Case study
on
virtualization
Case Study: Bowdoin College turns to virtual software as an alternative to a costly data center buildout. The
decision saves millions, maximizes the school's flexibility to support a variety of operating systems.
Problem :The IT staff at Bowdoin College was faced with having to double the size of the school's
500-square-foot data center back in 2003. Bowdoin's growing need for more services, more
applications, and more servers was fast outpacing its capacity. But the $2 million price tag for the
expansion was hanging heavy over the IT department.
Solution: systems administrator for the liberal arts college in Brunswick, Me., decided to take a
different route. Antonowicz moved to consolidate the school's servers by implementing virtual
software. This technology lets one physical server operate as multiple virtual servers, with each of
the virtual servers able to run one or more distinct applications and even different operating
systems.
Advantages they get from shifting from physical servers to virtual servers
 In Bowdoin's case, turning to virtual servers saved floor space, investment in new servers,
and the headaches and costs that would have come with expanding the data center.
Antonowicz says Bowdoin only spent about $200,000 on its virtualization project-approximately $150,000 for 16 HP blade servers and the rest on VMware virtual server
software. That's one-tenth the cost that had been projected for a more sweeping data
center buildout.
 two and a half years later, 70% of Bowdoin's applications are running virtually. Instead of
running what Antonowicz expects would have been 101 physical servers, he has 46 servers,
including 16 blades. Of those 46 servers, 10 are running VMware ESX software. Antonowicz
figures the server consolidation and the move to virtualization saved the college from
having to buy about 60 servers and from having to build onto the data center. In addition to
avoiding purchases of new servers, virtualization also obviated the need for increased
power and cooling, additional backup costs, and so on.