Maybe 'lean' and not 'green' should be the rallying cry

We're being treated to all sorts of green data center management stats this month, which is handy, as I'm preparing a presentation for later this week. So, I'll take them one batch at a time. First up: Talked to some folks earlier this month about a joint survey released by the Business Performance Management Forum (and sponsored by BlueArc).

The study is called "Lean & Green -- Reducing IT Energy Drain for Business Gain. The link for the executive summary is here.

The cynic in me believes that data center people don't care about green stuff except maybe on a personal level. But they DO care about lean, a.k.a. saving money for their employers. So here are some intriguing highlights:

- Nearly 20 percent of the roughly 150 data center managers responding to the survey revealed that they spend more than $1 million on energy per year that is specifically related to IT-related energy consumption; 8 percent of the respondents reported plunking down more than $8 million - Close to half of the respondents said that their IT energy consumption rose last year, not great when energy costs also are rising - Almost half, or 46 percent, said they had already faced a situation in their data center where they ran out of space, had insufficient cooling or power - And, here's an optimistic finding, 20 percent of the respondents said they could save at least $100,000 by reducing server and network storage energy consumption. The bad news is that the rest of them thought they would be able to spend a lot less, which demonstrates a lack of awareness about potential solutions.

The main thought I'm left with is the following: There's some serious work to be done at these companies. I guess the good news is that the dialogue is getting started.