Dallas Data Center

In the last several weeks more than 75,000 layoffs have occurred. The jobs didn’t go away, just the people who did them. Server consolidation and job layoffs can be compared for the fact that the servers and people that are left, still have to carry the original load. The difference is that the servers were under-utilized, the people may not have been.  Companies have given servers a positive way to consolidate properly.

VMware, Microsoft, and Novell have virtualization platforms that allow servers to properly handle 300% – 1200% of the load that the servers were handling before. Virtualization encapsulates an OS to allow a server to independently handle different functionalities. With server clustering, high availability at the hardware layer is obtained. With even a low consolidation of 300% or 3:1, the power savings is enough to take a second look into virtualization.

In order to optimize the benefits of virtualization, some type of clustering should be done. With a 3 server cluster, virtualization of 9 servers could be accomplished. This is an energy saving and space saving of 6 servers. VMware states that the savings of $3,000 per year per server could be realized, which results in a savings of $18,000 per year. In addition to the savings, your carbon footprint decreases.  The costs and green affect are just bi-products of consolidation. Planned benefits include easier backups, clones of servers, and provisioning time.

VMware estimates a 70% savings in time for provisioning a new server. The actual time for provisioning a new server is more like a 90% savings.  Servers can be completely provisioned in less than a day. Management of virtual servers has also been simplified. A hypervisor is a virtual management console. This console helps in provisioning and ongoing monitoring, preventing server sprawl, and resource management.

Server consolidation through virtualization is a proven and tested way to maximize your corporate dollar, decrease your server footprint, and lower your total cost of ownership. Whether your virtualization choice is Microsoft, VMware, Novell, or another platform provider, virtualization IS next generation computing.

Reference Links:

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/consolidation/green/

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/consolidation/

http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/infrastructure/virtualization/ms-server-virtualization.html?REF_SOURCE=ntpggl9700000047538s

http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/abstract.aspx?docid=345017