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Virtualization Viewpoint: It's Easy Being Green

Physical devices are the culprit here: the more we add, the more power and cooling we need
By Pete Manca
Article Rating:
August 29, 2008 06:25 AM EDT
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 5,648

Pete Manca's Blog

That wise prophet Kermit once said, “It’s not easy being green.” Actually, it is, but you wouldn't get that impression based on some of the "green solutions" we're seeing in the market. Isn’t the easiest way to reduce power and cooling to remove those things that create demand for power and cooling? Physical devices are the culprit here. The more we add, the more power and cooling we need. Simple math. Turning down fan speeds, slowing CPUs, etc...these are nice tweaks that nibble at the edges but in reality, don't address the root problem.

Pete Manca (fourth from left) on SYS-CON's Virtualization Power Panel

Solutions from VMware and Citrix for instance definitely help, as they drive up utilization by allowing the customer to consolidate – and REMOVE – servers. This is great first step, but now it's time to go farther. Server Infrastructure Virtualization is the enabling technology that allows you to take it to the next level.

Why not remove server infrastructure such as NICs, HBAs and their corresponding switches? Why not remove the dedicated failover servers for each application? How about the dedicated DR systems? See where I'm going?

The beauty of Server Infrastructure Virtualization is that it allows you to be much more efficient. Virtual devices don’t require additional power and cooling. Infrastructure virtualization allows you to pool resources, eliminating the dedicated backup and DR servers.

This is the real key to being green..remove unnecessary hardware through virtualization. And not just the boxes, but the infrastructure around the boxes.

“It’s not easy being green” is the part of Kermit’s song that we all remember. At the end of the song Kermit sings “It’s beautiful! And it’s what I want to be.” That’s really what customers want and the next step in virtualization is the key making it happen.

I'd love to hear what you think. How are you taking the next step in your green journey?

 

Published August 29, 2008 – Reads 5,648
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More Stories By Pete Manca

Pete Manca is CTO and EVP of Engineering, Egenera. He brings over 20 years' experience in enterprise computing to Egenera. His expertise spans a wide range of critical enterprise data center technologies including virtualization, operating systems, large-scale architectures and open standards. In particular, his leadership and experience in virtualization technologies has led to the continued progression of Egenera's advanced PAN (Processing Area Network) architecture. Manca leads product planning by working directly with customers to understand their most difficult challenges and guide Egenera's architecture, hardware and software engineering teams to translate those requirements into solutions. Prior to Egenera, he served as Vice President of Engineering at Hitachi Computer Products America with responsibility for operating systems and enterprise middleware products.

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