Nov. 20, 2007 Data center managers say that software designed for server consolidation and virtualization are their most popular solutions for energy efficiency, according to Symantec's 2007 State of the Data Center report.

About half of respondents say they have plans to consolidate and/or virtualize servers, with 68% indicating that energy savings played a role in their decision to implement the new software. In addition, most of those surveyed say they are planning to implement power-management software, with 30% implementing on selected equipment and 13% on equipment throughout the data center. Software for storage resource management, server management, and data deduplication are also playing a significant role in green data center strategy, according to the report.

Energy-efficient CPUs, cited by 28% of respondents, are the second most popular technology for data center power reduction.

Other possible solutions that respondents either plan to implement, or are currently implementing, include:

• replacing old equipment with more energy-efficient equipment (44%)
• recycling obsolete hardware components (39%)
• monitoring power consumption (38%)
• reducing the space used by servers (37%).

Still, the study highlighted a stark contrast between interest and execution of green practices. While nearly 75% of respondents report an interest in adopting a strategic green data center initiative, just one in seven say they have successfully implemented such a program.

Download the full report here (PDF).