Servers in data centers waste a substantial amount of energy. The reason is that servers are deployed and configured for peak capacity, performance and reliability, usually at the expense of efficiency. Such waste unnecessarily increases capital and operational expenditures, and can result in finite resources (particularly power and space) being exhausted, thereby creating a situation where the organization might outgrow its data center(s).
However, there are several steps IT managers can (and should) take to improve overall server efficiency—sometimes dramatically—without adversely impacting on capacity, performance or reliability. Here are the four steps that afford the highest return on investment.