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

LONDON, March 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- Findings Reveal That a Third of Data Centre Managers are Failing to
Prioritise the Reduction of Power

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 breakdown 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 areas 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/