Issue 6, Oct/Nov 2009
FOCUS INDICES
IT + FM INTEGRATION: IS THE MOMENTUM FADING? Why does research indicate only sluggish progress with IT + FM integration?
lack of urgency for an issue acknowledged as hugely important to data centers, according to recent research.
M
From the beginning of 2007 to the most recent research of August 2009, the general trend in adoption is gradually downward and running counter to the upward trends observed by other strategic data center initiatives, such as IT continuity, facility accreditation, energy efficiency and power reduction.
The downward trend in fact masks considerable variation between markets over time.
So what has happened to IT and FM integration? Partly, IT and FM appear to be viewed as a more finite process than either IT continuity planning or energy-efficiency strategies.
That there are relatively few organisations repeating IT and FM integration on an annual basis is also indicated by the very different facility profiles year on year. The process of IT and FM integration has moved from its position in 2007 as being limited to owners or operators of larger facility portfolios running those data centers at higher than average power consumption, in terms of both the average and maximum kW per rack.
Yet the overall proportions remain similar year on year, suggesting that as the IT and FM process percolates into the wider data center community of medium and smaller facilities,
10 15 20 25 30 35 40
0 5
oves to integrate information technology (IT) and facilities management (FM) functions appear to be showing a distinct
its adoption will rise in future years.
That IT and FM integration has moved down the priority scale can be indicated by the levels of unprompted concern about the issue (2007 to 2009). It has never been of particularly great concern compared with the issues of power consumption, cooling, skills or operational costs, but levels of concern are higher in all years, and across both regions, among people in upper organisational management in larger companies rather than those in IT or FM roles.
Unprompted levels of concern about integration
EMEA United States
2007 %
4.3 5.3
2008 %
2.1 4.3
2009 %
0.8 2.1
When plotted against other strategies on the basis of motivations for adoption (on 2008 data), IT and FM integration occupies an ambiguous midway position. It lies close to automation, and while this would not suggest that the two are ‘alternatives’ since they are very different elements occurring at different levels of data center operation, they appear to share a similar benefit-derived space. It is possible that with increasing levels of data center automation, some of the urgency of IT and FM integration may have become lost.
If the needs analysis of IT and FM integration appears slightly ill-defined, might this be because the need has itself reduced? Analysis of the key differences between IT and FM personnel conducted in mid-2007 indicated that personnel working in FM showed far greater levels of concern about operating their
12 2007 2008 2009 10 8 6.7 6 4.8 4.2 4 IT + FM integration
Linear (IT + FM integration)
2 600 0 Portfolio Size (000 racks) Average kW/rack Maximum kW/rack 3100 2500 2.5 10.7 9.7
data centers than did IT personnel, particularly on the issues of power consumption, cooling and costs.
They were also more outward-looking in terms of industry social and environmental responsibilities, and more likely to be adopting and considering a number of data center infrastructure technologies. IT personnel also appeared to be responsible for larger budgets.
This situation is still the case at summer 2009, where there is little apparent bridging of the gap between IT and FM personnel, particularly in terms of key perceptions and attitudes.
IT personnel are less likely to believe that factors viewed negatively – the credit crunch, the skills shortage, increase in costs – will impact on the industry, while they are closer to FM on issues viewed more positively. This would appear to indicate that the gap still exists.
Many of the major strategic decisions facing data center management require co-operation across different stakeholder groups that have interests represented in the data center. Yet IT and FM integration is unusual since it moves the focus away from technology and engineering to require the examination of the data center within an organisation’s broader structure and requirements.
It is perhaps an interesting footnote that the consideration of IT and FM integration correlates strongly with the consideration also of outsourcing, the other strategic option requiring a similarly broad set of questions of how the data center fits within an organisation.
Sluggish progress
A radically changing profi le
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