April 2, 2008—A survey by the Aperture Research Institute (ARI) of more than 100 data center professionals has shown that green initiatives are gaining traction in the data center, but data center managers do not necessarily trust the environmental claims that vendors attach to products and services.
Although 70% of organizations are adopting green initiatives, the study found two major gaps: 19% of those with a green initiative admitted it did not include the data center, and 13% of those with an initiative did not know whether it did. Since ARI was interviewing those with responsibility for planning and managing data centers, the green initiative would be unlikely to have any effect in a data center where management does not understand the initiative’s implications, says ARI.
Those interviewed suggested numerous opportunities for cutting energy use in the data center, with 44% naming cooling and 24% naming power efficiency. Twenty-seven percent proposed virtualization or consolidation as a strategy, but only one person suggested powering off unused CPUs. A minority of managers appear willing to adopt strategies that will help them to use existing assets more effectively. Most are calling for more energy efficient equipment to be invented, bought by their organizations, and then installed in their data centers.
Despite that, data center managers are unconvinced by vendors’ claims to be marketing more environmentally friendly equipment. Twenty-six percent dismissed such claims as hype, and 42% said they had no way to validate the claims. ARI notes that it seems that even those organizations that are committed to reducing their environmental footprint do not trust vendors to help them do so.
The report, titled “Data Centers are Adopting Green Initiatives but are Wary of Vendors’ Marketing Messages,” (.pdf file), is available on the ARI Web site.
