IT loses the trust of the business when power becomes a problem. IT power consumption is a CFO/CEO issue in many businesses. Data centers have run out of power without warning. Consolidation initiatives with millions in savings have been put on hold or rolled back. When IT lost the trust of business with out-of-control CAPEX spending at the turn of the millennium, IT was moved back to the CFO. IT needs to be seen as proactive rather than reactive to power and green issues or risk reporting to a facilities manager renamed as the “Energy Czar” or “KVA King”.
All IT executives including storage managers must be able to answer three questions:
- What is the power and power density requirements now and over the next five to ten years?
- What initiatives are in place to ameliorate IT power consumption and carbon production?
- What contribution do the IT applications supported make to corporate power consumption and carbon production?
Action Item: Make IT cool and green by:
- Taking charge of IT power costs; take facilities costs as an IT line item and reflect it back in business chargebacks.
- Project storage and other IT power consumption and carbon production over the next five to ten years.
- Champion aggressive tiered storage initiatives.
- Include a section in every business case for storage or other IT power consuming equipment on the power and carbon savings from the applications supported.
- Work with storage and other IT vendors with corporate wide carbon neutral initiatives.
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