power efficiency levels

[Hayden.Searle]

I have been tasked with trying to get a datacentre under its current power level, which is close to maxing out the available power.

there are a number of physical legacy machines in this datacentre ranging from The Compaq Proliant G0 white servers (I'll wait while you stop laughing) to G7 DL380's and blade systems running the new virtual infrastructure.

what I am looking for at this stage are some 'quick wins' so I was wondering, is there a threshold where the power supplies became decently efficient so i can put a line in the sand and state anything older than a Gx must be virtualised.

I know this wont be the case for every system, but it will allow me to get some of these legacy apps onto supported hardware, and dump the old inefficient kit to save power and cooling, and also will allow me to get a business directive agreed to so that this becomes policy and makes my life/task easier

any help will be greatly recieved

[gsb_2]

Where they got serious about being power efficient started with the ProLiant G6 and G7. Anything before that was not that great. G5 power supplies seem to run hot and had some other issues.