Non-profit frees up power capacity through HP virtualization project

The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA International), a non-profit group dedicated to communications and knowledge services for the military, was running out of power in its data center until a virtualization project with Hewlett-Packard basically cut its power and cooling bills costs in half.

The project involved consolidating 12 existing servers (which were sent back to the manufacturer for recycling) down onto two main servers and two backup servers, according to AFCEA International chief information officer Jim Griggs. Previously, the servers were operating right at the electricity load limit of the organization's facility, he says. They were being utilized at about 10 percent of their capacity, compared with 60 percent with the new hardware. AFCEA International opted for power-efficient HP BladeSystem c3000 enclosures, HP StorageWorks 4400 Enterprise Virtual Arrays, and HP ProLiant server blades.

Here's his comment from the requisite press release issued by HP:

"We had reached the limits of power capacity as well as space in our current data center in addition to using auxiliary units to keep up with demand, which was unsustainable and costly. HP enabled us to keep our data center within tight space constraints, stay within our limited operating budget and reinvest the cost savings to further drive our mission."

The project also involved a printer consolidation project. Like many organizations, many printing and imaging devices had crept into the organization over time. Griggs says AFCEA International now manages a ratio of approximately 1 multifunction device per every 10 people. By standardizing on a particular model (the HP Color LaserJet CP6015xh printer), the organization is also able to manage its supplies more wisely, Griggs says.