Companies are realising as much as 50% savings in energy
costs in their datacentres when they consolidate servers through
virtualisation technology, says a new report from Info-Tech
Research Group.
The recent study of enterprises implementing virtualisation finds
that businesses can significantly reduce air conditioning and power
consumption overall. This move will be beneficial to enterprises
and to communities under pressure to meet mounting energy
needs.
“With increased emphasis in North America on reducing power
consumption, virtualisation in datacentres can have a significant
impact on energy demands and resulting cost to corporations,”
comments Matt Brudzynski, senior research analyst at Info-Tech.
“Energy is one of the primary drivers of server related costs,
since the cost of hardware has trended down while the cost of
electricity continues to rise.”
Info-Tech’s Impact Research Report, The Business Case in
Virtualisation, also finds that most companies have been able to
extend the life of their operating facilities by reducing the
number of physical servers through virtualisation.
“Companies that have deployed virtualisation have been able to
avoid the $10m server,” reveals Brudzynski. “In many cases, by
combining virtualised machines with a specific type of server
called the Blade server, equipment space is greatly reduced and
costly datacentre expansions or moves can be avoided.”
Info-Tech Research Group recommends that companies explore how they
can leverage virtual technologies to reduce energy costs and
lengthen the lifecycle of their physical facilities.