Sustainability is one of many topics being discussed at SAPTechEd 2010 in Las Vegas.   In addition green being ‘the right thing to do’ it also makes good business sense, so much so that Timo Stezler, VP Green-IT SAP, frequently said, “We have found carbon is an indicator of inefficiency.”

One area in which businesses can make improvements to reduce waste is in Virtualization.  Eddie White, Sr. VP with Sentilla, noted that data centers account for 2% of the power usage in the United States.  In addition to actual hardware costs, the cost of power to the data center, power drawn by the servers and power used in cooling, can be reduced by 25% through efficient use of hardware and through virtualization.

In addition, virtualization allows a business to “sweat the assets it already has instead of adding new ones.”  Through smart virtualization a CIO can delay the need for a new data center, which can cost in the area of 10 million dollars.  White noted that IBM’s data center accounts for 6% of the company but utilizes 30% of the company’s power usage.

Stezler stated it simply.  “Virtualization has a huge impact.”  SAP was 60% virtualized servers in 2009 and the goal for 2010 is 80% virtualization.   In more detail Stezler notes that Energy Management is a new challenge for IT.  In recent studies 50% of clients and investors state energy efficiency and carbon footprint are among deciding factors when making consumer or investor decisions.   The data center is typically 30% to 40% of energy cost associated with any business.

With this in mind DataXstream offers virtualization services as part of our SAP integration focus.  DataXstream is a certified partner with Dell and has also partnered with VMware the global leader in Business Infrastructure Virtualization.  These partnerships allow DataXstream to streamline the virtualization process as well as allow excellent pricing options.

In each session Timo Stezler advocated, “Become a strategic Sustainability advisor to your business.”  Work to streamline efforts within your business.

For more information on Virtualization:

SAP Virtualization Solutions:  http://www.dataxstream.com/products-services/sap-virtualization-solutions/

SAP AIO Virtual Infrastructure: http://www.dataxstream.com/sap-aio-virtual-infrastructure/

For more information on Green IT within SAP:

Green IT blogs on SDN https://go.sap.corp?Green-IT-blogs

SAP Green IT Community: https://go.sap.corp/GIC

SAP Sustainability Report: http://www.sapsustainabilityreport.com