Reducing Data Center Energy Costs with Virtualization

W H I T E P A P E R

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Table of Contents

executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Data Center energy Costs are rising rapidly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

a Perfect Storm of Data Center Constraints (Cost, Space, Power, Heat) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Comparison of Traditional vs. Virtualized Data Center Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

The Path to Virtualization in the Data Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

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reducing Data Center energy Costs with Virtualizationsmall overhead, often a few percent of utilization, to share the available processing cycles across the eight virtual machine workloads. For example, a rack containing �0 dual-processor 1U servers supporting �0 workloads at 5-15% average utiliza-tion can leverage virtualization to support ��0 virtual machine workloads (8 virtual machines x 40 processors) at 80% average utilization.

As freed-up excess servers are powered off, the reduction in running systems is reflected in immediate energy cost savings. Fewer systems translate to less power, greater reliability and reduced operating costs. For example, a native workload on an entry-level server with low utilization will consume �50W of energy costing around $600 annually, whereas a virtual machine workload on a server hosting 16 virtual machines uses only a fraction of that power - �5W, costing around $45 annually. By multiplying these savings by the number of servers in a typical data center, it becomes clear that server consolida-tion through virtualization can dramatically reduce overall data center energy costs and free up resources to support new projects.

executive SummaryAs those who pay the electricity bill each month are well aware, data centers worldwide are heating up, as the power required by servers that support day-to-day operations requires an ever-increasing portion of the IT budget. Demand for new projects and enhanced IT services is driving a 15% annual growth rate in the x86 server base, while demand for greater performance rapidly increases individual server power consumption and density. The result, exacerbated by rising energy costs, is that data center managers are challenged to find the appropriate resources to implement new projects and keep existing IT infra-structure up and running.

Many evolving technologies are available to help reduce data center energy costs, but at the end of the day, the most effec-tive solution is to effectively match computing capacity with computing demand. Since most servers are running at 5-15% of their capacity, all data centers have the opportunity to con-solidate workloads and power off underutilized hardware.

Virtualization is the technology that separates application workloads from the server hardware, enabling many applica-tion workloads to securely and safely run on a single server. Virtualization is a mature and mainstream technology, and more than 40% of American enterprises have already implemented server virtualization in production environments to reduce costs and increase agility. A typical consolidation ratio is 8:1, meaning that the workloads of eight physical servers can be consoli-dated onto a single system. The virtualization layer adds only a

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Data Center energy Costs are rising rapidlySeveral trends have been converging over the past decade to drive utility bills through the roof. Per IDC analysis from �006, annual power and cooling expenditure for servers in the US stands at $14 billion and will mushroom to over $50 billion by �010. With utility bills growing at a rate dramatically outpac-ing both inflation and budget increases, the cost of powering, cooling and managing existing servers is requiring an increasing portion of total IT budgets. The common trend for IT spending finds 80% of the budget going for management, operations and maintenance while �0% is left to support innovations, new technology and new projects. The challenge is that as data center energy costs rise, fewer resources are left to support new value-added projects.

Trend 1 – Increasing Server Proliferation driven by Business Demand, Low-cost x86 Hardware and the Need for Server Isolation (4X over the past 10 years)The first trend responsible for rapidly rising data center energy costs is server proliferation. As the x86 architecture has become commoditized, intense price and performance competition has driven the average cost of an x86 volume server under $4,000. This affordability combined with business demand for new applications has resulted in a 15% annual growth in the number of installed servers, growing from � million servers in the United States in 1996 to 9 million servers in �006.

Additionally, most servers are deployed under a one application per server policy to simplify management and increase reli-ability. Most organizations have deployed thousands of servers across the enterprise, with each server running a dedicated application. However, average x86 server utilization is very low at only 5%-15%.

Trend 2 – Increasing Server Density driven by Blade and Rack-optimized Architectures (2X over the past 10 years)As data centers have filled out with new servers and approached their floor space capacity limits, rack-optimized and blade architecture servers have rapidly grown in popularity as a means to increase the number of servers in a standard rack footprint. Server density is increasing by approximately 15% annually, from an average of 7 per rack in 1996 to 14 per rack in �006. This increasing density is expected to reach �0 servers per rack on average by �010. As the high density of blade servers in a rack can increase the power required and the heat generated by a factor of three, this trend is increasingly straining the power and cooling capacities of older data centers.

Trend 3 – Increasing Server Power Demands driven by High Performance Components (4X over the past 10 years)As users have continually demanded faster application response times and increased system throughput, manufacturers have responded with higher performing processors, memory and disk drives. The downside is that power requirements often rise disproportionately as performance increases. While a typical server in 1996 consumed 100W of power, the average �006 server now consumes around 400W. This is a four-fold increase in power consumption that has a corresponding increase in heat generation. The historical focus on performance over efficiency is only recently being addressed with a focus on lower speed, multi-core processors that deliver improved per-formance per watt.

Trend 4 – Rising Power CostsThe final major trend driving higher data center operational costs is rapidly-rising energy costs. IDC notes that that “com-mercial raw power that that was $0.05-0.09/kWh is now $0.1�-0.15.kWh and is expected to continue climbing.”

“Adoption of server virtualization has continued at a rapid pace in 2006: Today, 40% of North American enterprises surveyed by Forrester say they have already implemented server virtualization. Many firms attribute their adoption of virtualization to server consolidation, but an equivalent number are using the technology to make their server environments more flexible and agile.”-- Forrester, “pragmatic approaches to Server Virtualization”, June 19, 2006

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Figure 1. Steps to a Successful VMware Upgrade

a Perfect Storm of Data Center Constraints (Cost, Space, Power, Heat)As data center physical infrastructure evolves at a much slower pace than technology advances, many data centers that are only five to ten years old were not designed to accommodate the eightfold increase in rack level power requirements (700W to 5,600W) that has occurred since 1996, driven by high-density servers. These data centers are now running into physical and operational constraints that often serve as the trigger for action, such as running out of power capacity, cooling capacity, or data center space for new servers. At the same time, they are likely experiencing high operational, management and maintenance costs that directly impact the budget necessary to innovate with new technologies to deliver improved services and business value.

Power and Cooling Demand exceeds Supply for 40% of Data CentersIDC’s enterprise customer surveys reveal that power and cooling demand currently exceeds supply for 40% of data centers. This reality forces an expensive and complicated balancing between deploying additional rack-optimized servers and blade servers to meet user demand, while increasing investment in power and cooling capacity to support the additional load. Running data centers at or near power and cooling capacity also lowers system reliability as hot spots in the data center significantly

increase the risk of hardware failures. Depending on require-ments for application availability, increasing hardware failures further drive the need for fault tolerant, redundant systems that require more space, power and cooling. In older data centers with limited capacity, blade servers are often spread out and only partially filled due to cooling challenges.

Data Center Energy Costs will soon exceed New Server SpendingPower bills currently account for 1�% of the operational budget in the average data center. With the installed server base forecast to continue rising by 15% per year from 9 million to 16 million servers in the United States alone, utility bills will rise another 75% over the next four years. According to IDC, data center power and cooling expenses are expected on average to exceed new server spending in �008. Similarly, the lifetime utility cost for each new server will soon surpass its initial hardware purchase cost.

Given the substantial and rapidly increasing burden that energy costs are placing on data center budgets, IT managers need to be working now to counteract these trends and curtail the energy spending required just to keep the lights on and the servers running.

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Calculating Data Center energy CostsReducing data center energy costs starts with understanding current and forecast spending based on your specific data centers. Both a top down and a bottom up approach may be used to create an initial estimate of current spending per server workload. Within these example calculators, the green fields are variables that must be tailored to your environment.

Top Down Data Center Energy Use EstimateThe top down approach uses existing billing data to determine the actual energy costs associated with data center operations, and then divides this amount by the number of servers to get an average annual cost per server. This estimate can later be used to determine the potential saving from consolidating servers and powering off underutilized hardware.

Top Down Data Center Energy Use Calculator$1,716,960 Annual Data Center Power Bill (Variable)

/ 2800 Number of Servers (Variable)$613 Energy Cost per Server

Bottom Up Data Center Energy Use Estimate The bottom up approach involves counting the number of racks and servers in the datacenter and estimating the server level, rack level and data center level energy costs given the average power used per server. The initial assumptions of 400W per server and 14 servers per rack are based on IDC survey averages for �006. These calculations assume that a 400W server at an average 10% utilization only consumes �50W of power.

Bottom Up Data Center Energy Use Calculator350 Average Watts per Server (Variable)

*2 Cooling Load Factor = 700 Watts per Server Total* 24 * 365 operation = 6,132 kWh per Server per Year

* $0.10 per kWh for Power (Variable)= $613 Energy Cost per Server

14 Servers per Rack (Variable)= $8,585 Energy Cost per Rack* 200 Racks in the Data Center (Variable)= $1,716,960 Annual Data Center Power Bill

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These two example approaches use the same example data to arrive at the same results from different directions. Regardless of the approach used and the level of detail in the model, the critical element to recognize is that data center energy use is defined by the watts consumed by data center hardware and the mechanical loads such as lighting and air conditioning used for support. The largest variable that drives data center energy costs is the number of servers in use, thus an unchecked 15% annual increase in servers over four years will result in a cumulative 75% increase in the data center power bills by �010.

2010 Data Center Energy Use Forecast15% Annual Increase in Servers 75% From 9m to 16m US Servers in 2010

= $3,002,974 Projected Data Center Power Bill

Options for reducing Data Center energy CostsMany new technologies can help reduce data center energy costs, from leveraging blade server architectures with shared chassis components and low-watt multi-core processors to employing smarter cooling techniques and reducing wasted energy from DC power conversions. These are all valuable and complementary technologies that are seeing adoption, but none of them can deliver the order of magnitude reduction in server energy costs possible through virtualization.

Just as server proliferation is a primary driver for rising data center energy costs, server consolidation through virtualization is a primary solution. The only other alternative to the status quo of continuing with a one to one replacement of existing physical servers is to place multiple applications on a single server, creating stability, management and vendor support issues. If your data center is already at or near capacity for power, cooling and rack space, virtualization is really the only solution short of continuing the sprawl by building new data centers.

Virtualization abstracts the server workload from the server hardware and stores it in a virtual machine. Many virtual machines can be consolidated onto a single physical server, directly reducing the number of physical servers required in the data center. The number of virtual machine workloads that can be consolidated onto a physical server vary based on their requirements for processing, memory, network and disk input/output, but on average, a physical server can support eight virtual machines per processor. As shown in Figure 4, some VMware customers have consolidated as many as thirty physical servers into one, dramatically reducing annual energy, manage-ment and maintenance costs.

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For case study information on these and other VMware custom-ers, please visit the Customers section of the VMware Web site, at www.vmware.com.

reducing Data Center energy Costs through Virtualization with VMware Infrastructure

Introducing VMware Infrastructure for Mainframe-class Capacity UtilizationVMware Infrastructure is the most widely deployed software for optimizing and managing IT environments through virtualization – from the desktop to the data center. VMware first introduced virtualization technology to the x86-computing platform in 1999, and since then has saved its �0,000 customers billions of dollars in capital and operating costs. Virtualization abstracts the operating system from the hardware it’s running on, providing standardized virtual hardware for operating systems and their applications that enables the virtual machines to run simultaneously and independently on one or more shared processors. With virtualization, customers can easily consolidate many disparate server workloads onto more reliable and higher performance hardware.

VMware Infrastructure transforms a mix of industry standard x86 servers and their existing processors, memory, disk and networking into a pool of logical computing resources called a cluster. Operating systems and their applications are isolated into secure and portable virtual machines. System resources are then dynamically allocated to each virtual machine based on need and prioritization, providing mainframe-class control of server resources with capacity utilization over 80%. Virtual machines can run on any physical server in the cluster and be shifted between those servers seamlessly with zero downtime.

Figure 4 – VMware Customer Server Consolidation Ratios

As a result, virtual machines can be dynamically and automati-cally allocated to the most appropriate host in the cluster to guarantee service levels to software applications. By aggregat-ing hardware resources into clusters and then defining resource pools to allocate computing capacity rights, IT environments can be optimized to dynamically support changing business needs while ensuring flexibility and efficient utilization of hardware resources.

VMware Infrastructure provides a set of distributed infrastruc-ture services that make the entire IT environment more ser-viceable, available and efficient than physical hardware alone. Traditionally, companies have had to assemble a patchwork of various operating system or software application specific solu-tions for high availability, resource optimization and security. Because the virtualization layer is the first software installed on the bare metal of host servers, VMware Infrastructure can provide these capabilities consistently for all virtual machines. Standardizing the entire IT environment on the consistent virtualization-based distributed services of VMware Infrastructure is like creating an assembly line for IT that builds reliability, predictability and efficiency.

“Through 2007, organizations with more than 200 servers will waste between $500,000 and $720,000 annually supporting underutilized application/server combinations.”

--Gartner research, December 2004

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ESX Server Virtualization Enables Server ConsolidationESX Server hosts provide the foundation for server consolida-tion by enabling underutilized physical servers to be encapsu-lated into virtual machines and re-deployed safely and securely alongside other virtual machines in a high utilization environ-ment. This allows hardware from underutilized servers to be either redeployed for other purposes (such as to become an offsite failover server or another ESX Server host) or removed to free up data center space and reduce power and cooling costs.

VirtualCenter Provides Distributed Services and ManagementVirtualCenter is the brain behind ESX Server’s capacity utiliza-tion brawn, enabling many ESX Server hosts to be grouped into a cluster and managed as though they were a single computer for unparalleled manageability, flexibility and ef-ficiency. VirtualCenter can easily manage distributed services for hundreds of ESX Server hosts running thousands of virtual machines. IT staff have full access to virtual machine manage-ment through a single remote access client, and they can even create web based bookmarks to securely provide end users with remote access to virtual machine servers as needed. The resulting requirement for fewer keyboard/video/mouse connec-tions further reduces hardware, maintenance and energy costs.

VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduling) Matches Computing Supply to DemandVMware DRS leverages a service called VMotion to continuously optimize workloads to best match computing resource supply to computing resource demand. VMotion is a powerful service that enables a running virtual machine to be relocated to a different ESX Server host seamlessly and with zero downtime. VMware DRS uses a global resource scheduler within VirtualCenter to coordinate with the local resource scheduler on ESX Servers to determine the best fit for a workload based on the computing resources available in the cluster. When a single ESX Server needs to be powered down for maintenance, its virtual machines can be automatically transferred to other hosts in the cluster with zero downtime. Similarly, a cluster of ten ESX servers running at 40% utilization during a slow period can have five servers powered off to raise utilization on the remaining servers to 80% and reduce server energy costs by half.

As another benefit, VMware DRS can enable dramatic perfor-mance improvements by allowing virtual machine workloads to take advantage of increased headroom and idle cycles they would otherwise not have access to in a one server / one workload scenario. For example, a workload that would have been sized for a single CPU server can take advantage of VMware’s Virtual SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) to access two or four processors in a multi-core or multi-processor x86 server.

VMware HA (High Availability) Removes the Need for Additional Hardware RedundancyVMware HA leverages the inherent high availability of clusters to deliver a new, simple option for protecting critical applica-tion services. With a VMware cluster, the loss of an ESX Server host due to a hardware failure, rather than being a catastrophic event, simply means that the resource pool available to the cluster has been reduced. VMware HA automatically manages the reassignment and restart of the failed host’s virtual machines on the other ESX Server hosts in the cluster. The VirtualCenter Global Scheduler makes the decisions on where to place the virtual machines to best meet resource guarantees.

High availability for applications is usually achieved with failover clustering products like Microsoft Cluster Services or Veritas Cluster Services, but that technology is expensive and difficult to configure and manage. Failover clustering requires expen-sive operating system upgrades or third-party software and your applications must be cluster-aware. It is also an expensive resource drain as standby cluster nodes tie up dedicated hardware even if they are not in active use.

VMware HA delivers high-availability without configuration. Simply turn on HA for a cluster and all its virtual machines will be protected with automatic restarting should a host fail. HA differs from failover clustering in that there will be some downtime as a virtual machine is restarted, but for the majority of applications, that minimal interruption is acceptable and the expense and complexity of failover clustering is simply not nec-essary. By removing the need for additional failover hardware, software and configuration, VMware HA can provide high avail-ability services to all workloads without adding any burden to the power, cooling, space and management capacities of the data center.

Another benefit for users demanding higher uptime and reli-ability (with �4x7 access) is that data center virtualization tends to increase system reliability across the board, by spreading the investment in fault-tolerant, redundant hardware over more server workloads.

VMware Virtual Networking Reduces Network Traffic and Network EquipmentVMware Virtual Networking enables virtual machines to com-municate with each other through virtual switches without a packet of data ever reaching the physical network. High performing network architectures can be constructed virtually between high traffic virtual machine servers without adding any load to the physical network. This reduction in network traffic often translates into a reduced demand for network switches, and networking equipment tends to be a high power consumer.

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Virtual Storage Reduces the Amount of Storage Hardware NeededVirtual storage is a critical enabler of the virtual data center. Virtual storage systems, such as SANs, NAS and iSCSI storage, remove the need for distributed fixed hard drives in each server (reducing the power and cooling requirements of high density rack and blade servers) and create much greater flexibility and fault tolerance across the infrastructure. Additionally, the higher cost of shared, virtual storage is spread across many more server workloads to create ample cost justification. Whereas a rack with 14 servers connected to a SAN shares expensive HBA and SAN switch hardware across 14 workloads, the same rack virtualized can share the investment across over �00 workloads in virtual machines.

VMware Infrastructure Reduces the Need for Dedicated Development and Testing HardwareAs virtual machines are able to perfectly replicate an environ-ment between development, testing and production, it has long been used to support software development, testing and support. VMware Infrastructure directly reduces the need for ad-ditional, dedicated development and testing hardware, directly lowering hardware, power, cooling and space requirements.

Overall, data center virtualization improves not just server workload power consumption, but also alleviates server space, cooling, provisioning, workload optimization, high availability and backup challenges. For more information on the capabili-ties and benefits of VMware Infrastructure, please refer to the “Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Infrastructure” and the “VMware Infrastructure Architecture” white papers avail-able at VMware.com.

“Over the last three generations of Google’s computing infrastructure, performance has nearly doubled. But because the performance per watt remained nearly unchanged, that means electricity consumption [and infrastructure costs] has almost doubled.”

“If performance per watt is to remain constant over the next few years [like it has in the past], power costs could easily overtake hardware costs, possibly by a large margin.”

“The possibility of computer equipment power consumption spiraling out of control could have serious consequences for the overall affordability of computing, not to mention the overall health of the planet.”

--Luiz andre Barroso, Lead technical architect, Google

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Hybrid Vehicle Virtualized Data Center

Economy Increased 30% by leveraging storedbattery power to conserve fuel

Increased 1400% with 8 workloads perprocessor in dual processor servers. Eachworkload requires 25W rather than 350W.

Performance Increased 20% by combining gas andelectric power

Increased up to 400% with 4-wayVirtual SMP

Initial Investment $2000 premium over a non-hybridversion

$143,750 for 20 Enterprise Edition HostServers with Platinum Support ($28,750for Annual Support Thereafter)

Annual Savings $500 in fuel savings $128,772 in Annual Power Savings fromConsolidated Hardware Alone

ROI 4 years to Breakeven Typically less than 6 months dependingon hard and soft bene�ts measured.ROI is under 12 months based on utilitybill savings alone ($120,750 cost and$257,544 savings at 2 years).

Comparison of Traditional vs. Virtualized Data Center Costs

Hybrid Vehicles and Virtual Infrastructure both Leverage Technology to Optimize Utilization, Efficiency and PerformanceVirtualizing the data center is analogous to driving a hybrid vehicle but with far more compelling benefits and a much faster ROI. They both leverage technology to efficiently match supply to demand.

The hybrid vehicle leverages stored electricity and electric motors to let the conventional engine run part-time at its most efficient operating speed. At moderate speeds for short distances, the vehicle can run on batteries alone without running the engine. When the engine is needed for greater speed, it activates and supplements the electric motors for maximum performance. When the engine is producing more power than the vehicle needs or when the vehicle is braking, the electric motors return the excess energy to the batteries for future use. This efficient resource utilization explains how hybrid vehicles are able to deliver both improved economy and improved performance over traditional vehicles.

The virtualized data center can similarly improve both economy and performance of enterprise server workloads by intelligently and dynamically matching supply with demand. The virtual resource pool decouples workloads from dedicated servers, enabling server workloads to be consolidated and servers sized to support the average of many workloads rather than the peak of a single workload. Physical servers can typically be consoli-dated by a ratio of eight workloads to one processor, resulting in a nearly eight-fold decrease in energy use once the excess servers are powered off. On the performance side, a workload that was previously bound to a single dedicated processor can now access up to four processors to increase performance based on available computing resources.

For more detail on calculating the total cost of ownership and return on investment from data center virtualization, please refer to the solutions white paper “Reducing Server Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with VMware” on the VMware website at VMware.com. The typical breakeven point needed to cover the cost of virtual infrastructure is two to three virtual machines per host.

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Measuring the Energy Saving from Data Center VirtualizationAs data center virtualization drives efficiency and management savings on many levels, any effort to capture and measure more than a few variables will quickly result in a complex calcula-tor with many assumptions specific to the before and after environment. While this analysis should be performed for each implementation to clarify the opportunity based on the specific deployment strategy, this white paper will provide a simple savings calculator that assumes that consolidated servers are powered off. For example, an implementation that redeploys underutilized servers to host more virtual machines will not lower energy costs but will create capacity to support new server workloads. While overall kWh for the data center will remain the same, the kWh and energy costs per workload will drop substantially.

Figure 6 shows a standard rack of dual processor servers using �006 average numbers for servers per rack, watts per server and electricity rate. Assuming that these servers are running at 5-15% utilization, they can be consolidated to eight virtual machines per processor, resulting in a total of sixteen virtual machines per server. This consolidation would dramatically lower the annual energy cost per workload by 9�% from $61� to $44 per workload.

Figure 6 – A virtualized Rack Server can drive a 92% energy cost

reduction per workload

Virtualizing and consolidating sixteen racks with dual processor servers into a single rack server supporting all ��4 workloads can save $1�8,77� annually ($8,585 for each of 15 racks). This assumes that the 15 racks containing �10 servers no longer needed are powered off and the supporting mechanical load for air conditioning and lighting is equally reduced.

Given that VMware Infrastructure � Enterprise Edition licens-ing is $5,750 for a two-socket server and �5% for platinum support, each host server is $7,188 for the first year and $1,4�8 for annual support thereafter. The licensing cost to support this consolidation to 14 host servers totals $100,6�5 for the first year and $�0,1�5 for annual support each following year. With an annual power savings of $1�8,77� from consolidated servers, the virtualization pays for itself in less than a year and generates a net return over $100,000 every year thereafter.

Figure 7 – Server consolidation through virtualization can return the

investment in the first year alone

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The Path to Virtualization in the Data CenterSince virtualization is by now a mature, mainstream technol-ogy for data center optimization, the path to enterprise-wide virtualization is well-worn with ‘best practice’ approaches. After the strategic decision is made to consolidate server infrastruc-ture, the approach normally begins with the following steps:

• Determine overall data center priorities. Are the compelling issues driven by:

o Environmental constraints (limited data center space, power, HVAC, network capacity),

o Financial constraints (limited budgets for new hardware, projects, or administrative staff ), or

o Operational constraints (business continuity needs, appli-cation lifecycle support, legacy application support)?

• Assess current infrastructure and target workloads using the priorities to guide the virtualization strategy

o Approach 1 – Start with a pilot consolidation project by targeting a simple subset of the IT infrastructure

o Approach � – Adopt a ‘backwards containment’ approach by consolidate and retire underutilized and legacy servers from the data center (ideal for addressing environmental constraints)

o Approach � – Adopt a ‘forward containment’ approach by provisioning new projects with virtual infrastructure and deferring acquisition of new physical hardware (ideal for addressing financial constraints)

• Envision the future virtual infrastructure design and communi-cate the consolidation strategy to the IT team

The actual transition of physical servers into a virtual infra-structure is relatively simple and non-disruptive, requiring no manual software migrations. Existing physical servers can be automatically captured as virtual machines using the VMware P�V (Physical to Virtual) Assistant.

Instead of applying hardware refresh budget to replace aging servers one for one, the funds can be applied to purchasing servers optimized to support the virtual infrastructure with an eight to one or greater consolidation ratio. In every case, fewer fault tolerant servers running more workloads will directly trans-late to reduced costs, higher reliability and reduced manage-ment effort.

ConclusionVirtualization leverages technology to better manage technol-ogy, letting enterprise data centers deliver more services with fewer resources. Given the annually increasing pressure created by server proliferation and rising power requirements, server densities and energy costs, virtualization is the only approach capable of addressing the business demand for new servers while containing the costs required for management, mainte-nance and operations.

Quite simply, virtualization helps shift the allocation of informa-tion technology resources from powering existing investments to driving ongoing innovation and funding new projects.

Next StepsEnterprises working to optimize data center efficiency and management should evaluate the value VMware Infrastructure can deliver. The VMware Sales Team can help your IT organiza-tion determine how VMware Infrastructure will provide these benefits in your particular data center environment. Using consolidation assessments, ROI tools, case studies, and other tools, VMware will work with your team to design and imple-ment specific success criteria so you can evaluate our software effectively. Visit us on the Web at www.vmware.com, email us at sales@vmware.com, or call us at 877-4VMWARE to get started.

“Enterprises that do not leverage virtualization technologies will spend 25% more annually for hardware, software, labor, and space for x86-based servers.”

--Gartner research, November 2003