...IBM is going to consolidate 3,900 of its own IT servers onto 30 Linux mainframes and, anticipating that the move - enabled by virtualization - will consume 80% less energy and save the company $250 million over five years in power, software licenses and support costs.
Will VMware Kill the Server Business?
Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi has been ruminating on the impact of virtualization and reasons that it's bound to depress x86 server demand if, as he figures, virtualization reduces the need for physical servers by a factor or five or more.
He expects "the server installed base to barely grow beyond 2008, as increased virtualization largely provides the incremental capacity needed for new workloads."
Low-end x86 will bear the brunt of the impact, hitting Dell the worst, he figures, but demand for high-end servers, the workhorse of virtualization, should rise, perhaps to IBM's benefit.
Virtualization will hasten the cannibalization of Unix machines, which would hurt Sun, he said, since Sun, with 50% of the Unix market, get more than 30% of its revenues from Unix servers.
Indicative of what going on and perhaps supporting Toni's contention, IBM is going to consolidate 3,900 of its own IT servers onto 30 Linux mainframes and, anticipating that the move - enabled by virtualization - will consume 80% less energy and save the company $250 million over five years in power, software licenses and support costs.
The initiative is part of its Project Big Green announced in May to cut data center energy costs.
IBM's own data center is sprawled across what amounts to 139 football fields in seven locations in the US, UK, Japan and Australia.
Virtualization, let us remember, was originally a mainframe invention.
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