Can Green IT Bloom in an Economic Downturn? (Market Focus)

Table of Contents

OVERVIEW

• Catalyst
• Summary

INTRODUCTION TO GREEN IT

• Green IT is gaining relevancy in challenging economic conditions
• Defining what constitutes green IT
• Green IT remains on the business agenda
  • A paradigm shift in defining green IT
  • Vendors are being legislated to adopt green IT
  • Green IT vendors are motivated by cost
  • Green IT is largely recession-proof among end-user organizations

• A bad economy is a boon for cost-positive green IT
  • The economic conditions have propelled a paradigm shift for green IT
  • IT budgets are flat

• Organizations are turning to green capex alternatives
  • Most organizations are not budgeting for datacenter management spend in the short to medium term

• Green RoI models are becoming compulsory and shorter
  • Categorical cost analysis is essential to green IT yet is often overlooked

• The greening of new datacenters will slow with the economy
• Case study: Harnessing wind from the North Sea cools a green datacenter
• Hardware vendors lead the market with green IT go-to-market visibility
  • Vendors are tackling datacenter cooling issues with varied initiatives

THE IT LANDSCAPE IS GROWING GREENER

• Datacenters remain rich with green IT possibilities
• Managing costs to ‘keep the lights on' also behooves a green IT strategy
  • Datacenter power utilization continues to rise
  • Measuring power usage effectiveness is gaining traction
  • Green motives are less of a driver for datacenter energy-efficiency projects in 2009
  • Datacenter cooling is an obvious target for power reduction

• Maximizing datacenter utilization reduces costs and carbon emissions
• Virtualization is moving into greener fields
• Virtualization is becoming more holistic
  • Business applications are the next frontier of datacenter virtualization

• Datacenter virtualization is heading towards the cloud
  • Confusion abounds over what constitutes cloud computing

The cloud is theoretically green Vendors are not pushing the green cloud message  yet

• Datacenter virtualization enables cost-effective, greener hardware refresh cycles
  • Hardware refresh cycles are being pushed back
  • New RoI models for green IT must evolve

• Client devices' lifecycle cost moves beyond being a green issue
  • Greener client device displays are more cost effective
  • Client power management is a quick green fix for budget-challenged IT departments
  • Replacing desktops with greener notebooks yields quick results

• Environmental agendas are important yet do not drive remote working

TAKING GREEN IT TO MARKET

• Case study: IBM and the green, modular, moveable datacenter
• Case study: Hewlett-Packard centralizes, optimizes and consolidates disparate datacenters
• Case study: Sun sheds light on green cloud computing
• Case study: Cisco TelePresence meets RoI challenge
• Case study: Dell delivers on energy-efficiency and minimal packaging

THE GREENING OF ASSET LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

• Green IT manufacturing is becoming more cost effective
  • Global regulations necessitate environmental standards by individual vendors
  • Green packaging is a cost-effective vendor strategy

• Organizations lease more IT assets in a tough economy
  • Leasing ensures green asset disposal

• Vendors recoup the highest margins for the most green end-of-life asset management

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Action points for green IT vendors
• Action points for enterprise IT decision makers

DATAMONITOR OPINION

• Now is the time for green IT investment
• Green IT vendors stand to benefit from the downturn
• Green IT is becoming synonymous with cost-effective IT

APPENDIX

• Acronyms and Definitions
• Methodology
• Further reading
• Ask the analyst
• Datamonitor consulting
• Disclaimer

FIGURES

• Figure: Green IT encompasses various technologies
• Figure: Lowered demand for cost-negative green IT is outweighed by demand for cost-positive green IT
• Figure: Most organizations do not believe the economy will affect their green IT positions
• Figure: Cost-positive green IT is most likely to be adopted in a downturn
• Figure: IT budgets will largely remain flat in 2010
• Figure: Most IT decision makers do not plan short- to medium-term investments in datacenter management
• Figure: About half of organizations use or already have datacenter management IT
• Figure: Hardware vendors are viewed as having the best green IT strategies
• Figure: Moving to green datacenters enables financial, operation and environmental benefits
• Figure: Organizations' datacenter power utilization is sharply increasing
• Figure: A green agenda has become less of a driver for datacenter energy-efficiency projects
• Figure: Datacenter infrastructure consumes more energy than server processors
• Figure: For flexible working solutions, reducing carbon emissions rates as average importance
• Figure: Environmental benefit is not a key driver for flexible working solutions
• Figure: Vendors recoup the highest margins on end-of-life inventory from retail sales