Data centre managers in the dark over power consumption

Over half (55 per cent) of data centre managers are not aware of their monthly power bill costs, according to a new survey released today.

And 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, according the research published by Global DataCenter Management (GDCM) and carried out by analyst firm, Quocirca.

Quocirca analyst Dennis Szubert 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."

The research said that, as one of the most power hungry areas of a business, organisations should be able to accurately manage their power data centre consumption before they can claim to be truly green.

But the research also found almost half (47 per cent) of organisations do not measure server utilisation levels, 28 per cent of data centre managers do not even know the exact number of servers they have and almost a third (30 per cent) are not aware of all devices on their network.

Some 54 per cent of the 301 UK, US and European data centre managers surveyed lacked the incentive to reduce power consumption levels within the data centre because power costs are not included in their overall IT budgets and profit and loss figures.

"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," added Szubert.

"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."

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