Warm up with a brandy?

Stuck in a snowdrift? Marooned on a mountain? Don’t wait for a St. Bernard…

A baby barrel full o’ brandy might cheer you up, but the alcohol content will actually lower your core body temperature. You get pleasantly flushed, as the blood races to your epidermis, but this activity actually dispels heat from the core of your body. Net result? Unless Bernard’s got a buddy nearby, you’re going to get cooler quicker.

And your nearest source of heat right now? Probably your datacentre – pumping lovely warm air and (indirectly) plenty of C02 into the atmosphere. If you’re getting the message that you should be cutting down on your energy consumption, consider moving to virtualised servers with VMware Virtual Infrastructure on IBM System x and Bladecenter.

The implication of running separate physical servers for each of your major Windows and Linux based applications not only poses a problem with physical space requirements, but also impacts on the energy demands and costs to your business.

To put this in context:

• Gartner Group says that energy costs may increase from 10% of the IT budget today to over 50% in the next few years.
  
• Servers use about 30% of their peak electricity consumption while sitting idle.
  
• Heat created by servers requires another 125% more electricity for cooling.
  
• IDC says that the cost to power servers will exceed the cost of servers by next year.
  
• Growth of data centre energy spending far outpaces the rate at which IT budgets grow.
  
• The average server consumes 4 times as much power as 10 years ago.

The cost savings for power and space that have resulted from virtualisation have been a surprise to some customers and represent an additional ROI - not always included in the initial justification for investing in virtualisation technologies.

By moving to a virtual infrastructure using IBM System x or Bladecenter along with VMware Virtual Infrastructure, organisations can run multiple applications on a single physical server, significantly reducing their physical space requirements and energy costs.

If you’re feeling the heat, or just expending a little too much energy, collar us at Apex on 01285 862100 or email us at marketing@apexcomp.co.uk or join us at our Virtualisation events in October and November.

VMware Virtual Infrastructure on IBM System x from Apex.  Cool new technology for the hottest datacentres.