Issue link: https://cp.revolio.com/i/611691
THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 15 www.datacenterjournal.com management, thus presenting another opportunity: one for executives and data center teams to work together to improve the business overall and contribute to its profitability. Empowering folks working in the IT trenches with the ability to help chart the strategic direction of the busi- ness at large can be a powerful incentive, especially as part of a formal incentive program. Creating an effeCtive inCentive PrograM Incenting IT to reduce waste can change an organization's culture. No lon- ger responsible for just an isolated corner of the business, IT assumes accountability, its risks and its rewards. It's not about money, it's about a shared mission that promises a payoff for everyone in the organization. A basic incentive program should include the following steps: 1. Establish a baseline. You can't man- age or improve what you don't measure. Start by taking a snapshot of data center efficiency as it currently stands—before implementing any improvements. 2. Set up measurement mechanisms. Enable the monitoring and tracking of improvements over time. 3. Create a "bonus" system. Tie data center efficiency improvements and waste reduction to rewards for IT. For instance, offer professional-development upgrades, additional training or a portion of the newfound savings to help IT fund some of its "pet" projects. Building compensa- tion plans around recognized savings can be a win for both the business and the employee. generating savings to suPPort a nonProfit's Mission A nonprofit organization was look- ing for a way to control escalating costs in its data center. As a nonprofit, senior man- agement deemed it essential to preserve as much capital as possible to effectively support the organization's social mission— a purely altruistic incentive! So, of course, wringing out savings wherever possible was a no-brainer. To find and harvest the low-hanging fruit, the CIO used metrics soware to correlate and measure the amount of com- pute attached to each business unit, along with the utilization levels by department. Armed with new tools for establishing an efficiency baseline and mechanisms for tracking progress, the nonprofit can now see how much compute is being used or wasted—information that is helping the organization better understand how much it costs to deliver its applications, and where it has opportunities to further reduce costs. it anD senior ManageMent Must CollaBorate Another example is a bit more self- serving. A large online retailer that had grown by acquisition had a tremendous amount of compute capacity. And the data center team knew there was bound to be lots of hidden waste. So, the team started an initiative to identify and remove unused servers. But first it had to convince business owners that the machines were "comatose" and weren't really being used. By taking a holistic view of their servers—what they were doing and where they were doing it—IT was able to quickly identify reductions and provide solid information, proving to the department heads that massive savings were available. e incentive for undertaking such a com- plex project? For executives, the savings were clearly the draw. For IT, eliminating the headache of maintaining so much su- perfluous equipment, thereby also improv- ing security, was a satisfying reward. Meanwhile, on the Facility Side… Cutting out waste and inefficiencies in the data center also presents a strong upside for non-IT managers working on the facility side of the business. Know- ing what's running in a rack and what the servers are doing enables facility managers to do their job more effectively and decreases risk during maintenance windows. If, for example, they are working on a generator and need to take a rack off line, they know what will be affected. And it also helps managers better allocate power and cooling resources inside the data center. e incentive? A manager can play a bigger, more visible role in the busi- ness and make a bigger contribution to the bottom line (and, hopefully, be recognized for the contribution). Cutting out Waste? it's on the Cutting eDge Techies are always looking for the next Big ing. And since driving ef- ficiency at the compute and application layer is state-of-the-art technology, being ahead of the curve is a powerful incentive for hard-core IT pros. Finding a smart new way to deliver applications with next- generation efficiency is something that not everyone is doing—yet. So jumping on the IT optimization bandwagon can be a tempting proposition, and a good way to burnish one's technical credentials. Viewed from a more practical angle, removing 30 percent of unneeded serv- ers also makes it easier for IT to manage one of its main responsibilities: security. Eliminating server sprawl means fewer machines to protect. And that's a big incentive for helping accomplish a top- priority IT objective. But face it, incentive or not, nobody really likes waste, and who wants a data center where 30 percent of the servers are sitting around doing nothing? Giving IT the opportunity to work on something cutting-edge—something that will have a substantial impact on the company's bottom line and its ability to compete—is a big reward in and of itself. n about the author: Aaron Rallo is founder and CEO of TSO Logic, a global company that provides unprecedented insights and analysis into data center efficiency.