Most IT Professionals Cite Environmentally Responsible Operations as a Priority but Lack Resources to Control Energy Consumption Needs
PALO ALTO, CA - April 16, 2008
Despite stated concerns and priorities for making data center operations more environmentally sound, few IT organizations have any specific plans in place, and most IT managers give their operations failing grades in reducing energy consumption. In the face of rising energy costs and increasing environmental concern over global warming, data center energy consumption continues to rise, and nearly half of IT managers surveyed say their organizations have run out of energy resources within the recent past.
These are among the findings of a new study called Lean & Green - Reducing IT Energy Drain for Business Gain, conducted by the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum and sponsored by BlueArc (www.bluearc.com), a leading high-performance network storage provider. The study assesses issues and opportunities presented by green computing and ways to address accelerating energy and performance demands and perceived waste in the data center. The findings reflect responses from more than 150 IT professionals in an online survey completed in February, 2008. A set of interviews with industry and environmental executives complements the study.
According to the study findings:
"The results of the study point to a gap between what IT leadership knows it needs to do and what it has accomplished to date in terms of environmental responsibility," said Derek Kober, Director of the BPM Forum. "In polling the marketplace and talking with industry leaders, we have heard that there are opportunities for those that deliver on the environmental promise to also save substantial costs and drive revenue opportunities through more efficient and enhanced data performance practices."
Business Benefits Quantified
Findings from the Lean & Green - Reducing IT Energy Drain for Business Gain survey and executive interviews reveal that itŐs not cost-prohibitive to operate an environmentally sound data center, and can help save money in the long term. More than 20 percent of respondents thought their organizations could save $100,000 or more per year by reducing server and network storage energy consumption.
"Energy requirements are a significant consideration in BlueArc customers' storage purchase decisions," said Steve Daheb, BlueArc senior vice president of marketing and business development. "We find that data-driven businesses want high-performance storage solutions, but they don't want speed and capacity to come at the expense of energy or rack space. These companies are taking a closer look at the way storage solutions are designed."
Efficiencies Ever-Important
The Lean & Green -- Reducing IT Energy Drain for Business Gain study addresses the crisis of mass power consumption in the corporate data center, estimated in the U.S. to be as much as that produced by five power plants in a year. Energy expenditures and requirements have doubled in the last five years, according to top Stanford researchers and Greenpeace. Rising energy costs are the top reason that survey respondents cite as impetus for green data center initiatives.
The Lean and Green - Reducing IT Drain for Better Business Gain executive summary is available on the program site for Lean & Green at http://www.getleanandgreen.org. The full report is available for purchase for $199.
About the BPM Forum
The Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum is dedicated to advancing performance accountability, process improvement, operational visibility and compliance in global organizations. It provides support to thousands of senior executives and practitioners representing enterprises with more than $500 billion in combined annual revenues. The BPM Forum's C-level members engage in research, thought leadership, and knowledge exchange programs around a variety of strategic issues and challenges. More information is available at: www.BPMForum.org
About BlueArc
BlueArc is a leading network storage company focused on high performance and scalability, and on making environmentally responsible computing both possible and cost-effective. The company's ability to drive server consolidation is reducing complexity, lowering total cost of ownership and cutting power and cooling expense. BlueArc enables companies to expand the ways they explore, discover, research, create, process and innovate in data-intensive environments. BlueArc's products replace complex, cost-inefficient and power-hungry products with high performance, environmentally beneficial, scalable and easy-to-use systems capable of handling the most data intensive applications and environments. Information about BlueArc systems and services can be found at http://www.bluearc.com/.
