Of course changing a light bulb is easier. But did you know that the power savings benefits of changing a single server are about equal to changing three light bulbs and the economics of replacing either is similar.

ð        Energy Star estimatesthat replacing a light bulb with a single compact fluorescent can save $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in 6 months.

ð        Intel estimatesare that replacing 9 racks of older servers with just one rack of new servers can save up to $765,000 over four years and pay for itself in as few as 8 months. 

While many of us no longer question changing older incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs because of economic and eco-friendly reasons, many businesses retain older servers in their environment because they still work. About 3 months ago when talking to IDC, they shared an estimate that they expect there to be about 32 million servers supporting businesses around the world in 2009 and about 40% of them are more than 4 years old (making them single core processor technology). That is a lot of old single-core technology.

These single core servers take up a lot of space, resources and power/cooling infrastructure.  Newer servers consume less power (about 150W on average based on test results with industry standard benchmark SPECpower found at www.spec.org), deliver more performance (up to 9x), come with a new warranty, and support technologies to enable consolidation that can reduce OS, application and other costs that vary per server.  The combination of these savings balanced with the costs and effort to replace them, migrate applications and validate the new environment can deliver a rapid payback and dramatic savings.  You can estimate the savings yourself using this server refresh savings estimator.

And since power per server is lower, you don’t need to replace the rack infrastructure (unless you want to) … similar to how you don’t need a new light fixture for compact fluorescent light bulbs.

While it will take more work to change your server (than a light bulb), the additional work is sure worth the effort as many customers have learned (www.intel.com/references). Learn more about server technology in the new Server Learning Center located here.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

How many engineers does it take to change a light bulb? … a server?

chris

In my blog titled “why buy for the little guy”, I shared that I was in the market for a new home desktop to replace my existing one.  Well, today I spent my 2009 tax refund check on a new computer – an iMac. 

So why the secrecy?  ... The iMac is a surprise for my wife’s birthday.  My wife has wanted a Mac since we left college and I’ve always been a PC guy (grew up with one, always used them at work, etc.) and when I started working at Intel almost 10 years ago, I could not justify a Mac given my corporate loyalties and who was paying the bills.  When Apple adopted Intel architecture a couple years ago, my options were now opened (really my old excuses were not longer valid).  

I’m very excited to install the new iMac as the challenges of my old technology and the limitations and headaches they were giving me will be gone - and I think I’ll finally get some good-guy points with my wife.

Chris

In my blog titled top 10 reasons to buy in a recession ,I discussed generic reasons to invest.  While small businesses (and to some extent medium businesses) don’t have the scale to take advantage of some of the consolidation and cost savings gains discussed in my “why buy for the big guy” blog, the benefits of replacing older servers remains a strong value for smaller businesses also. 

For those business owners who don’t have dedicated IT staff, your technology is depended on for reliable, efficient operation of the business. Technology is depended on to support daily operations and services ... like website operation, email communication, customer management, purchasing and record retention among other things.  If not … then you (as business owner) must turn your attention away from customers and towards your technology platform – not something a you have the time or resources to do.

Before reading, you need to know that I’m not a small business owner but I do have a family (in many ways that is my business) and as such I have several computers at home to support the operation of my family.  Recently, I experienced some issues with my existing computers that have put me in the market for replacement technology.  Specifically, when doing my taxes this year and when trying to load TurboTax*, my computer did not have sufficient memory to support the new 2008 software version.  Additionally, my wife and I track our finances with Quicken* and recently the slow performance on our computer has resulted in us spending too much time doing data entry on a slow computer.  In essence, our technology now is limiting us from doing the things we need to do .. so time to upgrade .. and I am shopping for a new desktop.

These challenges are similar to what I foresee from small businesses when it comes to technology upgrades.  Here are two examples of customers who, as a result of a growing demands and slowing performance of existing technology, turned to a Xeon-based server to streamline operations, boost reliabiilty, improve customer service, improve competitiveness and open up business possibilities for themselves.

ð       Yellow River i-café.  See How this small i-café went from a situation where a demanding workload caused hardware failures, leading to down time, loss of revenue, and frustrated customers to a situation where Yellow River saw performance gains and head room for growth by upgrading to an new Intel Xeon based server.

ð       Lampworks. Read how Jason Harper of Lampworks went from “We knew that we’d hit the wall with our desktop-based server; it couldn’t bear the extra load. Our computer was suddenly a barrier to our growth, rather than a business enabler” ... to ... “We’re extremely excited about the growth possibilities that our new server gives us.”

As your technology ages, you have a choice.  Typically standard OEM manufacturer warranties are supported for 3 years with purchase of a new server.  Before you extend the warranty (for $800-1200 per server for additional two more years), evaluate the enhanced performance, improved energy efficiency and capability to replace many servers (either desktop or true server technology) with fewer new servers.  If you are already at the end of your extended warranty, can you run the risk of server failure inside your business or can you afford the unexpected expense of a service call. 

Additionally there are some government incentive programs, like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  that offer businesses accelerated depreciation (60% first year vs standard 20%) on new computer hardware which can lower you 2009 tax burden and accelerate ROI.

Is your current technology holding you back or in your way? ... If so, consider a new server.

Chris 

Why Invest in IT … for Large Enterprises

In my blog titled top 10 reasons to buy in a recession  , I discussed generic reasons to invest.  For large enterprises with a large install base of servers (multiple data centers, row and rows or rooms and rooms of servers), you have the economies of scale on your side.  Most likely, about 40% of your existing servers use single-core processor technology and another estimated 40% based of dual-core processor (source IDC).  Running existing infrastructure on these slower servers is just plan inefficient compared to the new servers available on the new Intel Microarchitecture (Nehalem) – intel's 3^rd generation of quad-core processors for 2 socket servers.

Based on Intel estimates, replacing nine single-core based servers with one new xeon 5500 can yield up to 90% lower operating costs, delivering a payback on investment in  as short at 8 months (learn more here) … or … by upgrading single-core, dual-core or even the latest quad-core processors can yield performance enhancements that can boost productivity or open up new business opportunities. 

Even though this is day of introduction, there are four large companies today that have already identified the benefits of using these new processors.  See their results below

ð       Play saw roaming mobile transaction times reduce from 102 minutes to 44 minutes from last years quad-core processors and expects to be able to reduce the cost of running its data centre with these energy efficient servers.

ð       Capgemini tested a virtualization environment and sees ability to help their development team be more productive while strengthening customer offerings … as exhibited by a reduction in response time from 12.46 sec to 5.56 seconds compared to last years quad-core processors

ð       The Technical University of Munich saw processing speeds increase by 66% and experience 4x memory bandwidth for applications leading them and their customers to consider new projects and compute models for their research and business.

ð       Business & Decision saw the ability for 20:1 virtualization ratios with utilization levels at approximately 55%, providing the ability to improve customer service levels, productivity, reduce implementation costs by 50% and anticipates a ROI of < 1year. 

The bottom line is that these customers are moving forward with technology investment as a core strategy to boost their business and cut costs – helping them to emerge stronger and more competitive in their industry as economic conditions improve.

What could the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series based server do in your business?

Chris

Ever since Johnny Carson introduced his Top Ten format on the Tonight Show, I have found myself a big fan of this format. (Note: I guess the origin of the top 10 format may not have been new with the Tonight Show but it was my first exposure – I guess I date myself some ).

Many times the top 10 format is fun and entertaining, however, my topic today is a little more serious. In January of 2009, I found Tech Republic’s “10 Reasons To Purchase New Hardware During A Recession” on a ZDNet Blog

As I spend my days talking IT managers around the world, many of these items resonate with me and whether you are investing to support continued daily business operations (existing hardware is a limiter for you), to improve IT efficiency (reduce operating costs of aging install base) or to business competitiveness (offer new services before your competition does) … many of these Tech Republic Top 10 reasons (see below) were at the heart of their investment strategy.  

So before you cut your IT budget in response to economic conditions, consider if purpose driven IT investments might deliver you a competitive advantage by enabling you and your company to do more with less.

Tune in next few weeks for a my two part series covering the benefits of IT investments in specific business environments

ð      Small – Medium Business: Why Buy for the Small Guy?

ð      Large Enterprise: Why Buy for the Big Guy?

PS: Do you have a favorite top 10 (personal or business)?

Chris

Every morning we hear about the staggering job losses mounting up in businesses around the world. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost so far. Unfortunately, no one seems immune from the impacts of this recession. In fact, the recession is now impacting the data center and a new segment of the work force is at risk – your servers!

Would you keep an employee who worked less than 4 hours per day, over-spent valuable resources and was someone you had to manage constantly – obviously, the answer is NO! That is the situation today with install base single-core servers.  Aging servers are a perfect target for downsizing in this tough economy. Industry analyst IDC estimates that there are approximately 30 million servers installed in businesses around the world and about 40% of those use single-core processors (4 years old or older).

Let’s look at the 2008 performance review of these single core servers.

ð       Excessive Spending Habits: For the performance they deliver, these servers take up too much space and over-consume power and cooling resources.

ð       Lazy Work Habits: A typical non virtualized server runs at only 10-15% utilization – meaning they sit idle a majority of your work day.

ð       Needs Excessive Management: Aging servers require more maintenance. Extended warranties are expensive (estimated $600-1200 per server depending on the type of server) and if you don’t extend the warranty, the risk of downtime is on IT and the business. While the costs to maintain a server vary widely , during a recent discussion with Forrester research, they indicated that an aging server can cost up 3x the costs of an in-warranty server (under standard 3 yr manufacturer support).

Continuing to use these old servers is not a wise business strategy. But if you fire your existing infrastructure, who can you hire to do the work? Simple, you hire fewer new multi-core servers running virtualization to replace a large number of install base servers.

But, is replacing them worth the effort … I mean, why fix what ain’t broke? About 2/3 of IT’s budget is consumed maintaining existing infrastructure (source Gartner), leaving a measly 1/3 for innovation and value add business capability. So in this recession, unless you are focused on reducing OpEx, the IT budget that you are cutting is likely restricting your business competitiveness and new service delivery - the value of innovation.

Replacing old servers with new offers both cost and productivity advantages for IT in addition to improved services and competitiveness for business. Read some of the success stories from businesses in 2008 where proactive IT investment commonly resulted in 30-40% reductions in total costs, enhanced business services, improved competitiveness and rapid financial ROI. In fact, the business ROI on replacing an old server with new is staggering and in many cases can pay for itself in less than 12 months, by reducing power / cooling costs, avoiding new construction, simplifying and reducing maintenance costs, reducing applicaiton and OS licensing costs and more.

What characteristics should you look for in a new server hire? (to maximize this savings and accelerate ROI)

ð       Versatile Performance. Consider a wide range of benchmarks and application usages when evaluating capability of the server you intend to hire.  Servers hired today for a specific task may likely get re-purposed over their lifetime.

               Also ... if your workload is specialized and data demanding (like database / enterprise resource planning / business intelligence) consider a specialized

               server with unique skills, like larger compute, I/O and memory scalability to handle these larger workloads with increased reliability and headroom for peak loads.

ð       Energy Efficiency. Newer multi-core servers feature nearly 10x the performance / watt of single core servers. Use the SPECPower benchmark to assess which servers are the most energy efficient.

ð       Virtualization. When virtualizing servers, hire servers that can support robust consolidation ratios and built for flexibility and versatility. Many new hardware-assist technologies help boost the ability to migrate virtual machines (application/OS combination) from one server to another.

ð       Standardization. Unlike hiring employees where diversity is valued and encouraged, using a smaller number of reference designs in your IT environment, can lower operating and support costs.

A final consideration for hiring new servers is total cost of ownership. Just like hiring people, you must consider the incidental or hidden costs behind the salary and sign-on bonus (do these still exist today?). The average life for a server is 4 years. Buying an inexpensive server for your needs today may optimize today’s budget but may end up costing you over the long run in software licensing, power/cooling. Intel IT recently did an ROI analysis on buying higher end processors and found that using higher end processors reduced TCO significantly – by doing more with less.

Last year, Intel IT fired about 20,000 servers and more are expected to receive pink slips in 2009 - read more about this in the 2008 Intel ITannual perfomance report

If your goals are to lower costs, improve services and boost revenue while increasing business competitiveness, then replacing aging server infrastructure is an Intelligent Investment. Learn more at www.intel.com/go/xeon

Are your single core servers at risk of losing their jobs?  If not, they should be!

So the Question is ... Will You Cut IT Costs and Boost Business Competitiveness by downsizing your Server Infrastructure in 2009?

Chris

Virtualization is transforming the way IT looks at server technology and usages in the data center.  In Lesson 1 , I interviewed Sudip Chahal (Intel IT) about the wide variety of use models for virtualization that are being deployed and evaluated across data centers worldwide. 

It was clear to me that the sheer volume of interest and activity around virtualization was transforming the way that IT was looking at technology, affecting their requirements for future server purchases. In Lesson 2 Sudip Chahal (Intel IT) and I discuss the changing technology requirements IT has on server platforms and technology across the data center to support both consolidation and emerging flexible usage models that depend on live VM migration.

Yesterday I had the chance to sit and discuss virtualization with Matt Eastwood, a leading analyst from IDC.  Matt refered to these new live VM migration models under the concept of improved mobility for the data center.  During our dicussion I mentioned this blog and the similarities to the themes I was writing about.

I invite you to view this short video (~ 5min) and comment about how your server product requirements are changing as you evaluate or deploy virtualization in your business.

Namasté

Chris