Over the long term, a server consolidation effort will drive IT costs down significantly. With fewer servers, organizations will be able to save money in a number of areas, including: Lower hardware costs; lower software licensing fees; reduced costs to manage, service, maintain and provision hardware; reduced energy consumption, and productivity gains across the entire enterprise.

However, it is also likely that a server consolidation will require an upfront investment. There will be new and improved servers to purchase and there will also be potentially significant investments required in the network and storage infrastructure to support the powerful new servers and the more highly optimized infrastructure.

Therefore, in order to get funding for a significant server consolidation effort, IT professionals will have the greatest chance of success by building an ROI blueprint, delineating the costs, benefits and savings involved in the project. This white paper will discuss key considerations in assessing the ROI of server consolidation.