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Energy - Corporate Boards Failing to Deliver on Promises of Green IT, GDCM and Quocirca Reveals |
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According to research announced today by Global DataCenter Management
(GDCM) and Quocirca, organisations in Europe and the US are failing to
meet green objectives due to an apparent break-down in communications
between the corporate board and IT management level.
Of those organisations surveyed, more than a third (35 per cent) of
companies that have a carbon footprint reduction policy do not pass it
onto IT as a formal objective. In fact, 55 per cent of data centre
managers are not even aware of their monthly power bill costs despite
having the ability to make these savings at a data centre level. With
the data centre as one of the most power hungry area of a business,
unless organisations accurately manage their power consumption at this
level, they cannot claim to be truly green.
Awareness of server utilisation is another problem. The research
reveals that almost half (47 per cent) of organisations do not even
measure server utilisation levels. Among those who do not measure,
almost half of data centre managers and CIOs (46 per cent) believe
their servers to be over 75 per cent utilised; even though the industry
average is below 25 per cent.
Dennis Szubert, Quocirca, said: "There's been much hype around
corporate commitment to the reduction of CO2 emissions over the last
few years, but our research suggests many are still only paying lip
service to environmental issues. For objectives to be met,
organisations need to be completely in tune with their whole business
and have a thorough understanding of where power reduction can happen.
For the majority this will be within the data centre. With this in
mind, it's clear that more needs to be done to link the corporate board
with the people who can truly make the difference - data centre
managers."
Other findings from the research revealed:
- When it comes to reducing power consumption levels within the
data centre, 54 per cent of data centre managers lacks the incentive to
do so as power costs are not included in their overall IT budgets and
profit and loss figures. As a result, many are failing to prioritise
the reduction of CO2
- 28 per cent of data centre managers do not know the exact number
of servers they have and almost a third (30%) are not aware of all
devices on their network. As a result, this could have serious
consequences on estimated and actual CO2 emissions
- 43 per cent of European data centres are power constrained -
Benelux is struggling the most (24%), followed by the US (19%), UK and
Germany (12%), with France at less than 3%.
- Consumers in Europe and the US are not in synch on their
attitudes to environmental issues. German organisations displayed the
highest commitment to saving electricity within the data centre,
followed by Americans. However, the French have little concern when it
comes to the reduction of CO2, , with the Brits somewhere in the middle.
Michael Evans, Managing Director of GDCM said: "Today's data centre
manager faces a wealth of challenges in maintaining efficiency levels,
finding space for their equipment and understanding and managing their
data centre assets. Tackling all of these issues on a daily basis means
for many, meeting power consumption objectives do not even factor.
Coupled with an apparent lack of guidance from the corporate board,
it's clear that more needs to be done to support the data centre
manager. Providing incentives from the top down will help, but more
importantly tools need to be sought which can provide support in
addressing these challenges."
http://www.energy.eu/press/html/1811479.html
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