It's Easy Being Green when IBM Is Your Virtualization Partner

No astute executive would buy a new car without first checking the gas mileage, the safety rating, the resale value, and the track record for repairs. Yet that's precisely what so many executives do when making a decision on a vendor for virtualizing their data centers. Too often, executives neglect to explore the total cost of ownership of a particular virtualization solution.

The upfront savings of virtualization are tantalizing. Most applications typically aren't designed to integrate with other applications or software and are usually developed to support one specific business area or function. Too often, they are monolithic in design, and each application runs on its own dedicated server or set of servers and has its own physical storage devices. This structure typifies the modern data center, and it is inherently designed for inefficiency. As IBM's experience has demonstrated repeatedly, the typical server's average utilization ranges between 10% and 20%, because servers are dedicated to particular applications and are sized to handle peak workloads.

Virtualization allows data centers to share servers' idle processing capacity through the creation of logical partitions that enable different operating systems and workloads to be handled on a single machine instead of multiple servers. Suddenly, a data center can shrink from 15 servers to two and still manage the same workload up to service standards. Not only does this allow for a reduction in the number of servers, but it saves space, system maintenance, power, and cooling. Virtualization simplifies, consolidates, and streamlines.

Retired Servers
So far, so good. However, what happens to all those furloughed servers? If the data center is like many, the chances are that those servers are not near the end of their useful lives. More often than not, the servers wind up in a storage closet until the IT manager figures out a way to dispose of them. Meanwhile, since the servers are probably leased, the business continues to make payments on servers that it doesn't need and isn't using.

Disposing of those servers isn't done lightly or easily. First, consider the data that are stored on those server hard disk drives. Under federals laws, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Information Privacy Protection Act (HIPPA), that tighten standards for corporate governance, as well as various state laws enacted to protect people against identity theft, businesses need to be certain that they have scrubbed their drives of any data that could cause damage should it fall into the wrong hands. Doing so requires a more thorough cleansing than simply deleting files. In addition, the regulatory environments governing disposal of computers varies dramatically by nation, making disposal regulations confusing at the very least.

On top of the privacy issue rests the environmental issue. Servers contain toxic materials, such as mercury and heavy metals—albeit in minute quantities—that make it illegal to simply dispose of these servers in a landfill. Responsible environmental stewardship requires that servers be disposed of in an ecologically safe manner.

The disposal of unused computer equipment is a mounting problem. According to consulting firm IDC, 55% of U.S. companies lack disposal programs for unused computer equipment. As a result, IDC estimates that today there are 150 million obsolete computers. Moreover, the National Safety Council estimates that between now and 2010 one billion pieces of computer equipment will be retired.

Viewed in this light, those surplus servers can end up as a hidden cost of virtualization. Whether they become so depends to a large degree on the particular provider who has been chosen to deliver virtualization. A word of caution: not all providers deliver the same level of service and expertise on either the front-end or the back-end of the virtualization process. IBM delivers superior values for its virtualization customers on both ends of the transaction.

Global Asset Recovery Services Provide a Safe and Effective Solution

"Businesses need to be certain that they have scrubbed their drives of any data that could cause damage should it fall into the wrong hands, and doing so requires a more thorough cleansing than simply deleting files."

One reason that IBM can deliver the lowest total cost of ownership for virtualization customers is Global Asset Recovery Services, part of IBM Global Financing. For more than 20 years, Global Asset Recovery Services has been disposing of its own internal computer equipment in an environmentally compliant manner and refurbishing and reselling those components that are marketable. In 2003, Global Asset Recovery Services began disposing of computer equipment on behalf of customers under an offering called Asset Recovery Solutions. In fact, IBM pays customers for the value of the equipment and arranges for transportation. Not only that, but unlike some competitors that will only take back computers in quantities of 25 or more, IBM will take them back regardless of quantity, and it is the only virtualization vendor to do so. No longer do small– and medium-sized businesses need to stockpile servers and monitors until they reach a numerical threshold—IBM will take any quantity. Moreover, IBM is the only vendor that can offer this service on a truly global scale.

Consider a mid-sized public relations firm in New York (46KB). Whenever this company finds itself with surplus servers or computers there is no need to wait until it has a significant quantity to recycle. The IT manager simply goes to the IBM Asset Recovery Solutions website, gets a quote for the buyback, which can include the cost of a thorough data disk wipe and the cost of recycling, and agrees to a date for a pick-up.

Today, IBM's Global Asset Recovery Services processes on average 40,000 units of computer equipment each week worldwide. Units are refurbished for resale or precious metals and scrap plastic are recovered for reuse. Of the 100 million pounds of equipment collected by IBM, less than 1% ends up in landfills and none of this is hazardous material.

IBM's Asset Recovery Solutions offers single-source simplicity for virtualization customers concerned with the total cost of ownership. Virtualization enables customers to simplify, consolidate, and optimize their data centers and cure server sprawl, while at the same time avoiding hidden costs, such as recycling and data security issues, incurred when using competitors' virtualization offerings. It's easy being green when your virtualization partner is IBM.