CHAPTER 2: THE GREEN IT PROCESS

In order for management to effectively and efficiently support the direction set forth by the board, a process must be defined. Given the topic at hand, we will identify this as the “Green IT” process. By formalizing this process, it allows for a proper understanding of inputs, outputs, roles and responsibilities, workflows, metrics, and so on.

Furthermore, by implementing a process, we can leverage quality management disciplines to continuously improve and better support the organization.

The goal of Green IT

The goal is for IT to support the green objectives of the organization as defined by the board and/or a corporate social responsibility management group. Without this context, IT may be operating with the best intentions but fail in moving the organization towards its goals.

The goals of the process and how it is wielded must be from the perspective of how IT supports the relevant functional area objectives that all roll up to support the organization’s goals. For example, if a green objective for the sales organization is to reduce travel by 20%, then what services such as remote presentations and collaboration can IT provide to help reduce travel?

Roles and responsibilities

A vital task early on is to establish high-level roles and responsibilities. By establishing who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed (RACI) for the process and sub-processes, ambiguity can be removed and the design of the process begun.

At the level of the main Green IT process, there are three unique roles that need to be established.

Green IT process owner

A process owner needs to be identified who is a sufficiently senior manager with adequate political clout in the organization to sponsor the process and foster compliance as well at all levels. In the case of Green IT, its pervasive need requires a very senior sponsor and in many organizations it should be the CIO who is ultimately accountable for the attainment of objectives set forth by senior management for IT and Green IT specifically.

Green IT process manager

The second role is that of the process manager. This person is responsible for the day-to-day operation of Green IT, the creation and distribution of management information, performance of assessments, coordination of activities and so forth.

Green IT steering committee

The third role relates to membership in the Green IT steering committee. This decision-making body includes stakeholders from IT and the business. The committee is responsible for the development of the Green IT policy, oversight of functional area objectives within IT relating to Green IT, monitoring progress and recommending corrective actions that the respective process owner or departmental manager can then mandate.

In some organizations, this group may be involved with standards. Larger organizations will need this group operating at a higher-level to co-ordinate objectives within each functional area that is accountable for resource utilization and actions necessary to accomplish the objectives set forth.

Overall, Green IT must work through other processes and functional areas to mutually achieve objectives in order to be successful and sustainable. This will require skilled negotiators who are adept at fostering both organizational and technical change.

Green IT sub-processes

The Green IT process provides the necessary context within which to identify inputs, outputs, and measures at a high-level. Within the overarching Green IT process are sub-processes that have their own unique objectives, roles, tasks and so forth that support the enablement of the main Green IT process.

The sub-processes are as follows:

Green IT policy management

Based on the green goals of the organization, the Green IT steering committee must establish how best to support the organization and formalize management’s intent into an overarching Green IT policy and then integration into other policies.

As the policy is developed potential impacts to IT services must be factored in. Once the policy is approved and put into production, changes to process and IT service strategies and designs must be implemented as well by the various IT service and process owners.

After the initial creation of the policy, the Green IT steering committee will be responsible for ongoing maintenance of the policy.

Green architecture and standards management

Based on IT policies in support of the organization’s green direction, architecture and standards need to be developed within each functional area of IT and applied at an enterprise level where appropriate.

Existing bodies such as the technical management function and the IT operations management function should be involved in the establishment and promulgation of Green IT standards.

Furthermore, when new IT services are being architected or changes to existing services planned, these same groups should be engaged to provide guidance and approve designs.

If the existing service development life cycle (SDLC) or project management methodology do not support phase gates that require architecture review, then those methodologies need to be revised to allow for such.

New and revised services need to take Green IT standards into account before being approved for development and, ultimately, promotion to production. The need for integration with other processes will be covered in the next chapter.

IT functional area objective management

This sub-process is explicitly defined to ensure that the IT functional area objectives properly support the green goals of the organization and the green objectives of other functional areas.

Mapping of the goal and objective relationships should be conducted to verify alignment. Objectives set forth by the data center and facilities management should be in support of objectives set forth by senior IT management and, in turn, those IT objectives should support the organization’s goals.

All too frequently the causal relationships between top-level organizational goals are lost as objectives are set for lower and lower levels of the organization. By formally mapping relationships, management can verify that proper linkages exist and that goals and objectives are in alignment.

Green IT assessments

Assessments are formally scheduled and planned review activities are intended to identify areas of potential improvement based on changes in the business, technology landscape, etc.

The scope and method of assessments needs to be formally defined. For example, assessment scope can be set at the service or component level and then executed methodically by physical location of the data center, within the data center, by IT services, and so forth.

The assessment method should be a review of stored configurations in the configuration management system (CMS), a review of paper records, manual inspection of systems, or a combination thereof using statistical sampling methods.

Sample areas to assess include:

•  Ghost systems – these are systems that were valid at one time but have since been abandoned. They aren’t creating value but are still consuming electricity, and incurring operating and support costs. They should be identified and appropriately decommissioned. Furthermore, the reason they are still operating should be investigated and corrective actions taken to prevent the creation of ghosts in the future.

•  Consolidation opportunities – most servers are running underutilized. Average server utilization figures range from six-20% depending on the study³. The point is that many servers are dramatically underutilized,can be consolidated and unnecessary servers should be decommissioned. This is true for storage systems as well.

•  Virtualization opportunities – the ability to increase computing density and reduce the number of physical servers while improving the potential for management, are the powerful promises virtualization can bring⁴.

•  Power variation – involves reviewing power consumption and comparing the formally approved power level for the configuration item (CI) in question against actual consumption levels and investigating variations that exceed set parameters – both on the high and low demand sides. The cause of the variation needs to be understood and mitigated appropriately.

•  Policies and standards variance – situations wherein CIs (hardware, software, processes, documentation, contracts, etc.) no longer conform to current standards should be identified and corrective actions reviewed. Actions may include disciplinary actions, replacement with new technology or the CI placed on a “non-conformance watch list” that identifies the non-conformance and that action is needed when cost justifiable.

•  Technology opportunities – these are situations wherein there is new technology that can be utilized to reduce costs and risks. In these cases, business cases should be developed and reviewed to determine if a change makes business sense.

The previously listed areas are examples. Assessments should have objectives and be formally designed to focus efforts accordingly to support the objectives.

Continuous process improvement

The Green IT process needs to be implemented in a logical manner that ensures the efforts are sustainable. As time passes, many elements in the environment will change including: the green strategy of the organization, technology, regulation, the direction of the firm, knowledge of Green IT, and so forth. As a result, the Green IT policy and process must be formally reviewed at least annually plus after any major organizational changes such as mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, radical technical change, etc.

The process must evolve to support the organization over time. When revisions to the process are necessary, they should be formally reviewed and rolled out via the change management and release and deployment management processes.

³ For example, the McKinsey study identified a six per cent average server utilization.“Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency– McKinsey/Institute Report Released”, Will Forrest, Podcast and PowerPoint at the Uptime Institute, http://www.uptimeinstitute.org.

⁴  Virtualization is another means of consolidating devices. The distinction between the two is made as it is possible to consolidate without the use of virtual machine technology.