A (Semi) Complete Idiot's Guide to...The Green Datacenter

Green is definitely in fashion these days, at least in the sense of IT world infrastructure, where it seems as if there is a new “green initiative” announcement daily. But when it comes to virtualization, the ‘green’ theme usually comes in reference to consolidation -- being able to reduce the total size of the infrastructure. To be fair, virtualization is not necessarily reducing the infrastructure footprint, that fact that servers and other hardware today can do exponentially more in a significantly smaller package is really the firststep in going green. Virtualization is the all mighty enabler, making it possible to move applications from old or under-utilized servers onto bigger and usually smaller new servers. The result, what would have needed a full row of infrastructure just a few years ago can often now be from a single stack (in fact, IBM has even made a commercial about that).

So how does virtualization make things greener? Well, with less infrastructure, you take up less space and often times going green = more green in the ol’ wallet. In general terms, with less infrastructure, you are cooling and powering less, which directly translates into significant cost savings , as well as less resources indirectly used from the environment Virtualization is the technology that makes this consolidation practically possible – you can easily migrate what you have now into a more compact (and greener) datacenter infrastructure.

Sohat kind of virtualization are we talking about? Great question. Many people would automatically assume Virtual Machines and the like from VMware. While certainly the most popular, don’t be fooled into thinking that Virtual Machines are the answer. Sure, they have their place, but there are some other factors to consider, namely – the people factor (i.e. the management equation). When I virtualize 500 servers so I can migrate the applications and services down to 50 servers, I have certainly reduced my space, power, and cooling requirements, but, I have increased my management equation, now managing 500 virtual machines (same OS maintenance and management overhead as 500 actual servers) plus 50 new servers.

500 + 50 = 550 servers that now need management.

There is a better way. Using another flavor of virtualization – Application Virtualization – you can largely accomplish the same kind of server consolidation, without spawning Virtual Machines that require management. No more proliferation of OS patches or the requirement to maintain hundreds of OS personalities just for application dependencies. In fact, with Application Virtualization, you have the ability to actually standardize your infrastructure platforms. Using the example above, that means 500 servers consolidated and migrated down to 50 new servers will reduce your infrastructure management effort by a factor of ten – and you can take that to the bank (literally).

Now get out there and save the world!