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The admin's guide to server consolidation

The admin's guide to server consolidation

Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest, Contributors

The term server consolidation can lead to many questions from IT administrators. Where did it come from? What does it mean to me? Which approach to consolidation is the best for my organization? What are the pros and cons? The answers to these questions can be daunting, but help is on the way. In this guide, Danielle and Nelson Ruest break down the basics of server consolidation, and provide the essential steps and strategies every admin needs to successfully reduce server sprawl.

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A five-step approach to server consolidation for IT administrators
Here is a five-step approach that can help you reduce the total number of servers or server locations in your organization.

The first step in server consolidation: Cost control
Step one in server consolidation is controlling IT costs. The most important activity to help you control IT costs is taking inventory.

Multi-core CPUs, x64 servers advance server consolidation efforts
Multi-core processors let you reduce your server footprint while gaining processing power, while x64 servers make better use of memory resources.

Guest OS virtualization furthers cause of server consolidation
Guest operating system virtualization 'liberates' the OS from the hardware it runs on. This is turn furthers the cause of server consolidation.

How to use app virtualization for server consolidation
Learn how to take advantage of new application virtualization technologies for operating system migrations and other server consolidation projects.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest are IT professionals specializing in systems administration, migration planning, software management and architecture design. They have written several books and are currently working on the Definitive Guide to Vista Migration for Realtime Publishers as well as the Complete Reference to Windows Server Codenamed "Longhorn" for McGraw-Hill Osborne. They have extensive experience in systems management and operating system migration projects. For more tips, write to them at info@reso-net.com.

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This was first published in November 2007

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