Scalable internet engine

A scalable Internet engine (100) is comprised of a large number of commercially available server boards (134) each arranged as an engine blade (132) in a power and space efficient cabinet (110). The engine blades (132) are removably positioned in a front side (112) of the cabinet (110) in a vertical orietation. A through plane (130) in the middle of a chassis assembly within the cabinet provides common power and control peripheral signals to all engine blades. I/O signals for each engine blade are routed through apertures in the through plane to interface cards positioned in the rear of the cabinet. The scalable engine (100) can accommodate different types of server boards in the same chassis assembly because of a common blade carrier structure. Different types of commercially available motherboards (200) are mounted in the common blade carrier structure that provides a uniform mechanical interface to the chassis assembly. A specially designed PCI host board that can plug into various types of motherboards has a first connector (205) for connecting to the through plane and second connector for connecting to the interface cards.