Computerworld: Four ways to save energy -and $$$- in legacy data centers

Will a server consolidation project that cuts total servers by 50% through virtualization cut operating costs by that much? Not even close. That’s just one of the data center energy efficiency tips that hit the cutting room floor as my feature story, Data center density hits the wall, launched this week.

Here are four more to consider:

Consolidation through virtualization: A 15% solution.

Consolidating servers using virtualization reduces the total number of physical servers and saves energy, but not by as much as you might think. Why? One reason is that the more fully configured replacement servers tend to use more energy than those they replace. So what should you expect to see in energy savings from a server consolidation project? Ben Stewart, vice president of engineering at hosted service provider Terremark, sees a lot of them at the company’s colocation data centers. On average, he says, “You get about a 15% power savings by doing the reduction in space.”

more of the Computerworld article from Robert L. Mitchell

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.