ZDNet: Linux Server Consolidation Shortcut

“I’ve been saving one of those opinions for a rainy day and,
based on news that Hewlett Packard will be integrating VMWare’s ESX
server into its Proliant line of servers, that day is today. The
news story is barely a paragraph long. But, in the spirit of not
judging a book by its cover, it shines the spotlight on a much
larger question that now deserves an answer; how to put an end to
server sprawl and lower your costs through server
consolidation.

“If IBM could have its way, it would have you believe that one
really good way of solving this problem is by running hundreds, if
not thousands distinctly separate instances of Linux on a IBM
mainframe. Indeed, this is now possible and the story IBM tells is
a compelling one. But the letter that I was saving for a rainy day
points out one major caveat to IBM’s idea. It only works if you
have or can find someone to run your IBM mainframe. Similar to the
challenge that Microsoft will have penetrating the data center with
Windows, it turns out that good people are hard to find. Worse,
when you find them, they’re not cheap…”

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