Govt agencies fatten Linux, Unix server environments

Clearly, virtualisation is one reason that the number of physical Wintel servers may be on the decline.

Graphs and trends

The benchmarking study indicated that the number of operating system instances per physical server rose sharply over the period, from an average 1.43 to 1.95 instances on each server.

That means:

• There were 22,265 operating system instances on all physical servers in 2008-9.
• There were 29,954 instances on all physical servers one year later.

Put another way, 7689 virtual instances were created on physical servers between 2008-9 and 2009-10.

So although fewer physical servers were deployed, the density of those in operation increased dramatically, which could explain the decline in physical Wintel numbers.

The macro view

The benchmark study shows the Federal Government is a major consumer and producer of ICT, spending $5 billion a year on average.

The report suggests ICT expenditure increased only marginally between 2008-9 and 2009-10 in real terms but decreased as a proportion of departmental operating costs.

ICT accounted for about five percent of agencies' total operating costs in 2009-10.

Special Minister of State Gary Gray said the Government was investing in enhancing and extending its ICT capability.

About 30 percent of expenditure was dedicated to new projects in 2009-10 as opposed to 70 percent allocated to 'business as usual' expenses.

Thin clients are on the rise, accounting for four percent of desktop devices in 2009-10, compared to two percent the year prior. Traditional desktop computers fell two percent over the same period.

Perhaps the biggest single change among agencies related to storage systems.

Overall growth in storage capacities grew by 75 percent over the study period, from 44,804 to 78,277 Terabytes.

A big winner there was in offline/offsite/ tape storage. The need for it grew 84 percent, from 33,604 Terabytes to 61,698 Terabytes over the study period.