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The Greening of IT
104 How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment

Virtualization solutions help make IT environments more flexible by simpli-
fying the management and automation of virtual infrastructures.
HP has been quite vocal on this point. HP indicates that businesses can
speed up the deployment of infrastructure components and applications, keep
them up and running more efficiently, and adjust infrastructure more quickly
when business demands change. Improved quality of service is yet another
business benefit. Virtualization products can improve the quality of IT service
delivery by aligning IT supply with business demand. Server virtualization
can help mitigate business risk if leveraged for business-continuity and
disaster-recovery purposes. When combined with the right set of management
tools, which varies depending on the environment, virtualization can provide
an affordable alternative to maintaining separate duplicate sites for disaster
recovery.

Combining Blades and Virtualization
Deploying both blade servers and virtualization can lead to even greater
efficiencies in the data center. Physical data center space, power and cooling
needs, and costs are all reduced when a virtualization strategy is supported by ptg
the use of blade servers. Other benefits include increased server utilization
rates and increased reliability, flexibility, and serviceability. Blades and virtu-
alization work well together to provide greater manageability and modular-
ity on both the hardware side and the software side. Both address
space-saving issues and consolidation of low utilized servers, and ease of pro-
visioning new servers. They address many of the same issues and are a good
hardware and software combination.
Blades and virtualization can be highly complementary strategies. Many
users are deploying both at the same time. They work together to provide
higher-density computing, giving you a lot more out of your data center
blades due to the much smaller form factor and the ability to consolidate
multiple workloads on fewer servers. Both also work together to reduce
energy consumption costs and conserve data center space. They also make it
easier to manage the data center. The combination of blades and virtualiza-
tion can lead to clear business benefits. These are both technologies that go
directly to the return on investment (ROI) and reducing TCO. You get more
for what you’re spending. Lower TCO comes through reductions in both cap-
ital expenses and operating expenses.