Powys saves 75% in server and storage energy costs
- Author:
- Antony Savvas
- Posted:
- 16:35 17 Apr 2007
- Topics:
- Servers
Powys County Council is saving 75% in server and storage energy costs with a system from Dell.
The Dell system was also chosen to consolidate the council’s server and storage hardware environment. The deployment of standard rack-mounted servers and secure, centralised storage, has led to the authority receiving a 25% faster performance from a much smaller, and more cost-effective server footprint.
Chris Price, team leader of production services at Powys County Council, said, “The council hosts three separate IT environments - Novell Netware, Windows Server 2003 and Linux Slack ware - and 50% of its data centre had servers that were deployed in 1999, and which could no longer cope with demand”.
Price said, “When our server farm continued to grow it became difficult to manage - we needed to find a solution that would give us greater control over our environment.”
The Dell system was supported by the introduction VMware V13 virtual server software, which allows the council to use one physical machine to run multiple operating systems simultaneously.
In doing so, the council has replaced its 80 legacy servers with just four, Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge 6850 servers, whilst a Dell/EMC CX320 storage area network (SAN) and two Dell PowerEdge 1950 servers have enhanced the system for business continuity.
Price said, “The reduction in servers alone will produce huge savings in electricity costs, plus we can further reduce the number of chillers we use to cool the IT environment.”
Dell unveils energy efficient servers >>