IBM consolidates servers into mainframes

In one of the largest virtualization efforts announced to date, IBM said that it will replace 3900 of its servers with just 30 mainframe systems – reducing power consumption by about 80% or enough to free up enough power to run a small town.

Virtualization certainly has not yet gained the wide-spread attention hardware vendors were hoping for, so the implementation large-scale projects by server and core-component providers to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology were really just a matter of time.

IBM is taking a lead role in this process and said that it intends to ditch 3900 of its servers in favor of just 30 Linux-based mainframe systems. Besides the obvious advantage of space savings, IBM claims that trade of physical through virtual servers will result ion power savings of about 80% compared to the 3900 single servers.

The transition is also expected to lower expenses for software, which is typically charged for on a per-processor basis. IBM said that the mainframes contain significantly fewer processors than the current 3900 servers. Another direct result of the reduction of the number of systems is freeing up support staff from system administration tasks and allocate “higher value” jobs, including designing and building customer solutions, IBM said.

The company hopes that the decision, part of the “Project Big Green”, will serve as “a powerful example of IBM's ongoing transformation toward cutting-edge data center design for large enterprises around the world.” The 3900 outdated servers are expected to be recycled.