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expenses climbing. Rightsizing can be accomplished through server consolidation and
virtualization.

By rightsizing,
you design
with the exact
amount of
equipment
you need –
not more than
you need.

NOTE We talk about consolidation later in this chapter and show you how to do it in Chapter 12.
When you redesign with rightsizing in mind, you must also be cognizant of the fact you
will need additional capacity in the years to come. However, if you spend the time and
money you need to predict the datacenter power and cooling load, it will pay for itself in
both reduced capital and operational expense.

Upgrading to Energy-Efficient Servers

When you plan to green your datacenter, it would be nice if you could do it in one fell
swoop. But, realistically, that’s not going to happen. You can’t really take down your entire
system and replace it from scratch.
It won’t work for a couple reasons. First, the cost would be too prohibitive. The budget
just probably won’t be there for so much expensive equipment. Second, there’s the issue of
workflow. Can anyone really envision being dark for the amount of time it would take to
turn everything off and install new equipment? In most cases, when a new server is
installed, it has to be hot-swapped in, so that there isn’t even a fraction of a second of
downtime.
So what you’ll wind up doing is replacing your equipment with green alternatives as
you would normally replace servers and storage units. When you do design your green
datacenter, there are some issues to keep in mind and some practices you should follow.