Scale Out Zen — Do More with Less
June 26, 2007

As Master Kan might have said to Caine, “The wise IT manager must seek to do more with less, Grasshopper.”

If you’re running an IT department, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that in a recent five-year period the energy that data center servers consume has doubled.

No doubt you’re experiencing some aspect of this pain, whether it’s coping with lack of floor space for the next server rack, vexing airflow problems related to keeping those servers cool, or just the management headache of maintaining too many underutilized servers.

Up until now, the Scale Out Advantage site has focused on virtualization, consolidation and using industry standard servers to achieve an adaptive, efficient IT infrastructure. This month we’re introducing a new concept—the role of multi-socket, multi-core servers

These advanced servers are a complete break from the past, where performance—and desirability—was based on processor clock speed. Multi-core servers run slower and cooler than past-generation systems, yet deliver blazing performance. They typically cut power consumption from 25-30 percent of older systems with equivalent speed CPU’s.

And multi-core servers are well-positioned to take full advantage of the benefits of virtualization and application consolidation by exploiting idle CPU time. As the Clipper Group points out in a recent study, multi-core design enables fewer processors to accomplish more while using less electricity.

There are many paths to achieve harmony and efficiency in the data center, grasshopper. Seek out true knowledge about multi-core servers, for it might hold the key to enlightenment.

Previous Blog Posts
11.07.07 - Scaling Out Strategically
08.28.07 - How to Cut Costs and Save the World
07.17.07 - Planting the Seeds for Datacenter Greenery
06.26.07 - Scale Out Zen — Do More with Less
06.14.07 - iSCSI...About to Go Mainstream?
05.30.07 - Is Your Data Center in a State of Quiet Desperation?
05.17.07 - EPA Data Center Guidelines: IT Power Use Is in the Spotlight
05.09.07 - Virtualized Data Needs Protection, Too
04.19.07 - Disaster Recovery on the Back Burner? Careful, It May Catch on Fire
04.10.07 - Professional Help for the Data Center
03.27.07 - Survey Shows Virtualization Taking Off
03.14.07 - Tackling Data Protection Alphabet Soup
03.07.07 - The Cost of Not Protecting Data
02.28.07 - Going Green to Conserve Energy in the Data Center
01.30.07 - Global Warming in the Data Center
12.02.06 - Open Standards Is for Systems Management Too
11.22.06 - Virtually Ready for Primetime
11.14.06 - Technology No Substitute for Communication
10.16.06 - Running a Data Center? What's Your Problem?