FACILITIES DCIM
Efficient Scheme3 (CRC EES) are two of particular note. While the
EU Code of Conduct provides useful guidance on decommissioning unused services, reviewing the cooling strategy and instigating a data management policy, it is essentially voluntary (albeit a nod to more stringent legislation in the future). The CRC EES on the other hand, is of more pressing concern for large organisations, as they will be expected to purchase allowances from the UK Government to cover their carbon emissions, as well as measuring and reporting on them. Affecting those UK businesses with high energy demands, the CRC EES will hit organisations with data centres particularly hard.
Despite initially promising to be a reward for greenness, the CRC EES has transformed into a basic tax accompanied by public league tables (due to be published in October 2011) which will rank organisations in terms of ‘greenness’ – a ‘name-and-shame’ tactic with the potential to slight corporate reputations. As a major contributor to carbon emissions, enterprises that fail to get their electricity usage in the data centre under control before this deadline, not only risk having their reputation openly tarnished, but suffering hefty financial penalties.
DCIM: an environmental stepping stone Although it is unclear whether UK organisations have been genuinely unaware of the pivotal part their data centre estate plays in the energy efficiency equation up until now, or that there simply hasn’t been enough available budget or the right technology to improve such issues within the organisation, DCIM now provides a viable solution. The latest generation of DCIM software enables IT departments to visualise, model, plan, control, report and predict energy usage, to quickly and easily gain access to a host of information that can not only improve data centre efficiency, but also ensure organisations comply with strict legislation. The comprehensive stages of the DCIM maturity process enable data centre and facilities management teams to regain control of their data centre estate with a more granular level of insight – drilling right down to rack, server, application and network level.
For many enterprises simply knowing which assets are located where Endnotes
1. Mercury News Interview: IT Power Researcher Jonathan Koomey. By Pete Carey. The Mercury News. 16 October 2009 2. IDC Green IT Barometer: European Organizations and the Business Imperative of Deploying a Green and Sustainable IT Strategy. IDC EMEA. By Nathaniel Martinez and Kim Bulhoul. September 2008. 3. While not specifically focusing on data centre electricity costs, data centre energy usage is expected to have a significant impact on CRC ratings
is near impossible with traditional spreadsheets, Visio and CAD ill-equipped to manage this task, let alone understanding their inter- dependencies within the data centre. With a DCIM strategy, discovery is just the first step. A visual interface allows data centre professionals to model and manage both their assets and space, cooling and power requirements – inclusive of any new Installations, Moves, Adds or Changes (IMAC) – giving optimum insight into the data centre landscape, even before physical equipment is moved.
With expanding data reserves and trends such as virtualisation, the composition and requirements of the data centre are continually changing and, thus, extremely volatile. For this reason, it is essential for organisations to be able to set (and modify) capacity thresholds and operational limits; DCIM software’s ability to create ‘what if’ scenarios ensure decisions about power, space and cooling are right first time, without any damaging domino effect.
Reporting is also an increasingly important part of any DCIM strategy. With the data centre accounting for up to half of all corporate carbon footprint, and impending legislation such as the CRC EES, efficient data centre operation now affects all areas of the business – from engineer to board level. Real-time analysis on a single visual interface is paramount as multiple employees need to analyse trends and predict future usage, in addition to regulators who may require reports on Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) to fully assess the environmental capacity of the data centre.
The future is green
The growing maturity of DCIM software means that organisations now have no excuses when it comes to understanding the real benefits of ‘going green’ in the data centre. DCIM tools not only help organisations achieve lower carbon footprints and meet compliance regulations in the data centre, but operational efficiency is also improved at the most basic and constructive level. This includes protection against power shortages and insulation from rising energy costs – all of which can drastically enhance the business bottom line, when it comes to both energy efficient targets and hard profit.
February 2012 I
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