There’s a story on SiliconRepublic where I have been quoted. Microsoft TechNet Ireland ran a survey and found that 2/3 of respondents said budgets were being cut. At the same time, the business was looking to IT to find more cost effective ways for the business to operate.
Some simple solutions? If you virtualise using Hyper-V then you can slash your server OS spend and your systems management costs. An Enterprise license assigned to a host allows 4 free guest Windows Server operating systems. A Datacenter license assigned to each physical CPU on the host allows unlimited Windows Server guest operating systems. So a dual CPU machine (maybe 8 or 12 cores) could run unlimited Windows Server licenses for just €5000 or thereabouts!
The same applies to Microsoft System Center. You can assign and Enterprise (for 4 VM’s) or DataCenter (for unlimited VM’s) System Center CAL/SAL to manage your VM’s with Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager, Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager.
What it you already have an Enterprise Agreement with MS for your existing physical servers? Virtualise them and “true-down” on your report. Let your managers know how much your saving and suggest a commensurate bonus 🙂 Then send me a cheque! 🙂
There’s much more to virtualisation of course. There is a spend at the front end on hardware and storage. Maybe on consulting too. But over the long run you save big time on power (especially with Windows Server 2008 R2 Core Parking). You also separate yourself from being tied to hardware so hardware replacement becomes a lot easier. That’s more true with Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 quick storage migration where a hardware replacement for a VM (move a VM from one device to another) has maybe 2 minutes of downtime (this is different to Live Migration or VMotion).
39% of those surveyed said virtualisation was what they were doing. Other solutions included business intelligence and unified communications. Give it a read for yourself.