Virtualization helped us reduce costs and swell our server utilization

Late 2007 saw EDS unveiling its Enterprise Lab facility in its

headquarters at Plano, Texas, and in May 2008, it opened its facility in Chennai

to provide efficient support systems for its clients. With environmental

considerations deeply rooted in implementing an exercise of this magnitude,

Dataquest spoke to Thomas Fabry, director of EDS Enterprise Labs, to know about

the environment related initiatives taken by the company. Excerpts

Virtualization of IT has been a turnaround for many corporations across

the world. EDS Labs has successfully embedded Green IT into its functioning. Do

you think clients really have a grasp of what Green IT initiatives could bring

to the table for them?



EDS, together with our EDS Agility Alliance partners and our clients,

collaborate on all aspects of Green IT. EDS has developed the Environmental

Index and Assessment for IT services and created a road map for improvement,

embracing the full IT life cycle. The road map, which is strategic and tactical,

encompasses priorities like creating break-through data center designs,

purchasing the highest SpecPower rated servers, and increasing the use of energy

from eco-friendly sources. It also includes seemingly small tactics that

together can have a significant cumulative impact, such as implementing power

management on over 90k desktop/laptop computers worldwide or implementing a

global recycling program that includes both office materials and retirement of

IT hardware assets.

Theres a lot of talk on reduction of carbon emission forming a critical

component in every organization. How does EDS fight its way toward a greener

computing scenario where constraints arising are due to technical, political,

and other reasons outside the control of IT?



This topic is top-of-the-mind for our company, our clients, and the

communities where we live and work. And, as you note, also highly complex. It is

at the heart of EDS environmental program. As part of our community

stewardship, EDS looks at reducing carbon emissions and improving environmental

sustainability as opportunities to drive change. Its what we do for EDS, with

our clients, and in our communities.

Thomas Fabry, director, EDS Enterprise Labs

EDS is undertaking some initiatives to manage carbon for our clients as well

as our company. These will allow clients to understand the carbon footprint

associated with EDS services and solutions that dramatically improve efficiency.

EDS and clients, going forward, will need to agree more on the real value of IT

services provided and less on the servers, storage devices, racks, etc, so that

solutions can be built and continuously modified to reduce resource usage.

Could you give an example of an instance where EDS Enterprise Labs set out

to virtualize a lab environment?



We have always tested our solutions in a simulation production environment

at our labs before taking them to the market place. The explosive growth had

made us reach the limits of our capacity, and EDS decided to free some valuable

space and embark on virtualization of lab environment and freeing resources in

order to develop new solutions and services.

How did you go about the exercise?



At the beggining of 2007, we started a virtualization exercise, upgrading

our labs into a virtualization center, which is capable of housing 5,000 virtual

servers in a miniature 1,300 sq ft. space. This facility is the standard for the

expansion of our Enterprise Labs and we have featured real world offerings from

our Agility Alliance Partners such as EMC, Sun Microsystems, and Cisco.

Prasad Ramasubramanian



CyberMedia News


maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in