Dell launches energy efficiency initiative | | 2009-02-05 | | | Dell is discussing plans to improve the energy efficiency of its servers and to shorten the server-refresh cycle.The company hopes the cost to customers of using high quality hardware will be offset by long term energy savings - three years according to Dr Albert Esser, vice president of Dell’s data centre infrastructure group. Esser has also proposed a two to three year refresh cycle in place of the seven to eight year cycle that is typical at present. "It is very clear that refresh rates of three years ... the total cost of ownership is less than keeping your old machines running" he said.Newer servers can distribute workloads much more efficiently across sprawling networks, dramatically reducing energy requirements, especially in conjunction with virtualization.As virtualization requires less raw processing power but more memory, Dell plans to boost the memory attachments in its servers. The faster refresh cycle will allow users to fully utilise new technologies as they are developed. "As long as you make your applications able to follow that improvement, the [hardware] refresh rate works in your favour," said Esser.Dell is also working on improved energy efficiency for its power supplies, without a big price increase. | |
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