Server Price and Performance

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Although scaling out may make sense in terms of performance, it may or may not be attractive in terms of cost; therefore, both price and performance must be considered before making any decision to carry out a server consolidation program. That said, many companies are going ahead with plans for changeouts in hardware. According to a survey by the Gartner Group, the chief factors precipitating the changes in server environment are cost concerns or cost-reduction requirements (27 percent) and a push for enhanced performance (21 percent). When it comes to higher end servers, though, priorities have shifted. With higher end servers, the most important issues and criteria that drive IT respondents' selection are reliability (53 percent), then cost (33 percent), then performance (27 percent). Clearly, for server consolidation on Windows to be a viable proposition, it has to offer greater reliability. If it offers higher reliability at a lower cost and better performance, then it becomes a very attractive option. So how does it measure up?

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