Supermicro Case Study Explores TCO Advantage
Despite increased support for green computing, power and cooling still comprise a large portion of total cost of ownership (TCO). Datacenter managers are constantly searching for ways to reduce expenses while raising efficiency at the same time. In a new white paper, Supermicro claims the company's high-performance servers can help meet both goals.
According to the white paper, titled "Data Center Optimized," Supermicro's FatTwin server designs draw 16 percent less power and provide $500 savings per node over a period of four years.
The case study compares five Supermicro servers with two competitive systems. Supermicro made the comparisons by calculating the TCO savings for an estimated four-year lifetime under the assumption that PUE equated to 1.5 and $15 per watt was saved for a 10,000 node implementation.
Each of the Supermicro nodes saw a substantial savings in terms of power consumption and TCO. The results showed that the FatTwin server saved 35 watts of power and $525 per node over four years. In a 10,000 node deployment, the savings adds up to $5.25 million.
During testing, all environments were identical and the servers were all run at room temperature while utilizing the high performance LINPACK software program, so as to emulate real-world server usage.
The results led Supermicro reseller Aspen Systems to remark: "What is most interesting about Supermicro's case study is how a small, relative savings in power makes more than a huge dent in long-term IT energy costs and consolidation."
