A systems administrator is tasked with planning a hardware refresh for a company's virtualization farm. The key requirements are to significantly increase compute density within the existing data center footprint and reduce the complexity of power and network cabling for each server. Which of the following server chassis types would be the MOST effective solution to meet these specific requirements?
The correct answer is a blade enclosure. Blade enclosures are designed to house multiple, high-density server blades while sharing resources such as power, cooling, and networking infrastructure. This modular design directly addresses the requirements of maximizing compute density in limited space and simplifying power and network cabling, as fewer physical cables are required per server compared to other chassis types.
A rack mount server is a self-contained computer designed to be installed in a frame. While standard for data centers, each server requires individual power and network connections, leading to greater cable complexity and lower density compared to a blade solution when deploying many servers.
A tower server is a standalone unit designed to sit on a floor or desk, similar to a standard desktop PC. This form factor is not suitable for high-density deployments within a data center rack environment.
A multi-node chassis also increases server density by housing several server nodes in one chassis that shares power and cooling. However, each node typically has its own dedicated network interfaces, which results in more complex cabling than a blade enclosure that integrates networking for all contained blades.