Last week I, like many others, attended the Uptime Institute Symposium in New York. It was great to be a part of an event which brings together IT managers, datacenter owners, C-level executives and anyone with an interest in server and datacenter management and operation.
The recurring theme this year was definitely energy efficiency and cost reduction and a large number of the keynotes and sessions (including my own) focused on reduction of power consumption through better power management, more efficient equipment and making the most of what you have; all themes that are close to my heart.
Unfortunately amongst all of the positive discussions, there was a roadblock that became more apparent as the week went on. There is a very clear divide between IT and facilities where the server and datacenter managers often don’t pay the power bill and to a certain degree, don’t care who does and the facilities team often have no input into the server provisioning process save but to provide space in the rack. This divide often makes if difficult for businesses to implement cost saving initiatives into the datacenter. The IT teams don’t always see thee benefits and the facilities team often don’t get to decide.
Technology is advancing and I’m hopeful that as power and datacenter space become more valuable commodities, this divide will be forced to shrink and the IT and facilities teams will start to work together to make the most of the capacity they have.
Heather Clancy wrote an excellent article on just this topic expanding much further on the points that I have made. Check it out here: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/green/power-play-green-efficiency-means-more-to-cfos-than-green-it/11794
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