Even though blade servers currently represent the fastest growing segment of the server market, research firm Gartner says deployments will be limited in the next few years. Indeed, the expectation is that it will take about three years before blade servers will make up 20 percent of the market, which would be up from the 10 percent in 2007. This is a direct result of a lack of clear standards, incurred in part by rapid changes in the technology. Organizations that derive value from the deployment of blade servers should go ahead, though they need to be prepared for further changes as this market segment matures.

Another change to look for down the road will be the upscaling of input and output connectors beyond the current 10Gb bottleneck experienced by most solutions. Better technology and standards for more fine-grained management, as well as a prioritization of bandwidth and memory between individual blades running off the same chassis also should be expected.

For more about the report on blade server technology:
- check out this InformationWeek article