"Need For Intelligent Energy Solutions More Acute In India"

Organisations today need to adopt energy saving technologies in their datacentres, to cope up with the competitive and operational challenges. IBM has launched various campaigns and solutions to use energy in a more cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally -sustainable way. Jyoti Satyanathan, VP, Systems, STG, IBM India/ South Asia elaborates on the need to use energy saving technologies and IBM’s offerings in the Intelligent Energy Saving space.

How important is it for present day datacentres to adopt energy saving technologies?

Present day organisations are not only facing competitive as well as operational challenges. It is the operational cost through which these business houses can cut their cost to remain cost effective. There are three major business challenges these organisations are facing with regard to data centre management.

Reducing energy requirements is the major concern before them. Many datacentre layouts and operational procedures are not designed to support high density technologies which increase technology failure due to thermal events.

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The second one is business resiliency. Legacy datacentres may not have the design, build, infrastructure or location characteristics to support emerging regulatory and business energy requirements. Other current environments might not be optimised for resiliency across the corporation with multiple datacentres due to acquisitions and geographical expansions.

Last but not the least is the datacentre cost. Operational costs are shifting from technology to power costs including additional energy requirements or demand spikes. Additionally, current datacentre design and builds may limit ability to use new efficient technologies such as server consolidation.

Could you throw some light on the present energy crisis scenario in India?

In India, the need for intelligent energy solutions is more acute than many other nations. As per IDC, IT spending in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow by 52% to reach $162.5 billion by 2010 and this growth is driven by India in addition to China. However, our country is already facing an energy crisis. According to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), at the current annual generation capacity of 1, 30,000 MW, we face a shortage of nearly 9% with peak load deficits being higher at 10-11% and it will only get worse.

It is important that Indian organisations start taking this problem seriously and make the appropriate investments so that their energy spends can keep pace with their growth. The Green datacentre offerings can help conserve energy and cut a typical datacentre cost by half. In addition, they can protect the environment by reducing emissions that amount to taking 1300 automobiles off the road.

What are the technologies offered by IBM in the Intelligent Energy Saving space?

IBM’s Intelligent Energy Campaign, launched in 2007, aims to establish that major innovations are at hand which will radically increase the ability of consumers and enterprises to discover, produce, manage, and use energy in a more cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally-sustainable way. There are four central themes to the campaign. They are IBM’s Client Innovations in Energy, IBM’s Application of Technology and Services for Energy Efficiency, IBM’s Activities with Energy Influencers and IBM’s Story: Our Environmental Efforts at Big Blue.

Currently, datacentre owners that are considering energy efficiency investments have to check multiple sources to determine which financial incentives might be available to help them improve energy efficiency in their operations. IBM is developing a Web-enabled clearinghouse to provide incentives and programmes available from local utility companies, governments and other participating agencies. The Energy Efficiency Incentive Finder will be available to all datacentre owners, even if they do not own IBM hardware. IBM has already started working on all the four areas of IBM’s Intelligent Energy Campaign in India.

Could you elaborate on “Project Big Green”?

IBM announced “Project Big Green” in India in June 2007. The initiative includes new products and services for IBM and its clients to sharply reduce datacentre energy consumption, transforming the world’s business and public technology infrastructures into “green” datacentres. IBM launched this initiative as part of the global Intelligent Energy campaign, aimed at helping economies cope with the existing and impending energy crisis. IBM has also announced that it will redirect $ 1 billion a year, globally, across its businesses to mobilise the company’s resources to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in IT. IBM is using its expertise and energy smart technology innovations to outline a five-step approach that is designed to dramatically improve energy efficiency for clients. These five steps are diagnose, build, virtualise, manage and cool through which datacentre managers could set up their datacentre and handle challenges.