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InnovativesavingsAdvanced IT initiativeshave been a focus atTsumura & Companyfor years. Now, servervirtualization andconsolidation on DellPowerEdge serversare paving the wayfor future growth.137:12 68.2% 224 tonsFollowing a DellVirtualization Assessment,Tsumura found that itcould consolidate 137 ofits Web and applicationservers down to just 12virtualized Dell servers.The company’s preliminaryestimates indicatethat the consolidationproject could reduce itsannualized server costs by68.2 percent.In addition to the costadvantages, Tsumurareports that the projecthas contributed toenvironmentally friendlyIT practices—reducing itspower consumption by anamount equivalent to 224tons of CO 2 emissions.Big changes were in store in 2008.Dell and Mitsubishi Research Institute DCS,the two outsourcing partners in charge ofTsumura’s system operations, proposedthat the company deploy the latest versionof the VMware platform. Two featuresthat particularly impressed Sato werethe VMware vMotion and VMware HighAvailability technologies. “Previously, ourprimary server machines had never gottenbeyond a redundancy of about 50 percent,”he says. “If the server consolidation we getfrom the latest version of VMware enablesus to reach an effective redundancy of near100 percent, then I would say that wasdefinitely something worth trying!”The targets for this round of consolidationwere 137 Web and application servers. Afteran initial Dell Virtualization Assessmentservice, Tsumura saw that it couldconcentrate its resources on just 12 DellPowerEdge servers. Preliminary estimatessuggested that the consolidation couldreduce the combined annualized costs forservers and server farms by 68.2 percent—ahuge savings for the company.The Dell team was able to get the newenvironment up and running quickly. “AtTsumura, once we made the decision, wewanted to execute it immediately,” saysTakuo Yamaguchi, leader of the informationmanagement group within Tsumura’s ITdepartment. “Dell was there to meet our“Dell was there to meetour needs—in lessthan six months, anincredibly short interval,they had implementedour server consolidationproject.”—Takuo YamaguchiLeader of the information managementgroup at Tsumura & CompanySeptember 2009needs—in less than six months, an incrediblyshort interval, they had implemented ourserver consolidation project.”In addition to helping significantlyreduce costs, virtualization is also helpingpreserve system continuity well into thefuture. “Previously, we had been pretty muchredoing our whole system every five yearsor so,” says Sato. “The truth is, once youreplace the hardware, you wind up havingto upgrade to newer versions of the OS andthe middleware, and in order to maintaincompatibility you then wind up with nochoice but to redo the entire system.” Thevirtualized infrastructure enables Tsumurato maintain compatibility across all of itsoperating environments—a reassurance thatmeans a lot to the company.Consolidation has also brought majoradvantages in another area: environmentallyfriendly IT. “By significantly concentratingour servers and other hardware resources,we have reduced our electric powerconsumption by an amount equivalent toaround 224 tons of CO 2 emissions,” says Sato.Moving toward database serverconsolidation“Above all else,” says Sato, “the point onwhich I really want to commend Dell is thedriving force they provided for this project.In collaboration with the technical staffat Mitsubishi Research Institute DCS, theyproceeded in an extremely short timefrom proposal to design, architecture, andfull transition.”Yamaguchi agrees. “I’m looking forwardto two or three years from now, when we’llbe able to assess how the cost reductionswe achieved through this round of serverconsolidation took shape and stimulated ourmanagement and our business.”As a next step, Tsumura plans toconsolidate its database servers. Incontrast to the relatively compact Weband application servers, these servers arelarge-scale systems that demand high levelsof scalability, and several hurdles remainto be cleared. But with the experienceand knowledge gained thus far, the firm isoptimistic that it can meet the challenge.Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2010 Issue 2. Copyright © 2010 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.dell.com/powersolutions | 2010 Issue 02 43