Data Center Consolidation: Business Case Metrics

August, 2008

$95.00

The study quantifies the benefits of data center consolidation and provides recommendations to ensure the success of the effort. It tracks the three-year trend in increasing data center consolidation activity and reports current consolidation trends by organization size. The business case for consolidation is then presented in two ways: first, we analyze total data center costs per server for Windows, Unix, Linux, and mainframe data centers, showing substantially lower per-server costs as data center size increases. Second, we find a reduction in total IT spending per user for organizations with single data centers versus those with multiple data centers. The study concludes with a summary of the return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) experiences of organizations undergoing data center consolidation and recommended best practices for mitigating risks in the migration effort. (8 pp., 9 figs.)
[Executive Summary]