Why Governments will affect Energy Efficiency more than Gartner

In October 2010, at it’s conference in Orlando, Gartner Inc presented it’s vision for 2011 and beyond. Although there are no surprises about Cloud Computing being in the number one slot, the loss of absence Green IT or any label relating to energy efficiency has not gone unnoticed.

The cynical view is that there is insufficient funding for Gartner to place this topic in the top ten and new money is being targeted on emerging and wider interest technologies. However absence from the top ten may be recognition that a maturity in the energy efficiency and sustainability agenda is occurring and with many high profile data centre’s claiming success in lowering their PUE’s there may be some truth in this argument.

Undoubtedly some new technologies will become mainstream in 2011 and beyond, especially those involved in driving pervasive business models, such as mobile applications, media tablets and ubiquitous computing and with Google et al also predicting explosive growth in the mobile computing business over the next few years, the topics for conversation almost pick themselves.

However, it is not without merit that Cloud Computing has remained at the top of the pile. As a disruptive and evolving computing model it is the core technology that many of the other strategic technologies will operate on. It is also a highly lucrative arena in which many of the world’s biggest IT vendors and manufacturers, such as, but not limited to, IBM, EMC, HP, Dell, Oracle, Google, Amazon and many more are investing considerable capital to ensure success in.

The concept of only using the resources needed, thus optimising energy consumption is inherent in Cloud Computing but this is not the same as energy efficiency or energy reduction. However vendors are currently abound with solutions that can help with both of these. Furthermore the intervention of Governments around the world is beginning to gain corporate interest, making energy management a priority by default.

Although free air cooling and other strategies deliver highly valued cost savings, once these benefits have been accrued it is likely that governance and compliance to emerging standards will have an increasing influence in future energy efficiency initiatives.

Dimension 85 specialises in Data Centre Energy Efficiency Management.  and carbon reduction training in the data centre and wider ICT domain; You can contact Dimension 85 on the Dimension 85 website.