Small enterprises have embraced compact and efficient blade server technology at rates faster than many mid-sized enterprises. In addition, marketing from vendors can make it sound like there are no situations where blades aren't the best solution. However blades, like all technologies, have their limitations and are not necessarily the best solution in all situations.

By understanding where there are restrictions and limitations in the existing blade server products, the small enterprise administrator can select the most appropriate server technology. Some items that can be at issue include:

• Available RAM.
• Number of I/O ports.
• Processor speeds.
• Number of CPUs.
• Specialized Adapters.

While each new blade server release has addressed larger segments of the computing world, not all situations will be the best fit for them. Use the planning points in this note to ensure that blades do cut it for the small enterprise.