Diamond Technologies

December 27, 2009

Shrinking the server's footprint, not power

Virtualization consolidates computer data, saves energy

By JUSTIN WILLIAMS
The News Journal

"Do more with less." It's the business mantra of 2009, but we all know better, right?

Not always. In the world of information technology, a process called virtualization has been helping large and midsize companies save a lot of money by reducing the number of servers in their data centers while maintaining the computing power.

I think it's really started to take off this last 12 months, and 2010 looks very promising," said David Brown, president of Datotel Inc., a St. Louis company that specializes in virtualization. "There's just too much upside to not move forward."

If you're not sure what a server is, you're not alone. Servers are in that realm of computer stuff -- firewalls, motherboards, metafiles and service bridges -- best left to the geeks, and that's meant in the nicest possible way.

In essence, a server is just a computer, a really powerful one that helps all those desktops in the office go. That superchilled, tucked-away room that your security badge probably doesn't give you access to -- the one with the stacks of humming electronics -- that's where all the servers are.

Each one of those servers typically performs one job. One runs the e-mail system, another runs databases, another runs applications and yet another runs Web sites. But servers have become so powerful that one job isn't much of a challenge anymore. In fact, a typical server only runs at 5 percent to 10 percent capacity.

"That really is a waste," Brown said.

Enter virtualization. With specialized software -- the big players are Microsoft and VMware -- the jobs of many servers are consolidated into few. The city of Wilmington, for example, has gone from 36 servers to 20, and plans to go even leaner to around 10.

"Within one physical server, you can have many virtual servers," said Chuck Burns, a partner in Diamond Technologies in New Castle, the IT consultants the city has worked with. "The nice part about this is that there's sort of a common sense to it. If I can have the work done by 10 computers done by one computer, I can relate to that pretty easily."

The savings come in capital and operating costs. Fewer machines are needed and less energy is used to power them and keep them from overheating. In a small office, those savings would likely be negligible. But for medium-size and large companies and governments, the numbers are practically irresistible for any right-thinking chief information officer.

According to VMware, U.S. data centers consumed $4.5 billion worth of electricity in 2006. Industry analyst Gartner Inc. estimates that in the next five years, most big data centers will spend as much on energy as they do on hardware.

Delaware's chief information officer, Jim Sills, said virtualization helped the state department of technology and information go from 340 servers to around 50, saving about $1.1 million a year.

"This is one of the hottest things going in the information technology space right now," Sills said. "It's definitely a cost savings. It allows you to cut down on energy costs, maintenance costs, licensing costs, so it really is a no-brainer."

According to Stephen Ames, owner of Virtualization Performance in Tampa, Fla., most Fortune 500 companies are already leveraging the benefits of virtualization. The trickle down to midmarket companies is next.

"It's just one of these things in IT that you can't ignore anymore," he said.

But Ames says it's not for everybody.

"To make the effort and the cost worth it, you need to be virtualizing 10 to 20 servers," Ames said. "That's why you don't see widespread adoption in the small-business space. There may not be enough juice to squeeze if you only have three servers."

The environmental benefits of using less energy have been one of the selling points, and that's what attracted Wilmington.

"A lot of it has to do with the mayor's green initiative," said city CIO Jim O'Donnell. "We're trying to cut back on our carbon footprint. And it's an advantage for our data recovery and data backup."

Before virtualization, data recovery was often time-consuming and expensive, if it could be performed at all.

"It could be many, many hours, if not days, just to get back one computer," said Diamond's Burns.

But with virtualization, an entire server is contained within a single file, and that file can easily be copied and stored elsewhere in case of emergency.

"It's completely portable," said Diamond practice manager Roland Scarinci. "It's not tied to the hardware at all. In that regard, it saves a ton of money in disaster recovery."

Diamond, which also has worked with the Delaware Department of Transportation, New Castle County, Wawa and W.L. Gore, was started by Burns and fellow Delawarean Greg Ballance 13 years ago. The company specializes in mobile technology, Web portals and -- in the past few years -- virtualization.

When Scarinci first started digging into it and discovered the relatively quick return on investment, it was an easy sell to his bosses.

"When he explained to us what is was," Burns said, "we asked, 'Well, why wouldn't anybody do this?"