Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre had a problem. It faced rising demand for IT services, but its main data center had nearly reached capacity. With a very tight budget, Sunnybrook's IT director Oliver Tsai needed to come up with a creative solution to meet demand.

Tsai and his team took a two-pronged approach. They beefed up the data center with an additional UPS, replaced the HVAC with a better design, and standardized on Dell PowerEdge R710 servers with Intel Xeon processors. They also deployed VMware vSphere 4.0, giving them a 30:1 virtual machine density. The result? A reduction of energy demand by 267,158 kWh annually – giving them a savings of CAD 26,716 yearly.