One of the fundamental tenets of efficient IT and its achievement is inclusion of a variety of stakeholders within IT and the data center. But it also involves engaging and understanding finance, risk and sustainability.Patrick Flynn, director of sustainability at Salesforce, is a known figure at conferences, committees and working groups. His TED Talk, Mankind’s BIGGEST Story, is a compelling reflection on infrastructure and the internet in the larger context of history and purpose. Flynn is also a key proponent of the Future of Internet Power initiative.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT is a peculiar appliance and has resisted change in the form of overall transparency and/or standardization, perhaps in part due to its unique nature.Generally speaking, IT does not have a great track record in welcoming parties to the decision-making process and even resists efforts to increase transparency. Because IT displaces or eliminates other forms of resource consumption, trying to apply efficient IT principles can invite the threshold question of ‘Why?’ Some people think, “If I can avoid an airplane trip, ride in my car, overnight delivery or firing up a printing press, isn’t that enough?”+ Also on Network World: America’s data centers are getting a lot more efficient +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT is a peculiar appliance and has resisted change in the form of overall transparency and/or standardization, perhaps in part due to its unique nature.Generally speaking, IT does not have a great track record in welcoming parties to the decision-making process and even resists efforts to increase transparency. Because IT displaces or eliminates other forms of resource consumption, trying to apply efficient IT principles can invite the threshold question of ‘Why?’ Some people think, “If I can avoid an airplane trip, ride in my car, overnight delivery or firing up a printing press, isn’t that enough?”+ Also on Network World: America’s data centers are getting a lot more efficient +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As corporate sustainability increasingly exercises influence on IT decision making, the question becomes how will it affect technology adoption trends. Will cloud adoption accelerate as result?Resources consumed
The public cloud provides a good story for corporate sustainability in its "reveal" of resources consumed.Measured resource utilization (MRU) billing can be easily converted into corporate sustainability metrics of carbon emitted or averted, the equivalent to cars off the road, etc. And with the "shared" nature of public cloud equipment, it also tells a story more akin to public transportation. Meanwhile extant enterprise IT’s reputation of low-utilization assets, comatose equipment and rate card chargebacks seem more analogous to traffic jams of one person per vehicle.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As corporate sustainability increasingly exercises influence on IT decision making, the question becomes how will it affect technology adoption trends. Will cloud adoption accelerate as result?Resources consumed
The public cloud provides a good story for corporate sustainability in its "reveal" of resources consumed.Measured resource utilization (MRU) billing can be easily converted into corporate sustainability metrics of carbon emitted or averted, the equivalent to cars off the road, etc. And with the "shared" nature of public cloud equipment, it also tells a story more akin to public transportation. Meanwhile extant enterprise IT’s reputation of low-utilization assets, comatose equipment and rate card chargebacks seem more analogous to traffic jams of one person per vehicle.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks ago, I sat on a panel hosted by CenturyLink on sustainability and efficiency in IT. At CenturyLink’s sunny Irvine, California, data center my co-panelists gathered ahead of going on stage and on camera. One of the panelists remarked that enterprise IT was dying—dying—slowly dying. But I believe this characterization is too broadly phrased and an inaccurate choice of words.The enterprise’s data center paradigm has changed irrevocably. And it will progress on its change cycle as enterprises embark on fewer new builds, and trends show that market share favors the commercial data center service providers. The paradigm of public cloud puts the sometimes outmoded ways of the enterprise data centers and legacy enterprise IT into an unfavorable light. But rest assured, there are some positive signs for enterprise IT—and good results ahead—but some changes do need to occur.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks ago, I sat on a panel hosted by CenturyLink on sustainability and efficiency in IT. At CenturyLink’s sunny Irvine, California, data center my co-panelists gathered ahead of going on stage and on camera. One of the panelists remarked that enterprise IT was dying—dying—slowly dying. But I believe this characterization is too broadly phrased and an inaccurate choice of words.The enterprise’s data center paradigm has changed irrevocably. And it will progress on its change cycle as enterprises embark on fewer new builds, and trends show that market share favors the commercial data center service providers. The paradigm of public cloud puts the sometimes outmoded ways of the enterprise data centers and legacy enterprise IT into an unfavorable light. But rest assured, there are some positive signs for enterprise IT—and good results ahead—but some changes do need to occur.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks ago, I sat on a panel hosted by CenturyLink on sustainability and efficiency in IT. At CenturyLink’s sunny Irvine, California, data center my co-panelists gathered ahead of going on stage and on camera. One of the panelists remarked that enterprise IT was dying—dying—slowly dying. But I believe this characterization is too broadly phrased and an inaccurate choice of words.
The enterprise’s data center paradigm has changed irrevocably. And it will progress on its change cycle as enterprises embark on fewer new builds, and trends show that market share favors the commercial data center service providers. The paradigm of public cloud puts the sometimes outmoded ways of the enterprise data centers and legacy enterprise IT into an unfavorable light. But rest assured, there are some positive signs for enterprise IT—and good results ahead—but some changes do need to occur.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last week, flying out of SFO northward over the verdant hills of Marin, rising above the tankers anchored off Richmond swinging with the tide and the long plumes from the Sacramento River’s inflow to the bay like ribbons unfurling in the water, I reflected on a visit that touched five Silicon Valley sustainability stakeholders in two days. Enroute to my adopted home of Seattle, I am struck with the commonality of these sessions and an early release of Uptime Institute’s 2016 Industry Survey results. (Disclosure: I work for Uptime Institute and oversee the content group there.)There are new faces at the IT table. And one of them is sustainability. Two years ago, a place at the table for sustainability would have been provocative, and perhaps evoked derision. In 2015, less than a tenth of enterprise IT stakeholders had confidence in corporate sustainability to affect IT efficiency and costs. One short year later, 2016 is a vastly different matter and the data suggests that the time of corporate sustainability in IT is here now: 70% of enterprise IT organizations actively participate in corporate sustainability efforts. The influence of an outside party breaks down the ‘thwart by silo’ effect that Continue reading
Numerous telcos, like Verizon, CenturyLink and Tata, have publicly said they are evaluating the feasibility of selling off data center assets. This seems to have created a flurry of hasty conclusions that ‘the data center is dead’.We saw this assertion previously beginning in 2012 around talk of the demise of the data center due to the rise of cloud computing. But as we know now, the cloud simply changes where the applications are running. It all goes to a data center somewhere. And it is clear in 2016 that the need for strong data center operations is as critical as ever, perhaps even more so. The decision for any organization to sell its data center assets belongs to the Chief Financial Officer. This is when getting an asset ‘off the books’ becomes a catch-all for a variety of motivations, and involves depreciation cycles, cash flow, capital reserves, and assuring shareholders that an organization is only ‘carrying’ assets that are core to its business. Be assured that these specialists are not selling data centers because they are no longer valuable to their business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Julian Kudritzki