Briefcase

A couple of timely questions, one answer. What's the easiest way for my firm to go green? And how can I take costs out of IT operations? Answer: server consolidation through virtualization using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

For every dollar spent on a new physical server you can expect to spend 50 cents a year for power to run and cool it, says IDC Canada research director David Senf. Do the green math. Reducing the number of physical servers in your data centre by putting multiple virtual servers on each machine means you consume that much less power. And that means fewer emissions, a smaller carbon footprint.

Yes, in some scenarios you may end up paying as much to cool high-utilization servers because they run "hard and hot." But research has shown that on average 90% of the energy consumed by IT equipment is consumed during production.

Do the math again. The fewer new servers you buy, the fewer will be manufactured, and the less power will be consumed. Plus, you create less e-waste down the road. In an IDC survey, virtualization was the green initiative Canadian companies most often said they had undertaken or were contemplating. But as Senf notes, the first reason for going green through virtualization is not environmental but economic.

Virtualization cuts costs. Lower capital costs to refresh servers because you're buying fewer - offset slightly by increased software costs. Reduced power and cooling costs. And reduced IT management costs.

"The business case for virtualization almost always shows a positive return," says Aaron Hay, a research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group Inc. On average, companies report savings of 30% to 70% over continuing with an unvirtualized environment. "It really is a no-brainer if you want to reduce costs and help the environment," Hay says.

Virtual talk: A quick guide to some virtual lingo

• Virtualization: Creating multiple virtual or logical machines on a physical server, allowing it to support multiple applications or processes, each running on a dedicated (virtual) server.
• Consolidation: The usual object of virtualization - a reduction in the number of physical machines in a data centre by moving multiple applications or processes on to virtual servers on each machine.
• Consolidation ratio: A way of measuring before-and-after impact of consolidation. If a data centre starts with 100 physical servers and after consolidation is left with 10, the consolidation ratio would be 10:1.
• Utilization: The percentage of a server's processing, memory and I/O capacity used by resident applications and processes - typically in the 10% to 15% range before virtualization and consolidation, as high as 80% after. A convenient and often used measure of data centre efficiency.
• Hypervisor: A software platform for virtualization that allows multiple operating systems or operating system instances to run on a host computer at the same time.
• Kilowatt (kW): A measure of electric power consumption: 1,000 watts. Data centre power consumption is usually stated in kilowatt hours. Most of the quantifiable benefits from virtualization come from reducing annual kilowatt hours.

For more information: www.microsoft.com/virtualization

Virtual Tips

Plan, Plan, Plan: Don't virtualize just because it's the latest IT hot button. And don't assume because you're virtualizing that everything needs to be virtual. Do careful analysis to figure out which servers should be and which shouldn't. When in doubt, go physical.

Pick your proposition Server consolidation is a powerful argument for virtualization, but not the only one. Virtualization also enables fast, on-the-fly provisioning and reassignment of servers - to accommodate peak business periods, for example. Pick the most compelling value proposition for your organization.

Build the business case: IT consulting firms can help confirm the return on investment for consolidation projects, and sometimes provide online ROI calculators.

Green IT: More and more organizations are mandating green IT. So also calculate anticipated environmental benefits to help sell the project. Again, consulting firms can help, or use the calculator at Microsoft's Hyper-Green site (www.hyper-green.com) or Green IT Tools (www.greenittools.com).

Start small, Go large: Virtualization comes with some cost. To minimize initial funding and change management hurdles, start small with pilot projects focused on low-hanging-fruit savings from consolidation. But plan for full-scale roll-out.

Relearn capacity planning: In the dark ages of computing, IT professionals learned to plan how much processing, memory and I/O capacity they needed on each mainframe to accommodate peak loads. You need to learn that lost art all over again.

Reduce density: Don't load racks full with high-utilization servers that run hot. The higher the density of servers, the greater the cooling challenges. Try to load racks to a point at which you can continue using your current cooling system.

Use all your free resources: To your list of must-visit Web sites, add Microsoft's main Virtualization Portal. It includes white papers, case studies, Webcasts and podcasts, reviews and research. Yours for the taking.

Visit www.microsoft.com/virtualization

Virtual Powerplay

The release in September of Hyper-V, the built-in virtualization hypervisor in Microsoft Windows Server 2008, marked the beginning of an exciting new phase in the evolution of virtualization. "It's safe to say that Microsoft has now become a very serious player in virtualization," says John Sloan, a senior research analyst at Info-Tech. "And its influence will continue to grow over the next 18 months."

The hypervisor is software that makes it possible to run multiple virtual servers, each with its own instance of the operating system and dedicated memory, on one physical machine. Microsoft's decision to incorporate Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 at no additional charge fundamentally changes the economics of virtualization, says David McJannet, Microsoft Canada's group manager for server products.

"One reason so many companies have not pursued this concept, despite the obvious benefits, is that it was prohibitively expensive," McJannet says. "Now we're making it frictionless for customers to do it." Or almost frictionless. To efficiently manage a virtual environment and to be able to quickly provision new virtual servers - an often overlooked benefit - you also need software such as Microsoft's System Center Virtual Machine Manager, which is included in the Server Management Suite (SMSE), and which is licensed separately.

Still, the total cost to virtualize with Microsoft will be about a third what it would be with major competitor VMware Inc., McJannet says. And with the Server Management Suite, which many Microsoft customers already use, IT professionals can manage both physical and virtual servers from a single console - something no other virtualization solution can provide.

Analysts are now predicting, in private if not yet publicly, that Microsoft - because of its lower cost structure and dominant (80%) share of the enterprise server market - is lighting the fuse on the virtualization market. Most currently peg the percentage of servers worldwide that are virtual in the low to mid-single digits. Gartner is predicting that will jump to 60% by 2013.