by Rebecca Walker — July 27, 2009—Nearly 80 percent of senior IT decision makers recently surveyed by Brocade Communications reported that their companies spent up to a quarter of their total IT budgets on energy-related costs, compared to 44 percent for whom that was the case in a similar survey conducted last year.
While there have been improvements in cost management, more than half of the respondents said that their IT departments are under pressure from their companies to reduce energy usage as a way to control operational expenditures.
The research revealed that a lack of coordination between IT departments and facilities management at these companies may make cutting energy costs difficult. Notably, almost 50 percent of the respondents reported not monitoring IT’s energy usage at all because utility bills fell under the purview of facilities management. Within this group, 60 percent stated that their companies lacked the processes in place to measure IT power usage.
“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,” commented Ulrich Plechschmidt, VP EMEA at Brocade.
“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 organization’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.”
On a more encouraging note, energy efficiency is an increasingly important criterion for IT purchasing decisions with power consumption being rated in the top five, following interoperability, performance, price and brand recognition. However, respondents also reported that they perceive a number of significant barriers to implementing more energy-efficient solutions including higher costs associated with more energy-efficient products; lack of viable solutions; and lack of management enthusiasm or support.
The research, conducted by specialist market research firm Vanson Bourne, polled 1,050 senior IT decision makers across the U.K., France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, BeNeLux, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Dubai and North America.
The report found have changed their operational approach in response to decreased budgets, focusing on essential maintenance and repairs and projects with fast return on investment, and canceling plans that don’t meet those criteria.
Half the IT decision makers say they are under pressure to cut energy consumption. And in half the cases, it is facilities management that owns the power bill of the IT function. When that is the situation, cooperation between facilities management and IT can be patchy, the report found.
The survey reveals that the IT department’s attitude toward power consumption is strongly influenced by whether pressure is applied at an organizational level. Nearly half of respondents (49 percent) say they are not under pressure to cut costs, while 25 percent say
Organizational efforts to cut energy use are part of a wider green policy and 26 percent say the pressure to reduce energy use is part of overall company efforts to save money.
The complete report is available for download.
Brocade develops extraordinary networking solutions that enable complex, data-intensive businesses to optimize information connectivity and maximize the business value of their data. For more information, see the company’s Web site.
