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Betfair, World's Leading On-line Gaming Pioneer, Leverages Sun's Eco Responsibility Portfolio Cuts Storage Power, Cooling Costs by 60%; Now Runs 60 Databases on 3 KW Rather than 16 September 8, 2008, Volume 127, Issue 2
The UK's Betfair is the world's leading online betting exchange, logging more than 6,600 page views and processing 1,000 transactions per second. By adopting Sun technology, Betfair was able to accommodate growing from two billion page impressions a week to four billion page impressions a week in the same physical datacenter space, while also achieving a 60% reduction in power and storage-cooling costs and cutting the power required to run 60 databases from 16 kilowatts of power to 3 kilowatts. These improvements in its basic operating costs and circumstances enabled Betfair to deliver on its commitment to running an eco-responsible operation. Like IT departments everywhere, Betfair’s IT operations feel the pinch of rising energy costs more than any other department. “When you’re planning a major datacenter deployment—as we are constantly these days—the biggest challenge is no longer bandwidth or space, it’s power,” says Rorie Devine, the company’s CTO. “Site selection today is heavily influenced by the cost and availability of electricity. Countries with abundant resources—geothermal in Iceland, nuclear in France, hydroelectric in a number of places—are becoming increasingly attractive locations for expansion. Only Sun addresses power costs as the main criteria for datacenter site selection.” With a growth rate in web traffic of 33% in six months, managing that growth is not simply a matter of power consumption for Betfair but for minimizing the use of power within the datacenter as well, and that’s where Sun is adding value daily at Betfair, starting with servers based on CoolThreads technology. “Sun’s CoolThreads technology generates more CPU cycles while using less power,” says Devine. “Nothing like it has existed before. We replaced racks and racks of Dell servers with Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers. The result is more computing power in the same physical space and significantly less power—a double win for us.” Thanks largely to the savings of the Sun eco-responsible servers, Betfair has achieved 200% usage growth - all within the same datacenter space. One example lies in how server virtualization using the Containers feature of Solaris 10 OS contributes to higher server utilization and thus also reduces power consumption. “Containers allow us to run multiple applications concurrently with little risk of the crossover effects you see with other virtualization technologies,” Devine says. While some in the IT business argue that eco-responsibility involves trading off power savings and performance, Devine calls that position "crazy." He says instead that, “Sun’s energy-efficient technology is such a powerful proposition because you get more computing power and less energy usage. It's like they’re offering you a race car that goes faster and uses less gas. Why wouldn’t you buy it?” Minimizing power and cooling costs also involves the often-overlooked area of storage. “Storage arrays burn a lot of power,” explains Devine. “Through virtualization, we’ve eliminated 40 terabytes of physical capacity, reducing storage power and cooling costs by 60%.” Betfair’s storage infrastructure is based on a Sun StorageTek 9985 system, which features built-in virtualization capabilities. Devine also credits Sun Professional Services for its support and counsel throughout the deployment process. “Betfair has a good relationship with Sun on a lot of levels. We can tap into their experts for design and implementation to take full advantage of Sun technology. Sun Professional Services helps shape our thinking and get the efficiencies we’re looking for,” he reports. Devine has praise as well for Sun's support of eco-responsibility in the IT industry: “Sun was the first major company to deliver better business performance that was actually good for the environment as well. These initiatives were and are visionary and innovative. Now other vendors are jumping on the bandwagon, but we can see right through them. Sun led the way. It’s fantastic the way Sun championed eco-responsibility and energy-efficient computing.” For further information on the Sun solutions that are part of the Betfair deployment, click on the following:
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Sun’s energy-efficient technology is such a powerful proposition because you get more computing power and less energy usage 
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Betfair, World's Leading On-line Gaming Pioneer, Leverages Sun's Eco Responsibility Portfolio
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