Green is the Color of Money

When we started on our 'green tech' campaign and coverage across CyberMedia's

publications last year, we held a CIO meet across three metros.

There, I asked the CIOs question: do you have any energy-related activities

or measures in your performance objectives? Are you involved in reducing your

company's electricity bill?

There were almost no “ayes”. A few were “interested” in reducing their data

center power consumption, but there were no concrete plans. And no CIO-not even

one-had any idea what the electricity bill was for his IT equipment or data

center, let alone for the organization.

What a change in a year.

Two months ago when we repeated this CIO Summit series on Green Tech, a third

of the CIOs had energy somewhere in their performance objectives, and a few even

knew their electricity bills--and had reduction targets.

Last month when I sat on the Nasscom-CNBC user awards jury, and asked CIOs of

the major telcos and financial institutions some rapid-fire questions about

energy, it was an even better record. They had energy right on top of mind, with

figures for expenses, reduction targets, and 'green' investments to hand.

(Banks, flush with funds, have traditionally been unconcerned about power bills,

with their network of under-utilized ATMs guzzling up air-con and utility power

and diesel. Things are changing.)

Prasanto K Roy, president, ICT Publishing Group, CyberMedia, pkr@cybermedia.co.in

The telcos were way ahead, and with good reason. Energy costs were a fifth of

revenues, in some cases crossing thousands of crores. With huge energy costs,

both centralized and distributed, and paying high commercial rates for utility

power and rising diesel bills in most locations for backup... well, energy is

make-or-break.

Here's some of the things they were doing, which would be really worth your

while to think about, if you're a CIO of a mid size or larger company. Or even a

small company. Or even a cash-rich bank. (Just kidding. Banks don't have cash

any more):

• Adding up the bills: If you've got multiple sites and operations, add it
  
  all up and get a fix on what your total power bill is.
• Measuring: Put in power meters for key operations, including your data
  
  center. Break up that bill and see where the heaviest costs are.
• Add the cost of backup power. That's an opex cost (usually diesel) but
  
  more significantly, a capex cost (all that equipment: UPS, batteries,
  
  generators, switches, cabling...)
• Add the cost of cooling, especially tackling heat from extra-power-hungry
  
  sources like old-style servers and CRT monitors. Work out how much you can
  
  save with lower power devices.
• Work out the investment required for greener tech. Make a practical
  
  roadmap. For instance, you may not want to replace all CRTs in one go, but
  
  define that all new monitors will be LCD.
• Do rough calculations to work out what areas you need to focus on, and go
  
  into depth on the big ones.
• Don't stop at IT. Look at facilities, and beyond. You may have a
  
  facilities or admin department looking at that, but you can bet your bottom
  
  byte that they're not measuring energy wasted, or potential savings, using
  
  low-power lights or natural light.

In 2009, energy is the biggest cost many sectors will grapple with: telecom,

services, banking. Many will discover they don't even have a manager looking at

this area. Here's the big opportunity for the one C-level executive who has

access to the right information: the CIO.