Cloud, On-demand, Power, and (In)Efficiencies

As the adoption of Cloud IT shifts a rapidly-increasing percentage of enterprise workloads out of on-premise data centers, and as the scale of Cloud increases and improves the scalability and efficiencies of IT usage within enterprises, it’s easy to believe that Cloud IT is inherently “green” and efficient. Recent news and opinion pieces in the business and trade media, including blogs posts and a recent New York Times article, take issue with this assumption.

A recent Strategic Perspective from Saugatuck takes a matter-of-fact look at the situation by examining and describing how, where, and why data centers are inherently inefficient when it comes to power. The bottom line is that on-demand IT requires a significant, dedicated amount of resources waiting to be used, which makes on-demand inherently inefficient on the production side.

But efficiencies can be improved. User enterprises can benefit from detailed guidance by Cloud IT providers in planning their operational environments, their facilities, and the systems management tools that coordinate them. Skilled planning (e.g., understanding the true operational power and cooling loads for equipment) coupled with ongoing project coordination (i.e., help the disjoint groups, above, work effectively together) will be recognized (and rewarded) as a truly high-value offering.

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Charlie Burns

Charlie Burns is a Vice President for Saugatuck Technology, focusing on enterprise software, business/IT services, and IT systems technologies and management. With over 35 years of experience in the Information Technology arena, Charlie is an established expert in IT product and marketing management, and in IT user issues and requirements.
After 26 years with IBM, where he held positions in sales, product development and large systems product marketing, Charlie left to become Research Director at Gartner Group in 1993. In 1998 he joined Giga Information Group as Research VP. At both Gartner and Giga, he focused on large systems and the business practices of the major large systems vendors. In 2000, Charlie rejoined Gartner in a relationship management role responsible for two of its largest vendor clients.
Charlie received a BS in Computer Engineering from Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio. Over the years, he attended a variety of IBM technical and research training programs, becoming an adjunct professor focusing on product management issues.

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