These are some common questions that many in IT ask when ever something new comes to market. If we look at some of the statistics about the IT landscape right now, it is easy to understand the need to move to virtualization.

Is virtualization just another IT fad?

The Answer - No! Studies show that servers generally use only 5- 30% of their current capacity. That means that 70 – 95% of these machines are unused. However, they are still burning electricity for power and cooling whether they run at minimal or full capacity. According to a June 2006 article in The Wall Street Journal, “One large data center can consume enough juice to power a small city of 30,000 to 40,000 people.” High energy consumption along with higher energy prices mean that the cost of doing business is on the rise. Virtualization of server hardware reduces energy costs and reduces idle server capacity.

“One large data center can consume enough juice to power a small city of 30,000 to 40,000 people.”
- The Wall Street Journal, June, 2006

Reducing energy consumption is one way you can build your ROI case to introduce virtualization to your organization.

Why should I consider an investment in virtualization?

The Answer - Organizations are seeing big cost savings in the administration of virtualized server environments. The consolidated environment means the amount of servers per administrator goes up significantly due to the fact it takes about 1/3 of the time to administer virtual servers over physical servers. Since administration tasks are simplified, your staff can worry about new projects rather than restoring data of failed hardware.

How can I justify spending money on virtualization?

The Answer - Less physical servers will save you money on server support contracts. The average 3-year support contract costs $2,000 per server. If you have 100 servers, that's $200,000 for support. In a virtual environment, you might need only 10 servers resulting in a $180,000 savings in hardware support contracts alone!

If you add on the additional savings in energy, cooling, and administration, the amount of money saved is truly significant.

The ROI on these projects more than justifies the case to virtualize your servers today!

Contact us so we can provide you with a FREE ROI calculation for your organization!

For more information on Gemini Systems and our Virtualization practice please contact us.