Much is made of the environmental benefits of server consolidation using virtualisation technologies so Microsoft and Alinean have put together a website to create a report of the likely environmental benefits of implementing Microsoft Virtualization technologies. I don’t know how accurate it is (the point of using Alinean is that there should be sizable amount of independent market research behind this) but, ultimately, the goal here is to sell products (in this case Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V).

Regardless of the serious environmental and economical qualities of the Hyper-Green site that Microsoft and Alinean have put together, it’s not a patch (humour wise) on the Virtualisation Cow site that the Australian-based virtualisation consultancy Oriel have created, based on using HP server hardware and VMware Virtual Infrastructure software. The Oriel site may not produce a nice report based on market research from IDC and others but I’d rather express my greenhouse gas savings in terms of cows any day!

(This post is dedicated to Patrick Lownds – joint leader of the Microsoft Virtualization UK User Group – who commented at today’s Microsoft Virtualization Readiness training for partners that he was sure this would appear on my blog… it would be a shame to disappoint him…).