System iNetwork

By using IBM's current green strategies and set of solutions, IBM says energy savings can be substantial: for an average 25,000 square foot data center, clients should be able to achieve 42 percent energy savings.

The Math

I covered this topic in-depth about a year ago, and as you might guess, IBM sees the biggest gains for larger businesses. How many System iNetwork readers have a System i sitting in a 25,000 square foot sea of other servers? How big is your "data center"?

While the System i is used by the vast majority of Fortune 1000 customers, I would be astounded if the bulk of the market sees an energy problem related directly to its System i infrastructure. For starters, SMBs running the System i are less likely to have out-of-control Windows server proliferation issues, and the System i tends to be more energy-efficient because it tends to run more workloads at a higher level of processor usage (instead of multiple servers consuming energy to sit nearly idle much of the time).

A year ago, some larger System i shops were concerned that they might not have energy available in their data center because they couldn't physically wire-in any additional power — the other servers were gobbling it all up. It's an amusing image — unless you're the person in charge of the i.

Green and Green

In any event, there's two points: if there's money to be saved, most organizations will go green just to realize the cost savings. For most System i-focused organizations, I suspect the cost savings to be radically lower than what could be gained by conserving energy in Windows, Unix, and Linux-heavy organizations. Agree or disagree? Where's the upside for System i-focused shops?

Server Consolidation and Power6

IBM's Big Green play isn't altruistic. The company sees revenue opportunity here, and much of it will be in the form of pushing its own server consolidation/virtualization hardware, software, and services, which tend to be more useful and profitable when consolidating Windows, Unix, and Linux.

Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT, attended IBM's Big Green launch event in New York. I asked him how the System i played into IBM's green strategy:

"System i did come up, mostly related to the use and efficiency of power virtualization technology for server consolidation. Since virtualization was a key message in the announcement, Systems z and x got more emphasis than either Systems i or p. That was really a matter of the mainframe's sheer virtualization muscle and the popularity of VMware for the System x," he reported. "Given the sophisticated power management capabilities of Power6, I expect energy efficiency to be a key message around System i as the platform incorporates the new processors."

The Power6 essentially doubles processing power without increasing energy consumption.

Still, right now, I wonder how many System i pros are feeling the energy heat and responsibility? Is energy efficiency of interest to any System i manager? Any pain? Or is the topic merely shrug-worthy?