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June 17, 2009I've just listened to Gartner's presentation on the top technology trends for the next several years and am happy to report that the trend towards better managing resources including energy and other environmental aspects is high on the priority list. In addition, the trends toward better integration between facilities and IT departments is a critical success factor in many cases. Here is a quick summary of the trends Gartner has identified with a particular focus on the green perspective.
1. Virtualization - there are more opportunities than just server virtualization and all fit well into a green IT strategy for better allocating resources and reducing power and cooling requirements.
According to Gartner, virtualization for desktops is not expected to reduce the capacity required. I found this interesting and believe they are really talking about version 1.0 of virtualized desktops. I would guess that once we have the technology figured out, we will most definitely find ways to reduce the amount of dedicated resources needed for an individual.
2. Data deluge - continuous growth in both internal and external creation of data, management practices do not support proper handling
Gartner reports that data will grow by 650% in the next 5 years and most (80%) will be video, audio, image and similar files. Gartner also reports that most of this data is untouched after 90 days and yet it is treated with the same backup and recovery policies as mission critical data. Records management and archival processes need to match the requirements for this significant growth of non-mission critical data. Although storage may be cheap, the power and cooling are not. As supply gets tight, management practices will need to significantly tighten.
3. Energy and Green IT - should already be doing something about this
Most significantly, Garnet discussed the need for integration and communication not only between internal facilities and IT groups but also external vendors and service providers. The trend to toward CSR reporting in organizations is cited as a significant driver for organization to get informed and aware of the footpring both in carbon emissions and costs in order to drive both downwards. I recommend completing a green IT audit in order to measure your baseline and find the highest leverage activities.
4. Consumerization and Social Software - appplying consumer-oriented social software to business.
As you might guess, Twitter is the faster growing social network and organizations are still working out how it applies in corporations. According to Gartner, 2010 will be the year to address this as there will a shake out and new developments around preferences for social networks. In many cases, it is a matter of evaluating consumer products, applying appropriate risk mitigation strategies and using them to leverage conversations internally and externally. This is a great way to build informal repositories of information that can be filtered to track behavior and attitudes of employees and customers.
5. Unified communications - rationalization needed.
Gartner predicts the next step is to rationalize all the channels we currently have for communicating into a more consistent and coherent set of standard technologies. However, this will take a while given the variety of vendors and technologies converging into this space. Gartner anticipates this shake out will have in the 2011 to 2013 time frame. From a green IT perspective, we would hope that the number of devices required to keep on top of communications will decrease. The fewer devices we have to purchase, manage, power, and recycle will be better for the environment. Especially if standards are developed that can reduce the proliferation of variants and marketing hype around new gadgets.
6. Mobile & Wireless - delivery of apps requires significant server power.
While there are still a number of limitations (such security, access, management tools, keyboards and fragmentation in market), it is inevitable that providing applications through mobile devices will continue to develop quickly. This will require more server capacity and again increase the demand for computing power in data centers. Gartner also predicts that this will be the next target space for virtualization and that this trend applies to 2010 - 2012 time frame.
7. Complex Resource Tracking - getting information needed to create KPIs.
It is clear now that data centers will need to track more than just the assets, computing power and storage capacity. Power and cooling now need to be tracked real-time in order to help manage capacity and demand allocation. Of course, key performance indicators are needed in order to deliver results. Gartner predicts that this area will develop to relative maturity in the 2011-2013 timeframe. Again in this area there is a confluence of IT and facilities functions. From a green IT perspective, it is critical to provide the information necessary to empower organizations to actively optimize both assets and power consumption.
8. System Density - power consumption per square foot has spiked.
Partly as a result of virtualization, data centers are now able to pack more into a rack. According to Garnter a single rack can now cost upwards of $105,000. In addition there are new vendors coming into server/storage space as a result of integration with telecommunications and infrastructure. Apparently, data centers are now being built to provided 250 kw/sq ft, whereas not long ago it was 25kw/sq ft.
In this section, I was most surprised by the statement that many organizations that virtualize 'forget' to turn off and decommission the servers being replaced and they are left running idle. Is this what happens in your organization? Are there other reasons for keeping the old servers running?
9. Mashups (dashboards) and Enterprise Portals - combining multiple sources into a single interface.
Mashups are websites or web pages that combine data from multiple sources (sources could be internal or external or both). There are many opportunities within the green IT space to combine information from corporate social responsibility and financial reporting systems into the IT performance measures in order to bring together financial and environmental performance.
10. Cloud Computing - "a style of computing where you have scalable and elastic IT -enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to customers using Internet technologies"
The theory behind cloud computing is that we will be better able to match resources with variable demand without holding higher capacity. This should reduce requirement for dedicated equipment and therefore reduce requirements overall. There are still many management risks that are currently being worked out such as security, jurisdiction, service levels, governments access, and network reliability. From a green IT perspective, this holds a lot of promise and is one step further into better managing shared resources. By this I mean that we are advancing to a state in IT where we are no longer holding on to dedicated equipment and looking more at how we can meet society's computing requirements as aggregates.
All images are the property of Gartner and are sourced from the webinar presentation "Technology trends you can't afford to ignore." Visit the Gartner website for more information.
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