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IT SOUNDS like some sort of mythical IT project pipedream: streamlining from 16 servers to just two - in three weeks, with no downtime - and everything works just like it did before. But that's just what the Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE in northern Victoria has done.

Virtualisation technology enabled the TAFE to consolidate its data centre without disrupting its business, saving considerable money, manpower and electricity - with a bonus of more free floor space.

Virtualisation separates the software layer of computing, such as the operating system and applications, from the hardware it runs on. Once a server, storage system or desktop PC has been "virtualised" it can run any number of instances of any operating system simultaneously as "virtual servers", with each appearing to surrounding systems no differently than if it had its own hardware.

It works because most companies under-use their physical servers. They might have a web server, another database server and others for various applications. This physical separation ensures they don't interfere with each other, but they will use a small fraction of the available computing power.

With better efficiency comes cost and time savings. Not surprisingly, virtualisation is at the heart of a movement that is reshaping the way companies deploy and manage their computing resources.

A country college with six campuses in north-western Victoria, the TAFE services 17,000 students and 450 staff. IT manager Albert Amadei says the college was seeking a better way to manage its infrastructure cost. The 45 servers scattered through the network were managed from a data centre in Shepparton. Some of those devices were between five and six years old and in need of replacement.

After a review of available hardware, the college settled on Dell's PowerEdge 6850 servers with Intel dual-core processors, running version 3.0 of VMware's enterprise virtualisation software. The entire consolidation effort took less than three weeks, with no down time.

The two new machines now run 16 virtual servers, providing file and print services, universal storage, its virtual private network and other services. Mr Amadei says it would be possible to run all 16 virtual servers on just one of the new machines, giving the college an effective disaster-recovery option. At the moment the load is balanced across the two servers.

The consolidation also enabled the college to relocate four remote servers back to the Shepparton data centre. Mr Amadei says the power consumption at the centre to date is lower than before the consolidation took place.