Sun, Deloitte Tout Server Consolidation Opportunities

But that is also what is driving server consolidation, said the executives.

At the event, Sun heralded its new partnership with Deloitte Consulting to deliver a unified server consolidation solution and showcased several end users whose servers it helped consolidate.

"In our practice area, we are strong in the technology integration space. There's a lot of work in the consolidation space and we are looking for partners to augment our skills," said Rob Frazzini, global director of Deloitte Consulting's technology practice.

Sun first formed an alliance with Deloitte Consulting in March 2002, and the companies began developing the consolidation solution earlier this year, Frazzini said. The companies integrated employees from both sides to tackle consolidation issues: Deloitte from the business process side and Sun from the systems infrastructure side.

"It's a top-down approach to meet customer needs around consolidation It's a heterogenous look at applications and business processes to determine the right consolidation solution," Frazzini said. "In some cases the systems integrator brings in the vendor. In some cases the vendor brings in the systems integrator. In this case we go in together."

Added Hal Stern, CTO of Sun Professional Services: "We treat it as a networking problem as much as a server problem. We design for assurance, predictability, scalability."

The weakened economy has forced businesses to delay IT capital spending for new systems. However, many businesses are spending to consolidate servers because the project can create efficiencies and deliver a quick return on investment.

Frazzini said he expects server-consolidation project revenue to increase by 20 percent this year compared with last year.

"Cost is the key to every executive today. The second thing is a way to get a better handle on all the stuff they've bought over the last few years," Frazzini sid. "They're interested in reducing infrastructure and space costs across the environment."

If people aren't buying, they want better utilization from what they already own, said Vivek Joshi, vice president of marketing and strategy for Sun Services. Sun plans to utilize solution providers to help those customers in the midmarket, Joshi said.

"There are plenty of companies that want a more sophisticated handling of their costs. That's the kind of stuff we do right now and will do through our partners. We want partners ready and trained, whether it's Deloitte or VARs."

Sun last week showcased three end users whose servers it helped consolidate: Corporate Express, Nova Scotia Power and Ocwen Technologies.

Ocwen consolidated 140 disparate servers across "every platform going" into a pair of E15000 Sun servers, said Dale Pickman, chief infrastructure officer at Ocwen.

"We got back 80 percent of our data center space, we reduced staff, increased our SLAs and went global 24x7," Pickman said.

Corporate Express, a Broomfield, Colo.-based office supplies distributor, worked with Sun Professional Services to reduce 43 Hewlett-Packard servers to two Sun E10000 servers, said Andy Miller, vice president of technology and architecture at Corporate Express. The company later expanded to four E10Ks and then replaced the first two servers after the lease expired with one E15K. That reduced hardware costs by almost 50 percent, and the company achieved 100 percent ROI within 9 months, Miller said.