Intel has introduced a new calculator on its Website for IT administrators
that lets them determine the performance and efficiency of their servers.
The tool, on the Intel Premiere IT
Professional site, also lets IT folks find out what their server
performance and efficiency could be if they made changes to the systems, such
as increasing the number of processor cores or using virtualization technology.
In addition, IT administrators can compare the performance of their data
centers with those from other members of the Intel site.
Technology vendors are increasingly offering customers online calculators
that measure everything from total cost of ownership of hardware to energy
efficiency to overall performance.
For example, earlier in July, Dell officials announced that they had
refreshed their online power consumption calculator for PCs. Dell enhanced the Client
Energy Savings Calculator—which had measured simply the power consumption
of the systems and power supplies—by adding other components, including memory,
graphics cards, hard drives and power management features.
Other similar moves in recent months include VMware’s Cost-Per-Application
Calculator, introduced in March, that is designed to let customers estimate
how much they’re saving using VMware technology, as compared with other
virtualization platforms, such as those from Microsoft and Citrix.
On the storage side, Acronis July 15 unveiled an online
calculator businesses can use to estimate the savings they can get from
using deduplication technology. There also is a second calculator from Acronis
that charts ROI for more general data center budget items, such as staffing,
power and cooling.
Intel’s server efficiency calculator make several assumptions regarding
customer systems, including that the servers are no more than 6 years old, that
they all run at 10 percent utilization with one workload, and that each virtual
workload—up to 10—increases the watts used by the processor by 10 percent of
the difference between the server’s idle power and that being consumed at full
utilization.
Baseline energy and performance metrics are created by determining how many
single- or dual-core servers it would take to run a particular workload with no
virtualization.
Both Intel and rival Advanced Micro Devices have put a heavy focus on
developing chips that increase performance and virtualization capabilities
while driving down power and cooling costs.
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