Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Cuts Costs by Half-Million Dollars per Year

Microsoft revealed that users of its hypervisor and Windows Server 2008 operating system have cut costs, on average, by approximately half a million dollars per year. The Redmond company even managed to produce a few examples starting with the Indiana University’s Auxiliary IT Department, which deployed virtualization reducing the number of physical servers from 152 to just 32, and which estimates a cost reduction of $85,000. Saxo Bank is yet another “happy” Hyper-V customer, which now needs 36% less new physical servers, a situation resulted in savings of $1 million. But of course, there are additional companies that have cut costs through virtualization, with Microsoft claiming that on average companies end up saving $470,000 per year by deploying its virtualization solutions.

“Businesses are looking to reduce and manage computing costs in datacenters and across server and client computing devices,” explained David Greschler, director of integrated virtualization at Microsoft. “Virtualization software allows businesses to pool computing resources to drive down IT costs, increase IT efficiency and be more responsive to business needs. Customers are getting a better bang for their buck with the Microsoft platform and virtualization solutions because virtualization is in both the operating system and in the holistic management tools. Customers can manage IT services and a broad set of applications across the datacenter and desktops. There is less of a learning curve for customers, and it eases interoperability with existing systems.”

According to the Redmond company, whose hypervisor is a new solution on the market compared to what rivals from VMWare have to offer, the recipe that makes its own solutions superior involves the integration of Hyper-V into Windows Server and offering a comprehensive management infrastructure that spans across both physical and virtualized servers. In fact, the Microsoft System Center suite allows administrators to manage not only Microsoft's own hypervisors, but also those of VMware.

“The VMware ESX solution would have cost $30,000 (U.S.) for four servers. With Microsoft, we have a service provider agreement that allows for monthly payments with no capital costs — costing us less than $1,000 over the life of the contract,” said David Straede, president and chief operating officer for Santa Barbara Web Hosting. “Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V has the core features businesses need. It’s the Windows people know, is installed just like other Windows-based applications, and works in a management console that IT staff are already using. The ESX feature set simply doesn’t justify its additional expense.”

Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta (Windows 7 Server Beta) is available for download here.

Windows 7 Beta is available for download here.