Gartner warns: the global energy crisis is coming to the IT industry

According to Gartner, two factors in particular worry environmental policymakers: the direct issue of electricity waste and the potential impact - caused by the electricity consumption of computers - on global warming? The research company recommends that managers in organizations wake up and address these issues before it is too late

Organizations find themselves under increasing pressure to develop 'greener' approaches to information technology (IT), and chief information officers (CIOs) need to wake up and address issues of power consumption and environmental quality, says research and consultancy firm Gartner. Although the technology can help reduce the impact of certain environmental problems, its potential for harm is attracting increasing attention from environmental advocates and policy makers.

According to Gartner, two factors in particular worry environmental policy makers: the direct issue of electricity waste and the potential impact - caused by the electricity consumption of computers - on global warming. "The age of IT innocence is coming to an end," says Steve Frantic, senior analyst and research director at Gartner. “The clean and friendly image of 'weightless consumption' is now being challenged by IT's growing environmental footprint. While an increase in the number of laws already increases the downtime costs of IT equipment, now IT also has to deal with the growing concerns about electricity consumption."

The increase in energy-hungry data centers, together with the increase in electricity prices, focuses attention on energy, providing businesses with a double incentive to reduce carbon emissions. According to Rakesh Kumar, vice president of research at Gartner, during the past 12 months, there has been a significant increase in the deployment of high-density servers, leading to significant problems in power supply and cooling for data centers.

According to Kumar, "The power required for a high-density server drive can range from 10-15 times faster than the power required for a traditional server environment. Most data centers built 15-20 years ago do not meet this requirement. At the same time, a similar amount of additional power will be required in order to neutralize the huge amount of heat produced by these new machines. If the machines are not cooled enough, they turn off, and this has harmful consequences for the service at the business level and the control of IT."

Gartner says that the power supply needed for data centers is not the only issue. The power is also needed for technologies such as storage media, network controllers, extended power supplies and air conditioning. An overall realistic assessment of the power consumption in data centers is therefore at least double that of the use of the servers alone.

Kumar warns that excess vendor waste can have a significant impact on IT departments' ability to grow and meet future business demands. According to him, "Today, energy costs usually make up less than 10% of the total IT budget. At the same time, this figure could rise to more than 50% in the coming years. The bottom line is, it will be difficult to justify the price of power on this scale, simply as an increase in the budget, and most information systems managers will have to struggle to justify the situation to the company's managers."

Gartner says that organizations must take a consistent, holistic approach to developing the next generation of 'greener' data centers, and that manufacturers must play a key role in enabling organizations to develop systems that are able to operate within limited power and heat. Most organizations feel that they are unable to control the industry's power and cooling trends, but Gartner believes that this is not entirely true. As long as organizations control their budgets, they can influence producer behavior and they must continue to put pressure on all producers at all levels.

Today, organizations reach a situation where the cost of energy and environmental expenses reach such a significant percentage of the total IT expenditure that the issue becomes significant (economically) for the entire organization.
"The best answer to the power and cooling issues is a greater focus on component-level design, along with the ability to manage power at a high level," Kumar said. "Ultimately, it will be possible to develop systems that can operate with heat and cooling limitations, even though many of the components that will enable such power management, will not reach the market in the next five years."

In the meantime, Gartner's advice to CIOs is to focus on improving the utilization of existing equipment and thus delaying the transition to high-density systems. Organizations should actively seek products with efficient power and make effective use of existing technologies such as workload balancing and virtualization, to balance the growing demand for computing power from the organization against the increase in energy prices. "If they need to use the most advanced servers, they need to assess the energy requirements and see if their existing data centers can handle them," says Kumar.

For the long term, Kumar advises IT organizations to take a more measured approach to data center design, and to ensure that they are built in a modular fashion so that power consumption can be upgraded with growth. "The message to CIO's is already written on the wall. Any way we look at it, they will have to monitor the power crisis that is about to occur and the issue of data center management will be critical here."
 
Gartner warns: the global energy crisis is coming to the IT industry
According to Gartner, two factors in particular worry environmental policymakers: the direct issue of electricity waste and the potential impact - caused by the electricity consumption of computers - on global warming? The research company recommends that managers in organizations wake up and address these issues before it is too late
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Organizations find themselves under increasing pressure to develop 'greener' approaches to information technology (IT), and chief information officers (CIOs) need to wake up and address issues of power consumption and environmental quality, says research and consultancy firm Gartner. Although the technology can help reduce the impact of certain environmental problems, its potential for harm is attracting increasing attention from environmental advocates and policy makers.

According to Gartner, two factors in particular worry environmental policy makers: the direct issue of electricity waste and the potential impact - caused by the electricity consumption of computers - on global warming. "The age of IT innocence is coming to an end," says Steve Frantic, senior analyst and research director at Gartner. “The clean and friendly image of 'weightless consumption' is now being challenged by IT's growing environmental footprint. While an increase in the number of laws already increases the downtime costs of IT equipment, now IT also has to deal with the growing concerns about electricity consumption."

The increase in energy-hungry data centers, together with the increase in electricity prices, focuses attention on energy, providing businesses with a double incentive to reduce carbon emissions. According to Rakesh Kumar, vice president of research at Gartner, during the past 12 months, there has been a significant increase in the deployment of high-density servers, leading to significant problems in power supply and cooling for data centers.

According to Kumar, "The power required for a high-density server drive can range from 10-15 times faster than the power required for a traditional server environment. Most data centers built 15-20 years ago do not meet this requirement. At the same time, a similar amount of additional power will be required in order to neutralize the huge amount of heat produced by these new machines. If the machines are not cooled enough, they turn off, and this has harmful consequences for the service at the business level and the control of IT."

Gartner says that the power supply needed for data centers is not the only issue. The power is also needed for technologies such as storage media, network controllers, extended power supplies and air conditioning. An overall realistic assessment of the power consumption in data centers is therefore at least double that of the use of the servers alone.

Kumar warns that excess vendor waste can have a significant impact on IT departments' ability to grow and meet future business demands. According to him, "Today, energy costs usually make up less than 10% of the total IT budget. At the same time, this figure could rise to more than 50% in the coming years. The bottom line is, it will be difficult to justify the price of power on this scale, simply as an increase in the budget, and most information systems managers will have to struggle to justify the situation to the company's managers."

Gartner says that organizations must take a consistent, holistic approach to developing the next generation of 'greener' data centers, and that manufacturers must play a key role in enabling organizations to develop systems that are able to operate within limited power and heat. Most organizations feel that they are unable to control the industry's power and cooling trends, but Gartner believes that this is not entirely true. As long as organizations control their budgets, they can influence producer behavior and they must continue to put pressure on all producers at all levels.

Today, organizations reach a situation where the cost of energy and environmental expenses reach such a significant percentage of the total IT expenditure that the issue becomes significant (economically) for the entire organization.
"The best answer to the power and cooling issues is a greater focus on component-level design, along with the ability to manage power at a high level," Kumar said. "Ultimately, it will be possible to develop systems that can operate with heat and cooling limitations, even though many of the components that will enable such power management, will not reach the market in the next five years."

In the meantime, Gartner's advice to CIOs is to focus on improving the utilization of existing equipment and thus delaying the transition to high-density systems. Organizations should actively seek products with efficient power and make effective use of existing technologies such as workload balancing and virtualization, to balance the growing demand for computing power from the organization against the increase in energy prices. "If they need to use the most advanced servers, they need to assess the energy requirements and see if their existing data centers can handle them," says Kumar.

For the long term, Kumar advises IT organizations to take a more measured approach to data center design, and to ensure that they are built in a modular fashion so that power consumption can be upgraded with growth. "The message to CIO's is already written on the wall. Any way we look at it, they will have to monitor the power crisis that is about to occur and the issue of data center management will be critical here."