Server consolidation is the top priority for server professionals, while power and energy issues pose the greatest challenges, according to research published today.

Ironically, the poll of server managers conducted by analyst firm TheInfoPro predicts that spending on blade servers will grow more than for any other hardware technology, enabling consolidation but exacerbating the energy crisis.

Server professionals reported continued pressures to consolidate to fewer platforms, driven by management concerns over low hardware resource allocations and the need to cut costs.

Virtualisation was reported to be a key technology in 2005, and has grown to become "even more critical" in the six months since TheInfoPro's last study.

In many users' minds server consolidation and virtualisation are nearly synonymous, both driven by a mandate to cut costs and improve efficiencies. Users also report server consolidation as a key driver to the implementation of blade servers.

Over 40 per cent of respondents reported consolidation as their top priority, while over 20 per cent reported virtualisation as the top priority. And over three quarters listed server consolidation as a 'very important' or 'extremely important' benefit of virtualisation.

Power, heat, cooling and resultant system density were among the top challenges facing data centre operations. Users reported that energy efficiency is moving from 'desirable' to 'mandatory' in many enterprises.

Almost 40 per cent reported that 'power requirements' were the greatest challenge to data centre operations, while 31 per cent cited 'cooling requirements'.

Despite their perceived advantage in achieving server consolidation, blade servers were cited as the worst offenders when it came to energy and thermal problems.

"Server professionals are being pushed to achieve greater efficiencies and lower costs, which makes consolidation and virtualisation natural paths to take, " said Bob Gill, chief research officer at TheInfoPro.

"Unfortunately, at the same time many of the simplest consolidation approaches, such as loading up blades in a chassis, are creating a heat and cooling versus density tension that has data centre managers up in arms.

"The use of virtualisation software to consolidate on single blades or standalone systems, combined with increased attention to engineering more energy-efficient blade solutions, is what users are desperate for."