and every enterprise is looking to make the most of their IT budget, all the processing power that occurs resides in the Terminal Server end, therefore all the desktops are essentially acting as dumb terminals. 

This particular implementation means that all the in use existing desktop hardware remains a practical option for much longer than it would if all applications were executed at local Terminals. Finally, running applications on a terminal server may allow organizations to purchase lower-end desktop hardware, resulting in cost savings.

Conclusion 

We addressed in this article how the Terminal Servers can be a huge improvement for any kind of Business in terms of cost saving and productivity. Also, the most important thing is that this technology should be managed by a proper IT scientists and engineers team inside a company. Finally, we hopefully rest on future Windows NT and Linux editions that will improve Remote Desktop Protocol to be more secure and reliable for various networking equipment connection interfaces.

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Blade Server vs Rack Server vs Tower Server

What is a Web Server?

Servers comes in different shapes, sizes, and configurations. Organizations take decisions about which servers to deploy depending on availability of data center space, performance, budget, and scalability.

In this article we will explore more about various types of servers – Blade Server, rack sever & tower server and understand their advantages and disadvantages and how each category fits into specific server requirements of data centres.

About Blade Servers

Blade servers are printed circuit board assemblies within server enclosures and known for their high processing power and dense environment.  They are also known as expansions module.

Blade server enclosure has several modular circuit boards which are known as blades. These blades are stripped down to CPUs, network controllers and memory and some also has internal storage drives as well. The other components such as switches, ports and power supply or connectors are shared through chassis.

The enclosure typically fits as per rack unit measurements to save space. Blades can be clustered for high redundancy or can be managed individually by administrators as a separate server to assign it to specific applications and can have end user specific blades. This structure also supports hot swapping.

Blade servers have high processing power and they are designed to serve complex computing requirements. The high performance can be scaled if the data center where they are hosted have sufficient cooling and power requirements to support dense infrastructure.

Blade servers Pros and Cons

PROS:

• There is no separate need for power and cooling requirement as chassis supplies power to blades and this in turn reduces energy expenditure.
• Blade servers take up minimal space and have high processing power
• Blade servers can host multiple types of software and applications such as primary OS, hypervisors, databases, web services and other enterprise applications
• The monitoring is centralized, and it supports clustering for high availability, hot swapping feature which supports increased availability

CONS:

• Initial deployment and configuration costs are high.
• Highly dense blade servers require advanced climate control in data centres where they are hosted. Heating, cooling, ventilation is required expenditure to main high performance of blade servers.

About Rack Servers

 Mounted or standardized servers which can reach upto 10 feet height and good where space is a constraint in closely packed data center space. These are general purpose servers deployed to support broad range of applications and computing services. They are housed vertically to save space in data centres. Standard configuration for a rack server measured in units (1.75” tall * 19” wide).

Rack servers Pros and Cons

PROS:

• Rack servers are self-contained units designed to run intensive computing operations and house everything within required to run as a stand alone or in a networked environment it has its own power source, CPU, and memory.
• Highly efficient for use in data center having limited space. Easy to expand with additional memory, storage, and processors. If servers are clustered, then hot swapping can be done for rack servers for redundancy
• Ease of management and energy costs are low.

CONS:

• Densely populated racks require more cooling power which in turn raises energy costs. More the number of rack servers more will be the energy requirements.
• More efforts on troubleshooting and management.

About Tower Servers

Tower servers are characterized for their high optimization and customization to support organizations high configuration and scalability requirements.

Standalone chassis configuration with minimal components is the characteristic of tower servers. No high-end graphic cards and high RAM or peripherals.

Meant for mid-size businesses who want to maintain customized upgrade path and can be configured as general-purpose servers, web servers, email servers, network servers etc. Customization can be inhouse to have one powerful server hosting applications and processes.

Tower installations require separate keyboards, mouse and display monitors and network storage can be shared.

Tower servers Pros and Cons

PROS:

• Highly scalable as they come with minimal configuration and can be upgraded based on business needs and less expensive than a fully loaded server
• Cooling costs are low as due to low component density

CONS:

• Upgrade expenses could be high
• Servers don’t fit into racks and consume space in data center. Any upgrade or configuration change or troubleshooting require enclosure to be opened which is cumbersome
• In Multi tower environment , investment is required separately for each switch

Blade vs Rack vs Tower servers

Below table summarizes the key points of comparison between these three:

PARAMETER	BLADE SERVERS	RACK SERVERS	TOWER SERVERS
Definition	An enclosure composed of circuit board with minimal components. It houses multiple blades and have power and networking requirements served through chassis	No external hard enclosure but housed in slots of rack structure.	Standalone server built in vertical structure. They usually come within minimal parts and pre-loaded software and can be optimized for specific needs.
Power	Less	More	More
Maintenance	Less	More	More
Cost	Lower priced	Highly priced	Less expensive and cheaper
Size	Smaller in size and compact	Large	Comparatively large
Cabling	Less cabling requirement	More cabling requirement	More cabling requirement
Business model	Majorly used by large organizations	Ideal for small and mid-size businesses	Ideal for small businesses
Design	Modular	Standalone	Standalone
Mount inside	Chassis	Rack structure	Rack or stand alone
Operational cost	Lower costs to manage	High costs to manage	High
Examples	DELL M630, DELL M830, Lenovo Flex system x440, Lenovo x240MS, UCS B200M4, UCS B420M4	UCS C220 M4, HP DL360 Gen9, HP DL160 Gen9, DELL R630, Lenovo x3550 M5	HPE ProLiant, DELL PowerEdge

Download the comparison table: Blade vs Rack Vs Tower servers

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What is a Web Server?

Mainframe vs Minicomputer

CPE is generally used in order to initiate the route between the customer premises and the destination is the central office of the carrier that has given the equipment. In other words, it is an equipment that will connect the customer’s home or office to the official carrier’s central office from where all the services are provided.

Applications of CPE

CPE is used in many places. Talking about the examples, the telephone using which we talk are also a part of CPE. Moreover, there certain another real-life usage where we use CPE such as in models CSU/DSU which are also known as channel service unit or data service unit, PBX which stands for private branch exchanges. Along with this, there are many other real-life usages where we are using CPE on a daily basis.

Any equipment using which we can connect to different places can be treated as a CPE. Most probably the carrier will direct the final route of the network and it is called CPE. The modem might not directly be sold or leased by the carrier but it helps the computer network to reach the central office. There is a wired line that is directly connected to the modem which will define the route of your network to the central office. From the central office, all the routes are finally transferred according to the packets.

Whether the equipment is directly sold or given at lease it decided by the carrier itself. In most of the cases, a telephone is leased and not directly sold whereas the modem is directly sold to the customer. The customer can, later on, connect it with the cable to access the data and take advantage of the carrier service. Therefore, it depends on the carrier company on how they plan to distribute the Customer Premises Equipment.

Working of CPE

Now, let’s get a  little bit deep into the working of the CPE. The configuration of any of the CPE devices is done most of times by the carrier service itself. Also, there is constant monitoring of the CPE to ensure everything is alright. All of these things are either pre-configured or the customer is given a complete user manual and they just have to enter their login id and password in order to use the CPE.

Once the CPE is installed and the configuration is complete, one can start using the CPE. Let’s say a modem device is installed termination for any of the line. For instance, the line is T2. The modem is already configured or we can simply enter the details to continue working with it. We can then connect the computer with a modem and start using the data. There is a network protocol called the Simple Network Management Protocol used for monitoring. All the features, loopbacks, and other usage details are sent to the service provider. In this way, the service provider can decide if there is something wrong with the device or not. In the same way, the central office can know if the remote device is working properly and sending the data to the central office.

Some examples of CPE devices are –

• Telephone handsets
• cable TV set-top boxes
• Digital Subscriber Line routers