Jeff Stein, director of professional services at InteleNet Communications Inc. in Irvine, Calif., agrees. "The typical power requirement for a standard server is 120'volt power. The typical requirement for a blade is 208-volt power. Some facilities just can't offer that," he says.

InteleNet, a managed service provider, has 500 blade servers split between its main facility in Irvine, which it owns, and another facility in Phoenix. Stein just completed "a significant power expansion project" to support the blades. "In Irvine, the original construction and electrical designs for the facility were able to deliver a certain number of watts per square foot on average. Recent hardware developments, such as the blade servers, have forced us to enhance the infrastructure of this data center to support the increasing electrical and cooling requirements," he says.

He admits the team ran into challenges when they first deployed the blades almost two years ago. "We run a data center, deal with lots of power requirements and we still made an error when we bought our first chassis," he says.

Stein says the team purchased power distribution units and cabling that were much larger than anticipated. "This limited what additional equipment could be installed effectively in the same cabinet with the blades. We made sure to take note so that we never make that mistake again," he says.

Watch this space