Virtualization Consolidation Cost Savings Calculator

Info-Tech Research Group has established that savings through lower one-time and ongoing server acquisition costs is the strongest argument in a business case for server virtualization (See Figure 1). Past studies have found that these costs can be mitigated by 40% to 75% through consolidation. Info-Tech has also suggested a rule of thumb calculation of a 3:1 consolidation ratio for a break-even point between the cost of provisioning a server with standalone hardware versus a virtual machine partition of a physical server (See Figure 2). However, consolidation savings will vary depending on factors such as OS and virtualization licensing costs. Of particular impact will be the consolidation ratio: the number of virtual machines (VMs) to be hosted per physical machine.

Use this calculator to get a broad sense of the consolidation savings of a virtual server deployment over provisioning servers with individual instances of server hardware. The numbers currently in the spreadsheet are based on a basic example scenario – a modest consolidation project for 15 physical servers that need to be replaced. This involves purchasing three servers and VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure SMB Acceleration Kit for High Availability, as well as Windows Server 2008 Data Center Edition for licensing unlimited virtual machine instances.