Companies generally use virtualization software to consolidate their massive data centers and cut costs.
Environmental benefits, such as a reduction in energy use, come along for the ride. However, these secondary benefits can amount to a substantial portion of the overall expense savings – in some cases up to 15 percent.
It is said corporate America will become a willing soldier in the war against global warming if it can save big bucks in the process. Compressing the workloads of two dozen servers onto a single powerful machine qualifies as big money.
Virtualizing servers cuts power use by consolidating multiple computers onto one box. Power savings can be 15% of the total expense cuts.
The savings can amount to millions of dollars and quickly pay back investments in new hardware, software and storage disks. Virtualization helps facilitate this by allowing multiple work environments to operate on one computer.
Most companies are primarily focused on the cost savings, says Robert Zylowski, director of service at consultancy GlassHouse Technologies. “It’s about dollars and cents.”
But the environmental benefits are nothing to ignore. A company saving $3 million over the course of three years will probably end up cutting energy expenses by $450,000, says Zylowski. That’s roughly 15 percent of the overall pie.
Going green can be good business.
Today, between a third and a half of Fortune 500 companies use virtualization. This should rise to between 70 percent and 80 percent, estimates Zylowski.
When the bottom line is added up, that’s a lot of avoided power.
Posted by Mark Boslet 
