Server reduction

In contrast, HP is reducing its servers to 14,000 from 21,000. This may not sound as radical as IBM but HP is tackling the same problem using its own BladeSystem server blades. The argument from HP is that in three years it has reduced its former installation of 35 datacenters down to three new pairs, or six new datacenters, with full failover for business continuity and disaster recovery.

The IBM route involves very sophisticated, expensive hardware with each mainframe costing over £500,000 (US$995,655) but averaging around 133 virtualized servers each, according to the company. HP is taking an incremental approach to show customers how they can add blades as needs and budgets dictate. The HP server racks will occupy more space and use more power than the mainframes but will be cheaper to buy.

Consolidation is about more than real estate and cost. The rationalization of software is an essential phase that often reduces licensing cost and certainly reduces maintenance.

Phil Dodsworth, HP's director of datacenter solutions, explains: "We had a dreadful problem with 'shadow IT' to solve first. Business units all over the world had been doing their own thing buying software and hardware and the first strategy announced by our CIO Randy Mott was to eliminate these. We found that we had 5,000 applications, many of which duplicated functionality. We decided the goal should be to have just 1,500 applications across the whole organization. I think we're running about 1,560 now but we're reducing that number all of the time as the program rolls out."

Single entity

Mott reveals an example of the shadow problem. "Two years ago, HP had 17 instances of Siebel across the company, with different versions using different capabilities," he says. "In May 2007, this was reduced to one version and we are currently rolling out a new set of features and functions across the whole company."

Another issue to be faced is how the migration to the new infrastructure is handled. The 'clean-sheet' approach of HP means that systems can continue running until it is time to switch over.

Dodsworth says: "HP is not moving any infrastructure from the old datacenters into the new, and the new datacenters are going to be equipped with new infrastructure and every energy-saving technology that is available. Where the software is concerned, because we're moving to a new infrastructure, we're able to put the new servers on the floor, provision software, and then it's just a case of migrating to the software at an appropriate time, and you can do that without any service interruption. That's the advantage of not having to power things down, load them onto a truck and recommission them at the new site."

The HP program will see a lot of hardware being retired and some hardware being remanufactured and sold at a discount through the HP Renew scheme. Some will be sold through second-user and brokerage markets and older kit will be broken down to recover precious metals and elements before being recycled. This, of course, is an issue that has to be addressed in this age of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive that affects computer disposal.

IBM is in a different situation because it is reducing the number of datacenters but not building new ones. Doug Neilson, an IBM systems consultant, explains, "As we have reduced the number of datacenters, we are obviously consolidating into the most appropriate sites in terms of space, power, resilience and security. Sometimes it's to do with skills; sometimes it's to do with floor space or whether it is one of the more modern datacenters.

Migration and consolidation

The consolidation project commenced last August and IBM is now in the process of studying the server infrastructures, bringing the servers together, migrating, consolidating, and building up operational procedures. The project will run for about three years and Neilson says that the payback will come within two years.