DATASHEET
Greener IT, lower costs, no compromises
Your IT department plays a significant role in your organization’s energy consumption and overall environmental footprint. The
right energy strategy impacts your operating costs as well as your corporate environmental responsibilities. If green IT isn’t yet
a high priority in your companywide green initiatives, it should be, because:
• Programs such as hardware recycling, server and storage consolidation, smart power, and cooling initiatives can make IT
energy-efficient while reducing cost and waste.
• Implementing green practices throughout your organization is essential to meeting new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification requirements.
• Power constraints outside your organization place limits on the amount of energy available for IT operations.
As part of our continuing focus on delivering more efficient solutions to help you achieve your green objectives, Infoblox recently
sponsored expert independent testing to measure our success in helping you lower energy consumption. This independent
study concluded that Infoblox purpose-built appliances use two-thirds less power than typical off-the-shelf
server equipment.
The Infoblox and Cisco solution supports hybrid environments that include a mix of physical Infoblox appliances and virtual
appliances running on Cisco ISRs. Each instance of Infoblox Trinzic® Virtual Appliance Software running on the Cisco ISR
appears to the GridTM—Infoblox’s patented real-time distributed database — as any other Grid member, with all of the benefits
of distributed service and centralized management. This includes centralized backup and restoration of user data, DHCP
failover capabilities, one-touch software upgrades, DNS without latency, and many other benefits of the Infoblox solution.
Independent Comparison Tests
We know that Infoblox purpose-built appliances, running efficient industry-leading software, utilize less energy than generalpurpose servers. But we don’t expect you to accept our assertion without support, so we set out to quantify the reductions in
energy consumption and have them validated by an impartial third party.
To that end, we commissioned Intertek testing labs (www.intertek.com), a highly reputable testing company that specializes
in power consumption testing and certification, to perform the comparison under a variety of conditions. The results clearly
demonstrated that fully optimized Infoblox gear uses significantly less power than comparable server configurations.
Infoblox 1410 purpose-built DNS appliance
Infoblox versus Off-the-shelf Server Alternatives
Intertek performed input power tests comparing the Infoblox IB-1410 running NIOS 6.6.1 to a typical general-purpose X86
server commonly used in IT departments. The general-purpose server, a Dell Power Edge 1850 with dual-CPU 3GHz (four
cores) was set up and tested in two common OS configurations running:
• Fedora Linux Core 12 with BIND 9.8.0
• Windows Server 2008 with built-in Microsoft DNS
Intertek ran the tests with the servers in idle state and under 0 and 100 percent load with the DNS services running in recursive
and authoritative modes, and captured the power consumption in Watts.
©2013 Infoblox Inc. All Rights Reserved. Infoblox-datasheet-greener-it-June2013
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DATASHEET
Greener IT, lower costs, no compromises
The Results: Infoblox Servers Use Less than One Third the Power.
Chart 1 and Table 1 summarize Intertek’s results. Chart 1 shows the results of the five test conditions for the Infoblox IB-1410
appliance and for the x86 server running two different OS variations. Table 1 shows the amount of wattage used by each
appliance/server under the various test conditions.
Power Consumption Comparison
Infoblox vs. x86 General Purpose Servers
350
Power Consumption in Watts
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Idle
Cache 100%
Cache 0%
Auth 100%
Auth 0%
State / Mode of Operation
Infoblox 1410
x86 (Fedora)
x86 (Windows)
Chart 1: Input power measured in Watts for IB-1410 and x86 servers
running in various configurations and under five test conditions
©2013 Infoblox Inc. All Rights Reserved. Infoblox-datasheet-greener-it-June2013
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DATASHEET
Greener IT, lower costs, no compromises
Test
IB-1410
(Watts)
Dell Fedora
(Watts)
Dell Windows
(Watts)
Infoblox
Consumption vs.
x86 (Fedora)
Infoblox
Consumption vs.
x86 (Windows)
Idle
69
221
226
-69%
-70%
Recursive Cache 100%
97
319
331
-70%
-71%
Recursive Cache 0%
96
316
328
-70%
-71%
Authoritative 100%
97
319
326
-70%
-70%
Authoritative 0%
94
321
326
-71%
-71%
Table 1: Input power measured in Watts for IB-1410 vs General Purpose x86 servers
running in various configurations and under five test conditions
Real-World Impact
The results clearly show that under all test conditions, the Infoblox IB-1410 consumption was less than one third the
consumption by the general-purpose x86 servers running either the Fedora or the Windows operating systems in all load
conditions. That’s a 70 percent efficiency advantage that makes a real impact on your budget and your environmental footprint.
Based on Interek testing data, average Infoblox consumption
was 70 percent less than consumption by the x86 servers
across all load conditions.
Infoblox Delivers Significantly Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Energy savings significantly reduce your total cost of ownership. The chart below translates the Intertek test results into dollars:
Please note: Energy cost savings can vary widely by geography due to regional rate differences. Sometimes even within the
same service area, rates can vary depending on the time of the day and your type of business. The range below shows that
regardless of the specific rates in your location, Infoblox technology can yield significant power cost savings.
Your results may vary.
Energy cost per
Kilowatt Hour
Annual energy cost of 1
Infoblox appliance*
Annual energy cost of 1
x86 server with Windows DNS
Annual savings of
running Infoblox
$.10/kwh
$85
$285
$200
$.20/kwh
$170
$571
$401
$.30/kwh
$254
$857
$603
Table 2. Energy cost comparison between running Infoblox 1410 vs. x86 Server running Windows DNS
©2013 Infoblox Inc. All Rights Reserved. Infoblox-datasheet-greener-it-June2013
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DATASHEET
Greener IT, lower costs, no compromises
Energy cost per
Kilowatt Hour
Annual Savings using 1
Infoblox appliance
Annual Savings using 5
Infoblox appliances
Annual Savings using 10
Infoblox appliances
Annual Savings for 20
Infoblox appliances
$.10/kwh
$200
$1000
$2000
$4000
$.20/kwh
$401
$2005
$4010
$8020
$.30/kwh
$603
$3015
$6030
$12,060
Table 3: The savings associated with using Infoblox can be considerable,
depending on the energy rates and the number of appliances you use.
(Note: Statistics collected in 2012 show average electricity costs in the United States ranging from $.08 to $.17 in normal
conditions, and rising to $.30 during in the summer.)
*The calculations in Table 2 assume servers are run with no downtime annually (52 weeks per year, 7 days per week, 24 hours
per day, or 8,736 hours) running at 100 percent authoritative mode. These thumbnail examples show how power cost savings
can accumulate rapidly.
Power Constraints and LEED Certification
Increasingly, energy suppliers with stressed grids are imposing power constraints on customers. To curb over-consumption,
they are imposing punitive rates on usage above certain thresholds. With proven lower consumption, Infoblox appliances can
help you deal with reduced availability and keep you under consumptions levels that trigger higher rates. As factors affecting
power resources continue to move beyond your control, energy-conserving equipment becomes increasingly critical to your
organization’s continued, uninterrupted, economical operation.
More and more, our customers are finding that LEED certification is essential to the execution of new builds or expansions.
Green building design in construction, operation, and maintenance solutions is fast becoming the norm for businesses
everywhere. Gaining planning-board approval for business developments usually involves a green component, and failure to
meet local green initiative guidelines, especially as defined by the LEED suite of rating systems, can disrupt plans before they
make it off the drawing board. And that’s why it’s so important for you to let Infoblox help you demonstrate that your compliance
with LEED certification guidelines.
Let Infoblox Help You Go Green.
Reducing power consumption and minimizing environmental footprint are significant steps in any green IT initiative. Infoblox
appliances cut your power consumption by two-thirds over general-purpose x86 servers. The significant energy cost savings,
in conjunction with the increased security, scalability, and robustness Infoblox technology delivers, is a powerful combination
that maximizes your benefits at the lowest possible operating cost.
For more information about Infoblox technologies, or to get access to the certified Intertek test results, please contact your
Infoblox account representative.
About Infoblox
Infoblox (NYSE:BLOX) helps customers control their networks. Infoblox solutions help businesses automate complex network control
functions to reduce costs and increase security and uptime. Our technology enables automatic discovery, real-time configuration and
change management and compliance for network infrastructure, as well as critical network control functions such as DNS, DHCP,
and IP Address Management (IPAM) for applications and endpoint devices. Infoblox solutions help over 6,100 enterprises and service
providers in 25 countries control their networks.
Corporate Headquarters:
+1.408.986.4000
1.866.463.6256 (toll-free, U.S. and Canada)
©2013 Infoblox Inc. All Rights Reserved. Infoblox-datasheet-greener-it-June2013
info@infoblox.com
www.infoblox.com
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