Through a contract to manage the Navy and Marine Corps Intranet, Hewlett-Packard subsidiary EDS is aiming at a 90 percent reduction in servers needed and saving millions of dollars on energy and hardware costs.

EDS has been managing the intranet since 2001, and the company has already switched 1,200 x86 servers onto 200 machines. Brandon Kern, EDS's infrastructure manager for the project, told InformationWeek that he was aiming higher for the next round of virtualization -- achieving a 9:1 ratio rather than this 6:1 ratio.

Kern explained that, in addition to saving $1.6 million a year in energy costs, there are other financial savings expected from the project. "We will also save $1 million in our technology refresh budget next year," he said. "Instead of $1.5 million, we'll spend $500,000. I only have to buy 300 servers instead of close to 3,000."

More details about the project are available on InformationWeek.com.