Environmentally conscious IT managers have a tough job: Running a large data center can be a drain on resources. While energy consumption is a primary concern, the demand for improved productivity is equally pressing. And, on top of it all, the costs associated with operating such systems can have a serious impact on the company’s bottom-line. 

 

Dell has been leading the way in environmentally friendly technology, helping businesses reduce energy costs and maintain sustainable business practices while staying competitive and efficient. So it’s no surprise that a recent study just found that Dell’s blade servers consume up to 20 percent less power per blade server than identically configured competitive products.

 

For those who aren’t managing large centers of technical infrastructure, a blade center is (according to Wikipedia) a stripped down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space and minimize power consumption while still having all the functional components of a computer. A blade enclosure can hold multiple blade servers and provides services such as power, cooling, networking, various interconnects and management.

 

Measuring against the industry standard benchmark (SPECpower_ssj2008), Dell compared its blade servers (16 M610 blade servers) and enclosure (Dell M1000e) to those of two competitors: IBM (using the IBM BladeCenter H enclosure with 14 HS22 blade servers), and HP (using the HP C7000 enclosure with 16 BL460C blade servers).

 

The results showed clear advantages for Dell in both power draw and performance-per-watt, regardless of utilization levels. Two highlights of the study include:

 

 

To make this information more relevant, if a customer were to employ 160 PowerEdge M610 blades in 10 fully populated Dell M1000e chassis versus a 160 blade server solution from HP and 140 blade servers from IBM, over the course of five years they could expect to save up to $60,902.80when compared with a similar solution from HPand up to $ 20,391.40 when compared with a similar solution from IBM.

 

While this kind of cost savings is hard to come by in any business, it’s especially significant when combined with improved computing efficiency and reduced energy consumption.

 

Steve Brasen, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associations notes: “By adopting the SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark for its evaluation testing, Dell has ensured reliability in its methodology and can accurately report on providing one of the most energy efficient server platforms available today.”

 

This study clearly shows that, with the help of Dell, environmentally conscious businesses worldwide can meet the increased demands of today’s marketplace while upholding their values and reducing operating expenses.