What are the principal business drivers for green IT and the greening of datacentres?
I am interested in getting a view on how high up the corporate priority list green IT is, which senior executives are directly concerned with the issues, and what it means.
- Is it just about cutting electricity bills?
- How important is the corporate social responsibility (CSR) angle?
- What other factors are there?
- What metrics are employed and how are they measured?
You are asking some insightful questions that don’t have easy or simple answers. But, I’ll give it a shot!
1. Is it just about cutting electricity bills?
Yes and no. One of the most noticeable results of making “green” moves, both in and outside of the data center, will be reduced energy consumption. Significant cost savings can accrue through server virtualization, storage consolidation, and simple data center reconfigurations (ie. plugging holes, rearranging layout for better airflow, balancing HVAC, turning the temperature up as per ASHRAE recommendations, etc). A combination of virtualization and basic, low-capital outlay improvements will provide major cost savings, and a new data center buildout is not required.
However, cost savings will also arise from fewer pieces of equipment needing to be purchased (virtualization/consolidation), lower maintenance bills (fewer servers running, more PCs turned off and not taxing power supplies), and better use of consumables (careful print management ensuring paper and/or toner isn’t wasted).
2. How important is the CSR angle?
This is where the “green” keyword comes in. Everything I’ve described above are leaps in efficiency and cost savings. However, all of the changes mentioned give rise to a lower carbon footprint, reduced environmental impact, less waste going back into the environment, and so forth. In my opinion, IT is holding a bit of a magic wand here - the majority of “greening” measures not only benefit the bottom line, but also serve as powerful ammunition for public relations and marketing (often with quantifiable results — such as number of kilowatts saved — to back the claims up).
3. What other factors are there?
Perverse incentives. IT is not currently motivated (in most cases) to reduce power consumption or waste, while the facilities/real estate department is responsible for the power bill. Getting these folks on board and working together will be key in reducing power consumption and redesigning infrastructure to accommodate energy efficiency and higher equipment utilization. The key to this will be strong senior leadership that believes in the cost savings + green mantra and can mandate both CIO’s and Real Estate VPs to work together.
4. What metrics are employed and how are they measured?
There is no single standard yet. In the data center, the Uptime Institute has come up with some good practices and benchmarks for the data center. I would check out their website.
Outside of the data center, Energy Star and EPEAT both offer practices for reducing energy consumption and environmental impact of IT equipment.
In most cases, actually developing a metric for energy efficiency — and greening (in measurable ways) will be an important objective - because most IT departments have none. How else will IT be able to measure their success?
Tags: business metrics, company metrics, finance metrics, metric program, Metrics, scorecard
