SQL Server Consolidation Initiative Under Way at Microsoft

Microsoft's IT function is currently consolidating its SQL Server environment of around 100,000 databases on 5,000 SQL Server instances to reduce operating and capital expenses as well as to reduce its environmental footprint. In following its practice of making various internal IT operations public for educational purposes, Microsoft has released some of the details about this SQL Server consolidation initiative, which is expected to reduce its annual SQL Server operating costs by $11 million per year and save more than 700 racks.

You can read about those details, which include consolidating hosts with Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V, in the article "Green IT in Practice: SQL Server Consolidation in Microsoft IT" in the January 2009 issue of The Architecture Journal, Microsoft's quarterly publication devoted to the topic of IT architecture. This issue also features other articles on green computing as it relates to IT architecture, including "Green Maturity Model for Virtualization" and "Application Patterns for Green IT." The Architecture Journal is a free publication that you can download as a PDF file (no registration is necessary) or subscribe to (print version).

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