Maxed Out
Because the System i can run at redline speed all day long . . .
July 14, 2008
Green Is for the Grinch, or Do System i Shops Even Need to Be Green?
In the x86-based Windows world, server proliferation has been burning medium and larger companies. As data centers have been overrun with new servers for new workloads, the sheer numbers of servers have been sucking up more power than data centers can handle, jacking up utility bills, and generally wasting energy as they sit around blowing fans over under-utilized processors that still manage to crank out enough heat to fry eggs faster than hot summer asphalt in Phoenix, Arizona.
With not enough power, not enough room, and overtaxed air conditioning equipment, IT shops suddenly have clear fiscal imperatives for server consolidation and virtualization initiatives -- never mind the ease-of-management and best-practice incentives. Consequently, Intel and AMD have been working hard to create new processors that suck significantly less power, and when taken as a whole over data centers, the reduced energy consumption has resulted in some excellent cost savings. Besides, buying new hardware and virtualizing servers can be a heckuva lot cheaper than building a new data center.
These kinds of efforts have somehow managed to become the new "green" in IT -- and oh, everybody seems to want to be part of it. IBM launched Project Big Green, a $1 billion investment to dramatically increase the efficiency of IBM products. Other leading companies have been going green, too, so rather than belabor the point, let's get to it:
I'm not convinced that most System i-centered organizations are particularly concerned about being green.
By System i-centered, I mean small- and medium-size enterprises whose primary business computing server is one-to-several System i boxes (although some early adopters could certainly be running a Power System with IBM i). These organizations most certainly have a handful of Windows or Linux servers which could benefit from virtualization and consolidation efforts, but the act of doing so wouldn't necessarily result in an important green paycheck for the business.
For some of these companies, I'm wondering if being green might be something like trading in a car that's already paid for in order to buy a shiny new hybrid that gets a little better gas mileage . . . how many years must pass before the cost of acquisition starts making sense?
But maybe that's not even the point with being green. Maybe it's more about being a good citizen of the world. Still, how many System i-centered organizations are being green for the good of the world -- or even for their budgets?
Is "green" an issue for your organization? Are you already buying and looking at solutions in which "greenness" is a factor?
Posted by cmaxcer at July 14, 2008 8:33 AM
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