Measurement, Monitoring Of Data Center Energy To Be Immature Through 2011: Gartner

Data center and IT managers are not paying sufficient attention to the
process of measuring, monitoring and modelling energy use in data centres,
according to a recent interactive poll conducted by Gartner. Gartner said that
unless users start to create accurate dashboards, they will not be able to
reduce energy costs and meet compliance requirements.

The Gartner seminar conducted in April 2009 among more than 130 attendees
from the infrastructure and operations (I&O) management 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
percent of respondents thought data center energy management is their most
important green IT issue for the next 18 months, only seven percent consider
green procurement and pushing vendors to create more energy efficient and
greener solutions as their top priority.

“This finding is further affirmed in client conversations which reveal that,
although the green IT and data center energy issue has been on the agenda for
some time now, many managers feel that they have to deal with more-immediate
concerns before focusing attention on their suppliers' products,” said Rakesh
Kumar, Research VP, Gartner. “In other words, even if more energy efficient
servers or energy management tools were available, data center and IT managers
are far more interested in internal projects like consolidation, rationalization
and virtualization.”

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

Gartner said that energy management (both in terms of capacity and cost) can
only be effective through advanced monitoring, modelling and measuring
techniques and processes.

DQC News Bureau