As a Canadian leader that cares for 1 million patients annually, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre faced rising demand for services--but its main data center was reaching capacity. By virtualizing on Intel Xeon processors and upgrading the data center's cooling technology, Sunnybrook doubled the number of racks its data center can support and significantly reduced energy consumption.

Sunnybrook saves tens of thousands of dollars each year on electricity costs and earned a one-time Data Centre Incentive Program (DCIP) incentive award of CAD 33,360 from its utility provider, Toronto Hydro Electric System Ltd.

Data centers consume massive amounts of electricity. A recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency states that data centers in the U.S. consume 4.5 billion kWh annually, or 1.5 percent of the country's total electrical consumption.

But virtualization can have a significant impact.