The Irish government is giving businesses a tax incentive to
buy energy-efficient virtualisation technology.
Irish businesses purchasing VMware software along with eligible
enterprise storage and server hardware will be able to write off
the entire cost of the purchase against taxable income in year one,
as part of the Accelerated
Capital Allowance (ACA), an expanded tax incentive introduced
by the Irish Government to encourage companies to invest in
energy-efficient equipment.
VMware said that virtualisation and consolidation enables
companies to reduce their energy costs and consumption by up to 80%
and drive up the utilisation of hardware resources from between 5%
and 15% to as much as 85%.
Industry analyst Gartner estimates that removing a typical
two-socket x86 server from the datacentre will save an end-user
organisation around $410 in power and cooling costs yearly.
"Despite the financial challenges facing many Irish
organisations we want to make sure they are not forced to
compromise their environmental credentials to minimise overheads,"
said Brian Motherway, head of industry, Sustainable Energy Ireland
(SEI).
"Information and communications technology is one area where
businesses can potentially cut their carbon footprints
significantly, with virtualisation playing a key role in green IT
strategies," he said. "The latest expansion of the ACA scheme to
include energy-efficient server and storage hardware, along with
virtualisation software, will help remove some of the financial
barriers to energy-efficient IT."