With Underutilized Servers Comes Underestimated Expenses

Is your server room cluttered and full of machines that you lost count of ages ago? Have you considered that these machines might be holding your business back from reaching its maximum bottom line? Take a good, hard look at what servers are being used the most, and if any of them aren’t being utilized to the best of their abilities. By eliminating underutilized servers, you can decrease your operational and energy costs significantly.

According to Processor magazine, a solid 30 percent of all powered-on servers aren’t working to their maximum potential. In fact, support servers average only about a 12 to 18 percent utilization rate. In other words, there are plenty of servers out there that are sapping money out of revenue that could be used for other services. Some businesses use servers dedicated to email, hosting, and much more, so it’s understandable that they might eventually wind up having a few underutilized servers. Still, the lost revenue and increased energy consumption can critically affect your business’s capital expenses.

The Benefits of Limiting Server Underutilization
By eliminating server underutilization, you’re essentially increasing your bottom line by consolidating the amount of servers you currently use into less machines. This is necessary if you want to get the best return on investment from your server units. Here are several benefits that consolidating your servers provides:

Dramatic decrease in energy costs. With less machines online at all times, you can save money on both operational costs, maintenance, and energy. Servers eat up a ton of electricity, so it’s natural that you do whatever you can to limit how much you use. Furthermore, maintenance is significantly less expensive if you only have one machine that needs updating, rather than four.
Simplified computing infrastructure. Instead of having all of your technology spread across multiple different pieces of hardware, you only need a minimal number of machines operating at all times. This makes it much easier to maintain and manage all of your mission-critical technology from one central location.
More physical space for activities and other technology. Regardless of how many servers you’re able to eliminate, you’ll be saving valuable space that can be used for other, more productive things. For instance, you can use the freed space for storage. You’ll finally be able to get rid of that fax machine that’s been collecting dust on your desk.

If you’ve ever considered your servers as being underutilized, you can call Computerware at (703) 821-8200 for a free IT consultation. We take all aspects of your network into consideration, including servers. We can also help your business take advantage of server virtualization to eliminate the energy costs and other restrictions of adding more physical servers completely. Give us a call at (703) 821-8200 to learn more.