Nissan Slashes US Server Count

Racing nearly alone to become the world's no. 1 green carmaker, Japanese manufacturer Nissan took its tree saving endeavors and expanded them to other departments within the company. Its latest effort into becoming a "greener" Nissan; was to cut its computer server count at the Smyrna and Decherd plants from 159 to only 28.

"Over the past two to three years, our server population had exploded to almost 160 and was continuing to grow," Phil D'Antonio, Nissan manager of conveyors and controls engineering was quoted as saying by just-auto.com.

"It was extremely difficult to manage and consumed numerous labour hours that could be used on other initiatives that add value to our operation."

After conducting an inventory of its IT network, Nissan decided to kill most of its servers. As a result, Nissan says its North American production efficiency has increased, while the overall energy requirements of the two plants have been reduced by no less than 34 percent.

The smaller system implemented by Nissan is based on Microsoft's Hyper-V software, a type of emulator which allows several virtual machines to operate on a single physical unit. By doing using, Nissan also managed to reduce the space needed by its servers.

"We were able to reduce the growing cost associated with a sprawling system as well as cut energy usage by a third," D'Antonio added. "As an Energy Star partner, Nissan is committed to improving the energy efficiency of our business and protecting the environment for future generations."

But it's not all about trees and energy efficiency. By using Hyper-V, Nissan says it is currently saving some $3.5 million each year.