Corporate Boards Failing to Deliver on Promises of Green IT, Research From GDCM and Quocirca Reveals

LONDON (Map) - LONDON, March 19 /PRNewswire/ -- According to research announced today by Global DataCenter Management (GDCM) and Quocirca, organisations in Europe and the US are failing to meet green objectives due to an apparent break-down in communications between the corporate board and IT management level.

Of those organisations surveyed, more than a third (35 per cent) of companies that have a carbon footprint reduction policy do not pass it onto IT as a formal objective. In fact, 55 per cent of data centre managers are not even aware of their monthly power bill costs despite having the ability to make these savings at a data centre level. With the data centre as one of the most power hungry area of a business, unless organisations accurately manage their power consumption at this level, they cannot claim to be truly green.

Awareness of server utilisation is another problem. The research reveals that almost half (47 per cent) of organisations do not even measure server utilisation levels. Among those who do not measure, almost half of data centre managers and CIOs (46 per cent) believe their servers to be over 75 per cent utilised; even though the industry average is below 25 per cent.

Dennis Szubert, Quocirca, said: "There's been much hype around corporate commitment to the reduction of CO2 emissions over the last few years, but our research suggests many are still only paying lip service to environmental issues. For objectives to be met, organisations need to be completely in tune with their whole business and have a thorough understanding of where power reduction can happen. For the majority this will be within the data centre. With this in mind, it's clear that more needs to be done to link the corporate board with the people who can truly make the difference - data centre managers."

Other findings from the research revealed:

- When it comes to reducing power consumption levels within the data centre, 54 per cent of data centre managers lacks the incentive to do so as power costs are not included in their overall IT budgets and profit and loss figures. As a result, many are failing to prioritise the reduction of CO2

- 28 per cent of data centre managers do not know the exact number of servers they have and almost a third (30%) are not aware of all devices on their network. As a result, this could have serious consequences on estimated and actual CO2 emissions

- 43 per cent of European data centres are power constrained - Benelux is struggling the most (24%), followed by the US (19%), UK and Germany (12%), with France at less than 3%.

- Consumers in Europe and the US are not in synch on their attitudes to environmental issues. German organisations displayed the highest commitment to saving electricity within the data centre, followed by Americans. However, the French have little concern when it comes to the reduction of CO2, , with the Brits somewhere in the middle.

Michael Evans, Managing Director of GDCM said: "Today's data centre manager faces a wealth of challenges in maintaining efficiency levels, finding space for their equipment and understanding and managing their data centre assets. Tackling all of these issues on a daily basis means for many, meeting power consumption objectives do not even factor. Coupled with an apparent lack of guidance from the corporate board, it's clear that more needs to be done to support the data centre manager. Providing incentives from the top down will help, but more importantly tools need to be sought which can provide support in addressing these challenges."

About Quocirca

Quocirca is a leading primary research and analysis company, specialising in the impact emerging and evolving technologies have on businesses of all sizes. Based in the UK, Quocirca's primary research reach is world-wide, investigating, analysing and reporting on the perception of decision makers and influencers in the end user environment around technologies within their businesses.

About Global DataCenter Management Limited (GDCM)

Global DataCenter Management (GDCM) was founded in 2003 with the aim of allowing organisations to increase efficiency and reduce cost within data centers - as well as to reducing power consumption and addressing environmental obligations. Today, GDCM provides data center software designed to help data center managers make the most of their IT investments while minimising complexity and costs. GDCM's flagship product, nlyte, is the only data center management tool to provide an intelligent and automated view of all physical and virtual assets and workgroups within the data center.

http://www.gdcm.com/