Originating Author: Peter Burris
All complex challenges ultimately require an institutional response. Changing the energy profile of an IT organization won't be any different. While suppliers will trumpet relatively quick fix products and services, real solutions to energy and heat challenges will require a focused change effort that should be run by a core team, led by a strong leader, and reporting as close as possible to the CIO.
This group should have a simple but coherent portfolio of responsibilities: transferring corporate green objectives into achievable green IT goals; collaborating directly with corporate and business groups running facilities; scanning the market for real power and energy solutions; drafting and negotiating green change plans with decision makers both internal and external to IT; formulating an "architecture overlay" for power that could evolve into a schematic for considering application, infrastructure, sourcing, and cost-relief decisions; introducing and advocating green data center concepts in projects for modernizing or adding data center capacity; and packaging a coherent story regarding an IT organization's response to corporate energy and power mandates. This effort should be attached to real budget, real talent, and real authorities.
Action Item: Green IT won't just happen: Strong, focused leadership will be required to drive meaningful change in concert with business objectives. Appointing a "VP of Green" now will allow IT organizations to help lead corporate green change, and not just be moved by it.
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