It's Not Easy Going Green in the Data Center

NetworkWorld has a good article on the Reality of Virtualization and Going Green.

Data center managers see green, battle virtualization hangovers in '08

Data center managers who championed virtualization and green computing in 2007 now face the task of delivering the benefits they promised -- something industry watchers say will be no small feat.

Just as virtualization is no slam dunk, neither is green computing. Industry watchers say that working toward a greener computing environment isn't going to be easy for most data center managers due to technical, political and other reasons outside the control of IT.

"Legislation is coming about putting corporate responsibility programs in place, but in a lot of cases IT doesn't fall under the umbrella of corporate responsibility," says Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of global enterprise research at the Yankee Group. "IT needs to start understanding more about data center facilities and find ways to design data centers to eat up less power."

The problem is very few of these Data Center managers have energy monitoring systems to measure the before and after results of their virtualization/green projects.  So, when it comes to proving they are greener, they'll be stuck without data. 

You can address this issue by creating an Energy Supply Chain Management system. For ideas see Energy Management as a Corporate Strategy.

For most industries, the cost of energy is outpacing all other variable costs. For example, the cost of natural gas increased over 250 percent from 1993 to 2006. The cost of fuels and power increased over 110 percent during this same period; the bulk of the increase, 81 percent, occurring in the last four years. Managers are asking, “What can we do to better manage these costs?” “How can we better utilize our valuable renewable and nonrenewable resources?”

Additionally, companies are now recognizing that their customers expect them to be part of the national and global energy sustainability solution. Devising strategies to meet our current and future energy demands in an environmentally responsible way is no longer the sole work of academia and government.