Geeks in Paradise | Brian Chee » Virtualization = Power savings?

November 16, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Virtualization = Power savings?

TAGS: Industry Trends

Server Virtualization News: For PG&E customers, it pays to virtualize By Alex Barrett, News Director 26 Oct 2006 | SearchServerVirtualization.com

 

One of the things that VMWare brought up after our blade server shootout was that there is a big movement going on to reduce power and cooling consumption through virtualization. So while I'm stealing a bit of Paul Venezia's thunder, I thought I'd toss out a few numbers.

1. Quantity 60: 1-2 RU servers typically can eat up to 21KW of power
2. Quantity 60: blade servers drop that to around 1.6kw
3. each blade can have between 4-6 virtual servers on each
4. the above doesn't always apply but for stuff like web, it could work

So just by moving to blades we save 19.4KW of power and cooling, and if we even go 2 virtual servers per blade we have HUGE power and cooling savings.

Then combine that with the APC (or similar) cooling system where the cold air is pushed closer to the heat load...well what we have is a huge downsizing in data center power requirements.

I've been tasked at UH SOEST to help determine just what kind of money we're talking about to setup a backup generator to support our critical research labs. HUGE dollars and a possible environmental impact later, it has become VERY obvious that reducing the overall load of our critical data center could save us enough bucks to justify the move to blades and virtualization.

I'm hoping that my local power company takes a hint from PG&E and also offers incentives to virtualize...

Posted by Brian Chee on November 16, 2006 12:36 PM

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