3 Ways to Decrease IT Energy Spend
Posted by Crystal Nichols on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 07:40 AM
Companies aren’t just going green for the sake of the planet, the fact of the matter is that many green initiatives actually save companies money. Conserving energy in a data center or IT server room, for example, will not only help the environment, it will also help with operating costs.
Still, many IT directors, managers and CIOs are at a loss of how exactly they can go about decreasing IT energy spending. Fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take to get started cutting the energy costs of your IT department.
#1: Consolidation
Data center consolidation or server consolidation will save you serious amounts of capital in terms of equipment costs. In addition, fewer pieces of hardware will require less electricity. Consolidation makes good business sense.
The trick is, however, to make sure that consolidation makes good organizational sense. If consolidation reduces service levels to the point where they impact production, the money you’re saving on energy spending is going to be immediately lost several times over. A thorough consolidation study should be able to identify areas where consolidation is possible and where it will have minimal performace and production impact.
#2: Service Providers
Most IT departments would benefit from offloading one or more IT tasks to a service provider. Whether it’s a specialized application that can be run in a SaaS mode, or whether it’s another scenario, outsourcing part of the IT function sometimes makes good business sense.
Using a service provider has the advantage over an in-house solution in that you don’t have to lay out capital expenditures for equipment, and you don’t have to provide support or maintenance. Additionally, using a service provider insures that you’ve got a true expert in the field supporting your IT function, and you don’t have to worry about training in-house personnel that are already probably spread too thin.
Service provider utilization also reduces your energy spending. If the servers and/or other infrastructure are off site, you don’t have to power them. The costs for their power are wrapped up in your service agreement.
#3: Efficient Cooling Systems
One of the most expensive components, in terms of energy spending in IT, is the cost of cooling your technology. A data center can have significant cooling requirements, and therefore create a serious power draw.
There have been amazing advances in the area of cooling systems in recent years. For example, one data center for a Fortune 500 company uses a fan intake system that draws air in from the outside, through the data center and back out. As temps rise in the data center, the fans kick in and provide the kind of cooling the systems need. In that particular case study, the new cooling system has decreased overall cooling energy costs by six percent, which is a significant savings in terms of dollars.
Ultimately, decreasing your IT energy spending requires some solid research and examination of your current situation, creative thinking and thoughtful implementations.
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