Energy efficiency of growing concern to IT managers survey says

Over 80% of companies spend up to a quarter of their IT budget on energy related costs, according to a recent survey by Brocade Communications.

The survey of senior IT decision makers, showed that energy and energy efficiency are increasingly important for IT departments, as companies look to cut costs.

More than half of those surveyed said they were under pressure to reduce energy consumption, in order to control operational expenditure, although IT managers faced some difficulties in doing so, mainly as power consumption falls under facilities management, rather than IT. Half of those surveyed said they were unable to monitor energy usage as utility bills went to facilities management, and 60% of those did not have processes in place to measure energy consumption by IT.

The survey also found that energy efficiency was now among the top five criteria in IT purchasing decisions, but that IT managers struggled to buy energy efficient solutions owning to higher costs associated with energy efficient solutions, a lack of viable solutions and lack of management support.

Khalid Khalil, regional sales manager CEMA at Brocade commented: “Technology vendors, such as Brocade, are in a position to not only help these businesses understand the disconnect between their goals and their processes, but to actually do something to lower the costs.

“Our research shows that facilities management owns the power budget in most cases, but that the IT department isn’t evaluating its power draw and effect on the organisation’s bottom line. But in these difficult economic times, with every line item being placed under scrutiny, the IT function must play its part and collaborate with facilities management to address rising utility bills,” he added.

Ulrich Plechschmidt, VP EMEA at Brocadesaid. “As utility bills soar and the global recession bites, our customers and partners are looking to leverage energy efficient solutions to optimise their IT environments and reduce unnecessary operational costs. Brocade leads the field in this regard. Our networking solutions draw up to ten times less power than those of our competition, at very similar if not lower price points, and, coupled with our holistic energy efficiency assessment services, can make a huge difference to a company’s OpEx.”

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READERS' COMMENTS

Cutting power costs
Posted by David Shearmon, Bournemouth, United Kingdom on Monday 20 July 2009 at 20:13 UAE time


Implimenting products such as Cybersigth can cut your energy costs simply by having automated power down of machines often left on out of working hours.

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