University Hopes To Cut Electricity Usage With Virtualisation

Middlesex University wants to reduce the number of servers at its main data centre from 250 to 25 in an attempt to cut its electricity usage by 40 percent.

The university announced this week that it has signed a “multi-million” pound deal in September to hand over management of a virtual server and storage infrastructure to IBM. Middlesex said the move will cut its electricity usage from 47kW/hour to 27kW/hour and will reduce the amount of space needed for its systems from 1000 square feet to 400 square feet.

“We need a system that allows flexibility according to our changing requirements and this solution does just that,” said Middlesex deputy vice-chancellor Steve Knight. “We were looking for a platform solution to complement our longer term plans to achieve a dynamic infrastructure.”

According to Paula Vickers, director of computing and communication systems service at Middlesex, the University needed to upgrade its existing hardware with a scalable and energy efficient system. “A key requirement was a solution that also helped reduce our carbon footprint through the deployment of modern, energy-saving hardware,” she said.

Middlesex’s project with IBM will see the IT company provide remote management of much of Middlesex’s infrastructure, in a move which should allow the university’s IT team time to focus on more strategic IT projects. “Round the clock monitoring of the University’s IT infrastructure will enable IBM staff to proactively address issues before anyone at the University is even aware of them,” IBM said in a statement.

Vickers added that support and remote management provided by IBM should also help reduce disruption to the university’s IT systems as maintenance can be done out of office hours. “As a result of this agreement, teaching staff and students will also experience less disruption as routine maintenance work can increasingly be conducted out of hours,” she said.

But despite the benefits of virtualisation touted by vendors such as IBM, organisations continue to be conservative when it comes to adopting the technology, according to analysts. A report from analyst Gartner earlier this month, revealed that only 16 percent of current IT workloads are running on virtual machines. However, that’s expected to increase to 50 percent by the end of 2012 and use of VMs will grow most quickly among small and mid-size businesses.

Although Middlesex is also looking to improve the efficiency of its infrastructure through virtualisation, it is still planning to increase the storage capacity of its email and file systems by 45 percent, from 48 to 70 terabytes using IBM XIV Storage System and IBM System x3850 M2 hardware.

Middlesex also said that it needed its new IT systems managed by IBM to be scalable as it is planning to open a new campus in Mauritius. Earlier this month, the island nation in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa, announced that next year it will be running the world’s first sea water air conditioned (SWAC) data centre – and hopes to use it to become a world player.

IBM is involved with other climate change projects at UK universities including an agreement to build a super-computer at the University of Southampton for researchers who do work in such areas as cancer studies and climate change. The system comes with a host of features designed not only for high-performance computing but also for greater energy efficiency.

Earlier this year, Queen Margaret University (QMU) won the Green Gown ICT award for its commitment to sustainable design standards in fitting out its new campus with low-power thin clients. The Green Gown Awards recognise sustainability-focused initiatives undertaken by universities and colleges across the UK. QMU was also highly commended in the awards’ Sustainable Building and Construction category.