According to a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency, the IT industry consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours in 2006, -- about 1.5% of the total electricity consumed in the United States -- at a cost of about $4.5 billion, and power consumption in the industry could nearly double by 2011.
A recent study by OnStor reveals that 63% percent of the respondents reported that their data center had run out of space, power or cooling capacity without warning. Another alarming statistic was that although the power consumption of an enterprise's data center is massive, 40% of respondents have not discussed a green initiative within their company; 60% reported that they had a green initiative in place, would have one in place in the next two years, or had at least talked about it with management.
Other significant results from the survey:
- At their current data growth rate, 43% of respondents could stay in their current infrastructure for only six months to one year if they changed nothing
- 24% reported that the cost and time of building another data center is the most serious issue driving the reduction of data infrastructure power consumption
- Nearly 40% would go green if doing so resulted in 20-50% cost savings
- More than one third would go green for 10-20% cost savings
- Half of respondents favor service-level agreements (SLAs) and chargebacks to IT disciplines for power and capacity consumption, but only half of them either have implemented these policies or know they will be doing so
- 11% report interest in creating a chief energy officer position in their organization
For more information, visit http://www.onstor.com
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