Server consolidation. It must be big business when IBM Corp appoints a worldwide vice president to oversee its interests in this market. But what is it? The way Big Blue sees it, probably quite a different kind of business to one that easily springs to mind in which gargantuan servers replace lots of smaller machines. IBM VP server consolidation Richard Fuchs contends: server consolidation has nothing to do with consolidating servers. Fuchs says that on paper server consolidation would appear to be a hardware question. But no. He estimates typically 50% of the costs involved in any server consolidation project are related to software and services, 30% to hardware and 20% to storage. Fuchs runs one of the four new business units IBM created at the beginning of the year and has four VPs, 150 solutions sales people and around 70 designers plus liaison people in each IBM division. He claims the unit has a $2bn business opportunity in its first year of operation. So what’s driving server consolidation? Multiple Unixes are the problem, Fuchs says, claiming many users are seeking to replace collections of five-to-seven year old Unix applications plus NetWare file and print services. The promise of client/server was ‘cheap,’ says Fuchs, but it has also meant many organizations are saddled with multiple, distributed networks and complex application issues. Now the promise of single-platform enterprise Windows NT, enterprise-wide workflow management and monitoring, and write-once, run anywhere application development (Java/Corba) is attracting serious attention, Fuchs believes. In general, he says, server consolidation customers don’t want to reengineer their businesses (again) but are seeking to reduce costs (people); implement applications for monitoring enterprise- wide levels of service; provide global access to data; and deliver new solutions by consolidating previously discreet applications and services. Their aim is usually not specifically to reduce computer and software populations. Usually a first step will be to consolidate physical IT operations on a site by site basis. Then data and storage can be consolidated – including the replacement of file and print servers- and custom application consoles created to manage software. RS/6000 is its leading consolidation platforms, followed by S/390 mainframes and NetFinity Intel servers. Fuchs’ team gets the lead if a customer has decided on a server consolidation strategy but not yet decided the architecture; if the consolidation involves an architecture change; or if a client is unsure where to start. What’s crucial to the development of the market – and something Fuchs says IBM is current developing – are some yardsticks or units to for measuring the requirement capacity of a consolidated system design before it’s actually implemented so that customers can evaluate its effectiveness and cost. Indeed the likely cost of some activities might stymie an entire consolidation project. Getting an ISV to certify software on a target consolidated platform could prove more expensive than upgrading an existing system, especially if an application has only 18 months or so more use left in it. Sun Microsystems Inc believes the server consolidation trend is a direct result of addressing manageability issues – many created by divergent Unixes – and getting networks to act as one global system. Unix, while great for distributing application tasks, has made management difficult, Sun says. It’s part of the reason Sun’s setting so much stall by its global intelligent network strategies, especially storage, device availability and management. Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos doesn’t expect server consolidation to drive Unix into the place occupied by today’s mainframes but he does expects Unix to incorporate many of the reliability, availability and security features mainframe users take for granted.
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