There’s a real-life monster you should be scared of: the zombie servers in your data centers

Nicola Peill-Moelter


Zombies are like having uninvited guests in your home that eat up all your food, use all your hot water, and overuse your appliances (which, in turn runs up your electricity bill as well as gas or oil) – except that these guests are invisible! Zombie servers– both physical and virtual that are powered on but with little or no productive activity – are costing the world billions of dollars in CAPEX and OPEX.

While we have made tremendous strides in improving data center infrastructure efficiency, these pesky and expensive unused servers are mocking a lot of that good work. This is because our more efficient data centers are powering and cooling servers that are on permanent vacation, effectively stranding valuable capacity. And it’s not just a few slackers. Studies that have looked at server productivity continue to confirm that it’s not uncommon for between 15% to 45% of servers to be in a long term, unproductive state, even virtualized environments. It’s clear that this expensive problem is not going away without focused attention.

Now that we have established the magnitude of the problem, we are here to help you find and dispose of your zombies for good. This white paper helps you:

  • Identify the types, extent, and cost of your zombies
  • Develop a strong business case for the buy-in and resources needed to execute a zombie hunt
  • Determine the right tools to facilitate a successful hunt, prepare a detection plan, and deal with them once you’ve found them
  • Lay the groundwork for a compute-asset management program that will prevent zombies from ever rising from the dead again

Zombies around the world are cowering in fear. Leverage this guide to suppress your zombies for good and reap all the financial, productivity, and security benefits a successful hunt promises.

View the white paper to learn what you need to do to get rid of zombie servers. It is free to members. Non-members may purchase the white paper for $150.