The C Suite versus Data Center Management

Thursday, 20 May 2010 01:24

Written by Jeff Clark

Demand for IT services is continually increasing; even the recent economic downturn has not stopped this demand. In addition, however, the price of energy is increasing. These and other conditions have caused significant stress between IT or data center management and the so-called C suite (CEO, CFO, and CIO). The tensions among different senior-level managers often arise out of differing goals and differing concerns or priorities.

According to Michael Rowan of Virtual Strategy Magazine (“The Future of Data Center Energy Management”), “operational energy costs are now approaching and will [soon] exceed capital expenses” in data centers. The expenses associated with energy are thus becoming a potentially severe limiter of the amount of service a data center can provide. IT service is less becoming simply a matter of the initial capital expenses of the server and infrastructure equipment and is more becoming a matter of the energy costs associated with operating that equipment. Thus, different management areas in a company—each of which has its own goals and priorities—can come into conflict with regard to the increasing need for funds to feed IT facilities. According to Rowan, the energy cost situation is likely to result in “actual data center power costs and the budget for the data center [being] moved explicitly under the CIO.”
Data center management may, however, be less concerned about the financial aspects and more concerned about the demand for services. For companies that depend heavily on these services, budget constraints are seldom a satisfactory response to complaints about a lack of timely, dependable service. On the other hand, the C suite is interested (at least in part) in the company’s bottom line, which, for many companies, is suffering an increasing drain owing to IT costs (and, in particular, energy). Rowan believes that part of the solution to this problem is improved monitoring and data collection with regard to energy use: specifically, he foresees the need for a “new level of comprehensive data center tools that go far beyond today’s products that simply collect and report data from power and heat sensors.”

In addition to the disconnect between the C suite and IT management, a third group—facilities—has its own goals and priorities and can often find itself in conflict with the previous two. CIO.com (“Chasm Between IT and Facilities is Growing”) claims that this disconnect is a current problem whose magnitude is increasing. The article cites a number of instances in which companies have lost a significant amount of money owing to a lack of communication between facilities and IT management. The article’s author attributed some of the problem to a lack of proper knowledge or attention on the part of IT management with regard to the costs of the operation under its guidance: “I was surprised by how little IT leaders knew about their real data center costs, and I suggested that these leaders would do well to talk to their facilities people to understand better where their money was going.” Needless to say, then, a significant part of the disconnect between facilities and IT management (and, no doubt, between these groups and the C suite) could be ameliorated through better communication.

According to ZDNet (“The Necessary Convergence of IT and Facilities — Bringing the two groups together under one unified process”), another part of the problem is that facilities and IT “typically report into different parts of the organization.” As a result, collaboration between the groups to increase energy efficiency or to improve infrastructure is difficult. An article from eWeek.com (“IT and Facilities Try to Get in Step”) voices similar concerns, noting that IT management focuses almost solely on the IT aspects of the data center, whereas facilities must consider the infrastructure not only of the data center, but of the entire organization. Once again, however, improved communication is, no doubt, part of the solution. Nevertheless, simply talking is not sufficient—each group (facilities, IT management, and the C suite) must take heed of each other’s concerns. To be sure, this is not a simple solution, although the elements of it are conceptually simple. Each group has its own set of concerns, which are likely sufficient to fill up the day—adding additional considerations is unlikely to be palatable to any group. Making the extra effort to bridge the gap that has formed between these groups, however, can potentially have significant financial and logistical benefits for companies.

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