IBM has announced its new “Project Big Green” initiative to consolidate approximately 3,900 of its servers located across the world with Linux mainframe servers, which should reduce its power usage over the next 5 years by nearly 80%, and save it almost $250 million in electricity, support services and software expenses.

IBM says it will replace 3,900 smaller servers with 30 IBM System z9 mainframes that run Linux and virtualization software, resulting in an almost 85% reduction of required floor space that would normally be required by the replaced servers.

IBM data centers that are participating in this initiative are located in Poughkeepsie, New York; Boulder, Colorado; Southbury, Connecticut; Osaka, Japan; Sydney, Australia; and Portsmouth, England. IBM also claims that it will be recycling the servers that are being replaced.

IBM currently has more than 8,000,000 square feet of data center space that support its 350,000+ users. IBM claims that it is setting a new standard by taking this green initiative, and hopes that it is setting an example for other customers and businesses to get on the green bandwagon. 

IBM also hopes to sell space in its new more compact computing facilities.