Besides providing "Fanatical Support," Rackspace is also billing itself as one of the greenest hosts in the biz, even as it lords over 30,000 servers. Though they don't virtualize currently (they plan to soon), the very nature of managed hosting makes it inherently more environmentally friendly according to an interview with John Engates, Rackspace's CTO.

The company also has plans for a 40,000-server facility that will be powered by renewable energy provider, Slough Heat and Power, just outside of London.

But as we mentioned before, the shocker is that Rackspace doesn't employ virtualization, at least not yet.

While virtualization may offer a few advantages to the environment, it is important to point out that in the long run, virtualization does not provide significant environmental advantages. Virtualization does enable IT managers to add more servers (applications) on to fewer machines, reducing the amount of hardware needed and power consumed. Reducing the amount of hardware can certainly cut cost, but virtualization simply allows a server's CPU to run at a higher utilization. And the higher the utilization of a server, the more power it consumes. The additional power cost from virtualized servers will offset any savings created by purchasing less hardware (as hardware is relatively cheap.)

Engates' also confirms that Gartner's prediction that power will consume 50 percent of an IT budget "are not at all unrealistic." Scary.

Catch more of the interview here.