Is your organization looking to get away from expensive, UNIX RISC systems? The key question is, can industry standard Intel-architecture based servers deliver the performance you'd need to consolidate applications via virtualization?

Principled Technologies' test report from July 2011 says yes. In tests using the newest Intel Xeon processors and VMware vSphere 5.0, they tested 12 database applications simultaneously – and all delivered strong and consistent performance.

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.