Server Consolidation
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Traditionally,
organizations have run a single operating system (OS) and
application on each server, leading to the server sprawl issues.
Virtualization allows you to encapsulate each OS and application
into a software file(1) called a virtual machine. Each virtual
machine is completely hardware independent and can be treated just
like a file. It can be moved around between servers, copied, or run
simultaneously on the same server as other virtual machines.
Many VMware customers run 8, 10, or more virtual machines for every
physical server(2). This dramatically reduces the number of servers
required to support an identical set of workloads, leading to
significant savings.
The most obvious benefit
of server consolidation is the reduction in capital invested in
hardware.Whether implemented during a server refresh or to contain
future server growth, the reduction in server costs is striking.
Power Consumption
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Processor power consumption has historically grown roughly in line
with speed increases. So as processor frequency doubled every 18
months, power consumption grew. The electricity bill is now a
significant IT expense and one that comes due every month. Some
industry analysts have noted:
• Gartner Group says energy costs may increase from 10% of the IT
budget today to over 50% in the next few years
• Forrester says servers would use about 30% of their peak
electricity consumption while siting idle
• IDC says the cost to power servers will exceed the cost of the
servers by next year
• The U.S. Department of Energy states that data center energy usage
can be 100 times higher than those for a typical commercial building
• IDC calculates that the total power and cooling bill for servers
in the US stands at a whopping $14 billion a year, and if the
current trends persist, the bill is going to rise to $50 billion by
the end of the decade
At an average of 355W per server workload, consolidation saves $759
per workload over 3 years.
To summarize, the cost
savings from consolidation with VMware Infrastructure is compelling.
Done on a moderate scale, the average company can save $8,251 per
workload over 3 years. The typical return on investment (ROI) for a
virtualization project is 6 months or less. Virtualization projects
pay for themselves.
Virtualization Benefits
_
Capital and operating
cost savings are just the tip of the iceberg in the benefits of
virtualization. A second major benefit is in simplifying the often
arduous task of deploying new servers and applications. Since
virtual machines are nothing but software files, they can be copied,
pasted, and moved around with the ease of a file copy.
With virtualization, companies can provision a new virtual machine
with a mouse click. This is a sea of change from the traditional
model where it typically takes days if not weeks or months to
provision a new servers. Moreover, virtual machines can be saved as
ready templates that can be instantiated as needed. With this
instant provisioning capability IT can be responsive to the business
like never before.
In summary, Consolidating
servers with VMware Infrastructure can:
• Save an organization $8,251 across server and related hardware,
power and cooling, and data center space
• Provisioning new applications is greatly simplified by virtual
machines; new services are as easy to deploy as a few mouse clicks
• Free IT from the manual tasks of balancing compute capacity to
meet uncertain demand, or from running off- hour “maintenance
windows” on servers when VMotion and DRS make this profoundly
simple.
Click here to see VMware Success Stories
Click here for a VMWare demonstration and overview.
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Virtualization
