By partnering with APC in the Blade Ready Programme, Comtec Enterprises is building its capability in powering and cooling high density computing solutions. The company’s blade ready assessed datacentre is capable of cooling the most heat-intensive rack mounted IT equipment, including the latest blade racks.

The Blade Ready Programme unites vendors of complementary datacentre infrastructure technologies to deliver comprehensive interoperable products, solutions, and services for blade server environments. Together, Blade Ready members help enterprises assess, design, procure, stage, implement and interconnect blade servers and related equipment. Members in this program include a group of strategic, best-in-class hardware and software vendors that help enable operational excellence and unsurpassed compatibility with blade network environments.

Chris Jenkins, general manager of Comtec Enterprises, says, “Many of our customers are running mission critical applications in-house on physical infrastructure which is not designed to support the power and cooling demands for high density environments.”

“As they start to develop and utilise more processor intensive applications, they will face the need to implement high performance and higher density servers. Having the BLADE READY accreditation will assure customers of our expertise and ability to support their migration to a blade-server environment.”

Furthermore, Comtec’s own datacentre facility is also set to benefit, adds Jenkins; “The launch of Comtec’s hosting and managed services portfolio, due later this summer, requires a robust and resilient foundation. Those customers that choose to outsource, or host, mission-critical services at our blade server ready datacentre can be guaranteed optimum efficiency, availability and continuity, to support today’s ‘always-on’ business.”

Chriss Fortier-Rolfe, Blade Ready Programme director at APC said, "The continued trend of increasing power density creates a number of challenges for all businesses which depend upon IT. Not the least of these is ensuring adequate power and cooling to meet stringent uptime requirements. The program helps assess an organisation's readiness to implement a blade environment and can help develop a roadmap for a smooth transition to blades resulting in operational excellence."

According to industry research firm Gartner, Inc., worldwide blade server annual shipments are expected to reach 1.2 million by 2009. Gartner expects annual shipments of all servers to reach seven million by 2009.