In a recent report, Noel Yuhanna, an analyst at Forrester Research stated that, “all IT shops should have a database consolidation plan that focuses on reducing cost and improving operational efficiency… we find that the potential benefit remains significant, with companies typically saving 20% or more.”

Furthermore, John Phelps, Gartner Vice President & Research Director, wrote that, "The magnitude of the server-management problem can be seen in any typical enterprise data center. Adding a single application typically adds three to five servers to the data center for such things as production, development, testing, and backup. Many of the distributed servers run at very low utilizations...most enterprises see the benefits of server consolidation in terms of better management of systems and lower costs. However, consolidation can provide other benefits, such as better security and higher service levels".

Laying claim to some exciting new customers, including a telecom customer whose server consolidation efforts are resulting in projected savings that run into millions of dollars per year, Savantis are understandably upbeat.

UC: Can you tell us a little about Savantis’ plans and market focus?

Paul Campaniello: It’s no secret that many IT managers are considering some kind of shared – or on-demand – infrastructure at this point. The next step on from that is virtualisation – which is about turning individual islands of resource into a pooled service.

Over time, everything gets virtualised. We’re at the stage where almost everything in the IT stack has been virtualised. At the user layer there is browsers and windows, at the application servers level there is the J2EE and application switches and even at the storage level there are SANs.

The database server level is the only one that remains largely unvirtualised today. Savantis’ plan is to own that space.

The Savantis, “dbSwitch ” solution aims to virtualise the database layer by pooling underutilized database server resources into a Database Area Network (DAN). This is to allow capacity to be re-allocated across multiple applications. The intention is that by providing visibility, capacity management and resource optimization we can reduce database TCO and improve efficiency.

UC: Where are you mainly focusing your efforts at present?

Paul Campaniello: We’ve seen the most amount of traction with Financial Services, Pharma and technology companies. Surprisingly, we’ve experienced less interest coming from the telecoms market, although there’s no logical reason that should be the case.

We see utility computing as a trend that is going to be dominant for several years to come. So what better tactic could there be than for us to choose one existing problem, solve that really well and own that space? This way we compliment and are aligned with all the other existing visions for utility computing. It makes much more sense to offer a heterogeneous solution.

Really, the opportunity for Savantis is aided by the tremendous pressure within all industries right now to achieve more with less. There’s a universal desire to reduce both capital and operating expenditure. With the personnel that remain, companies need to increase their productivity and find ways to help them meet increasingly difficult SLAs.

UC: What are the pay-offs for doing this?

Paul Campaniello: Well the benefits of a virtualised database layer are fairly clear. There are immediate cost savings to be had in terms of reduced licensing fees and less hardware spending in the future. There are also the efficiency gains, although that’s soft saving.

In fact, Giga Information Group recently reported that 85% of enterprise respondents were considering database consolidation initiatives primarily because of cost savings and improved manageability.

A virtualised database layer eliminates some of the maintenance and over-capacity problems that plague the stand-alone layer. The number of database servers is consolidated and, of course, associated personnel and license costs are accordingly reduced. Server utilisation can be increased to over 50%.

That’s where the really tangible pay-off comes – reduced spending on licenses. One customer that we worked with recently saved $2.6m that would previously have been spent on Oracle licenses. Giga’s research indicates that – through database consolidation initiatives - enterprises can typically save 20% or more related to staff reduction, license requirements and maintenance.

UC: So what next for Savantis?

Paul Campaniello: We’re doing this because we believe utility computing is absolutely the future of IT. It is going to become a reality and the implications for everyone are huge. We are focusing on delivering solutions for just one key area of that. We’re taking the database layer and serving it up as a utility.