When you take into consideration the number of assets in the form of server hardware the average businesses data center has in place, factor in total cost of ownership and then measure this against the efficiency achieved by said assets in completing the tasks they were deployed for, you get a real good sense of true value. Value is achieved by maximizing output and utilization of each and every server plus reducing administration time and increasing uptime. 

The datacenter model of dedicated servers per function such as separate database, exchange (or email), domain controllers, and application servers is not efficient when compared to the alternative of virtualization. The reasons for the lack of efficiency are reduced server utilization, increased recovery time should a failure occur, and longer time to production on server rollouts to name just a few. All of these reasons also contribute to increased man hours to perform administrative tasks.

When it comes time to layout expenditures for new datacenter equipment it is often difficult for the project manager to convince those holding the purse strings that an initial higher investment in “big iron” (Larger, more powerful servers) with virtualization software will give more value to the corporation in the long run than several smaller outlays for purpose tasked servers as needs arise. This is a textbook case of perceived value being mistaken for actual value.  Should the big iron be purchased and a virtualization infrastructure be started, the need for another server will be satisfied by rolling out a virtual machine.

Instead of having 40 servers running at 30%-40% utilization you can have two or three “big iron” server with 40 virtual machines. As part of the virtualization infrastructure solution you will have these added benefits:

1. 1) Faster server provisioning
2. 2) Failover to another server should one server go down
3. 3) Optimization of server resources
4. 4) Higher utilization
5. 5) Lower electricity costs
6. 6) Reduced administration 

 

These all add up to increased value through efficient use of all resources and in the long run lower cost of ownership. 

An additional benefit is the ability to go with a leased model for server acquisitions as the virtual machines are not tied to the hardware.  So whenever the lease is up and new servers are acquired there will be no lengthy migration, just setup the new servers with your virtualization platform and move your virtual machines over to be restarted and placed into production.  Through the use of the virtualization model, actual value is realized from the start and will continue for many years.