Beaverton, OR – November 19, 2007 – As server vendors increasingly pitch the ‘green’ attributes of their systems, customers are listening and evaluating the competing claims. In a recent survey by Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG), customers rated Hewlett Packard and IBM ahead of competitors in terms of how well their systems utilized energy and data center floor space.
GCG’s semiannual x86 Server Vendor Preference Survey poses a comprehensive battery of questions to hands-on IT customers that shed light on their perceptions about vendor offerings and services. These data center managers, architects, and administrators also address particular issues such as virtualization, purchasing plans, and IT trends.
Highlights from the ‘x86 Vendor Power/ Cooling/ Floorspace Report Card’ section of the survey:
- 23% of survey respondents rated HP x86 systems most energy efficient, with IBM at 20%, Sun Microsystems at 19%, and Dell garnering 17% of the vote.
- IBM and HP tied at 22% for most thermal efficient systems. Sun and Dell trailed at 16% and 11% respectively.
- HP also notched a win in best utilization of server room floor space with 25% of the vote. IBM grabbed second place with 19%, Sun third at 16%, and Dell fourth at 12%.
- IBM took top honors in power monitoring and management, data center design and advisory services, and was rated as the vendor best able to improve facilities utilization in future products.
“Although either HP or IBM won every category, there was still a large number (30-40%) of respondents who couldn’t pick a clear leader in any category,” commented Dan Olds, principal analyst at GCG. “This tells me that there is still a lot of room for any of these four major vendors to carve out a “we’re the greenest” position in the market. However, they’ll need to develop solid technology and measurement methodologies in order to rise above the industry noise surrounding these topics.”
According to the survey, more than 55% of enterprise customers say that facilities issues “heavily influence server purchases.” Another 65% of customers said that facilities concerns will become much more important in the future.
The survey was conducted in the second quarter of 2007 and covered 297 enterprise data center respondents who work with systems on a daily basis.
Gabriel Consulting Group is a research, analysis, and consulting firm dedicated to helping our clients achieve maximum return on their Information Technology investment. We provide pragmatic consulting services, industry analysis, and custom research designed to help our clients reach their business goals through efficient and effective use of Information Technology. GCG was founded in 2001 by Dan Olds and is based in Beaverton, Oregon.
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For more information contact: Gabriel Consulting Group, (503) 372-9389, Beaverton, Oregon