10 red hot enterprise tech for SMB customers

Intel's Nehalem processor has given entry-level servers a lot more bang for their buck. Combined with virtualisation, few SMBs these days would need more than the three or four servers required to run up to 100 virtual machines (VMs), says IBRS' Kevin McIsaac.

"A low-end Intel box will support a minimum of 20 to potentially 50 VMs," he says. "You've basically got your data centre in a rack."

While processing power has gone up, electricity consumption has come down. Server vendors have focused on energy consumption in recent releases - the servers of three or more years ago were far less efficient than they are now, says Gartner's Phil Sargeant.

SMBs needing a prod to refresh their servers should take note that saving money by holding onto old equipment could be costing them a lot more in electricity bills.

"We have forecast that an organisation will probably spend as much on energy over three or four years than the cost of the server itself. That's the case today - you can determine what it means for servers that are three or four years old," Sargeant says.

Enter another enterprise feature new to small businesses: power management. Power management software finds the most efficient way of running applications by shifting workloads between servers and shutting down unnecessary drains on power.

Measures can include lowering cycle times of CPUs while idle and intelligently stopping fans. Virtualisation and power management work effectively together to spread virtual machines across servers for the most efficient arrangement.

"Generally speaking [SMBs] haven't probably focused on power in the past but because of the cost of energy going up they are going to have to," Sargeant says.

The larger server vendors produce their own power management tools which differ slightly in their features and goals.

One product that deserves a mention for the small end of town (up to 10 employees) is HP's microserver. The ProLiant MicroServer spearheads a new campaign HP is calling "Just Right IT" which targets micro and small businesses.

The microserver retails for $599 and is about half the size and half as quiet as other entry-level servers and chews less power, the vendor claims. Running on an AMD Athlon II chip, it includes 8GB RAM, RAID (0, 1), a Gbit Ethernet port and four SATA-drive bays.

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