Document Management News

Data centre and IT managers are not paying sufficient attention to the process of measuring, monitoring and modelling energy use in data centres, according to a survey from Gartner (www.gartner.com).

Gartner said that unless users start to create accurate measuring systems, they will not be able to reduce energy costs and meet compliance requirements.

The Gartner poll, among 130 respondents from the infrastructure and operations (I&O) management sector, found that although green IT issues remain at the top of the agenda, respondents consider vendor and green procurement a low priority activity for the next 18 months.

Although 68% of respondents thought data centre energy management is their most important green IT issue for the next 18 months, only 7% consider green procurement and pushing vendors to create more energy efficient and greener solutions as their top priority.

Gartner analyst Rakesh Kumar said, “This finding is further affirmed in client conversations we have had, which reveal that although the green IT and data centre energy issue has been on the agenda for some time now, many managers feel they have to deal with more immediate concerns before focusing attention on their suppliers’ products.”

Kumar said, “In other words, even if more energy efficient servers or energy management tools were available, data centre and IT managers are far more interested in internal projects like consolidation, rationalisation and virtualisation.”

Despite this apparent lack of concern for the measuring and monitoring of energy use, around 63% of poll respondents said they will face data centre capacity constraints in the next 18 months. And 15% admitted their data centres are already at capacity, and that they will be forced to build new sites or refurbish existing sites within the next 12 months.