Schwarzenegger Calls For Data Centers To Reduce Energy Usage 30% By 2012
from the come-with-me-if-you-want-to-live dept
The Californian government is trying to halve IT expenses, from $3 billion to $1.5 billion. To do so, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order to cut energy usage from IT operations by 30% by July 2012 and to consolidate data center space by 50% a year earlier than that. The order also sets goals to increase transparency in IT spending, to standardize IT policies and to develop shared services that are currently spread out over several state agencies.
A few years ago, Schwarzenegger created a cabinet-level agency with authority over statewide IT policy, naming Teri Takai as state CIO. So with this mandate to drastically cut IT expenses, Takai will be shifting all mission-critical and public-facing applications to a new Tier III data center before this September. The state will also close all server rooms housing non-network equipment by June 2013. All existing network services plan to be migrated to a unified California Government Network by July 2010 as well. And in April, state agencies will submit quarterly reports to Takai and start documenting progress towards these goals on a public website.
For all the IT gurus out there, do these measures sound feasible? Are there opportunities for California to become even more efficient with its IT spending? Will the IT spending transparency really mean anything? Submit your comments, we’ll keep track of these developments in the future.
Comments on “Schwarzenegger Calls For Data Centers To Reduce Energy Usage 30% By 2012”
Measurement ?
How does one data center energy usage savings? Demands are growing data centers all the time, but what standard unit can we put on those demands. In the mainframe days it was demand = transactions. Today a ‘transaction’ isn’t completed by one machine, but many spread across many data centers.
We need a Kwh per x. We just need to define what x is.
Re: Measurement ?
Good point, johnjac …… that “x” unit is likely not a *single* thing that /can/ be measured. “KWH per x” will depend on the application/services… and “x” will have to correlate to things like: data center profitability, transactions, webpages served, customer satisfaction, etc, etc…
however, all those things are not easily measured and combined in a pointy-haired-boss way… so the accountants will win and just cut costs willy-nilly until something breaks. yay!
Re: Measurement ?
And all x not just define in State of California. Meanwhile the x also growing with y factor, and they have to define what is y, which not define in California, but across the globe, and so on.
Re: Re: Measurement ?
I would think its a little more simple than the above.
The easiest way would be to work on the DC’s PuE (Power Usage Efectiveness)
Havign said that though, the DC would need to have the infrastructure in place to be able to determine the power usage of the Building Infrastructre and the power usage of the IT load seperately.
In regards to being able to cut the Energy usage by 30% by 2012. This is doable depending on what technologys are in place. The use of cold aisle containment (or hot aisle) and such technologies, server virtualisation, should be able to get them to a figure close to 30% savings (assuming they are using an old hat setup currently).