According to Gartner, more than half of the savings realized by users that consolidate servers revolve around hardware, with smaller savings resulting from staff reductions or reassignments, decreases in facilities costs and software changes.

Phelps said internal politics is one of the major hurdles on consolidation projects, with 33 percent of the survey respondents citing it as a key issue. Providing adequate bandwidth was the top issue, cited by 45 percent of the participants. But Phelps said the bandwidth problems may reflect unique challenges faced by companies overseas.