When deploying blade servers, use virtualization to separate storage from processors and ensure there is no fixed association of an application with a physical server. By using virtualization engines on the market today, system software can be centralized and version control can be managed. This means OS failures can recover from a central repository of OS versions enabling super-fast OS problem resolution by, for example, reverting to a previous version of an OS. By virtualizing the storage, data can be striped across multiple arrays so that no single disk failure will cause applications to crash. By separating storage from server, all recovery files such as journals which preserve the state of an application can be accessed by other servers, which minimizes the time to recover.
Configure blades with storage external to the servers and ensure the servers have no fixed association with applications. Focus blade virtualization projects on creating simple robust environments that can withstand the failure of commodity components, and don’t worry so much about saving processor cycles.