will be explained below guides 105 maybe disposed in between the connectors 103 at various points on the protective cover 100 on the connector of a blade these or similar guides would be used to hold a key that is specific to the type of blade on which the keys are installed these blade keys are matched by corresponding keys in between the connection pins on a connector of the backplane this key arrangement insures that only a particular type of blade can be connected to a connector on the backplane for receiving that type of blade thus if a connector on a backplane is arranged to receive only a single type of blade the keys in that backplane connector will prevent any other type of blade from being installed in that connector keys may or may not be loaded into the guides 105 of the protective cover 100 the use of keys in the cover 100 is not necessary for the cover 100 to protect the pins of a backplane connector the protective cover 100 can be constructed by taking standard connectors 103 preferably compliant with the cpci standard and sizing those connectors 103 down for attachment to the plate 106 alternatively the protective cover 100 can be constructed from any integration of the various components described above 0029 fig2 is an illustration of the protective cover of fig1 installed on a backplane as shown in fig2 a backplane 121 is installed in the rack 120 of a blade server various blades can then be installed within the rack 120 by connection with the.