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Organizations have seen the benefits of using blade servers for a number of years. More are beginning to deploy blade PCs, or as they’re also called, blade clients.

The products are modular, rack-mounted circuit boards (blades) that contain the components of a full PC or workstation, including a processor, memory, hard drive and operating system. A blade PC can be plugged into a centralized location, such as a server rack in a data center. A user can securely access the blade via a desktop device, such as a thin client, over a LAN or other network connection.

Among the potential benefits of blade clients, according to a report on the technology by research firm IDC, are enhanced information and physical security (because the blade is located in a heavily secured area), higher uptime and reduced operating costs. Other possible benefits can include lower administrative costs than traditional PCs, space savings at the end user’s workspace and reduced workstation noise and heat generation.

The blade PC market is still a relatively small. Vendors offering products include ClearCube Technology, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

ClearCube offers several blade PC models, including the high-performance R1300 PC Blade, which features Intel Core 2 Duo processors and PCI-Express graphics. ClearCube offers a multivideo adapter option for applications demanding advanced graphics and multiple displays.

In June, ClearCube introduced new technology that it says eliminates the distance barrier associated with delivering full-performance video from centralized PC blades. The company unveiled three new user port devices for its PC blades that provide both dual- and quad-monitor graphics via an IP connection. Previously, remote users had to be located within 200 meters of the PC blade to get high-resolution, full-motion graphics and USB peripheral support, ClearCube says.

Also in June, HP introduced its third generation Consolidated Client Infrastructure (CCI) product, including HP BladeSystem bc2000 and bc2500 blade PCs and HP Remote Graphics software to provide greater processing power and performance, improved graphics and streaming video to users with network connectivity and an HP thin client or other access device.

And last May, IBM previewed its new BladeCenter Workstation Blade, developed in collaboration with Devon IT. The product offering will include the workstation blade and associated broker software and desktop device from Devon IT, designed to help customers host workstation environments remotely to reduce energy consumption in the workplace. IBM says the workstation will be ideal for traders in financial services and CAD design engineers.

PC blades, like their server counterparts, could play a key role in virtualization.

"Both blades and virtualization are now expanding beyond the server. Each has had significant uptake for the past few years on the server side, but now we're seeing a shift to extend their capabilities out to the desktop,” says Barb Goldworm, president and chief analyst at Focus Consulting. “ On the blade side we're seeing a lot of activity around PC blades and workstation blades, and in virtualization we're seeing an increase in the move toward virtual clients, along with application virtualization and streaming.”

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