Achilles for Data Centre Energy Efficiency - Case Study

The Company

As one of the UK’s leading entertainment brands this ninety-year old company enables access to today’s music, video and popular culture through its online and high street presence.

The Business Problem

Operating in a highly competitive market and under significant pressure to cut operating costs the recent recession brought a new focus in seeking out fresh cost saving opportunities. Recent initiatives had delayed technology upgrades, reduced FTE numbers and limited new investments. Consequently, the scope for savings appeared limited without potentially affecting IT service delivery and their associative impact to business services. The promised land of major savings through virtualisation was proving hard to achieve and with energy costs rising, the impending threat of the UK’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) and data centre energy costs per square foot were fifty times that of the rest of the business, an interest in managing energy consumption was investigated.

The Solution

The advent of the 2009 EU initiative to increase energy efficiency in high energy-consuming Data Centres delivered the necessary innovation to free cash resources back to the business. Through the application of a proven assessment methodology Dimension 85 assessed the business requirements for IT, the data centre, its structure, infrastructure, people, processes and deployed IT technology against the EU’s Code of Conduct, the defacto standard on Data Centre Energy Efficiency. Through a series of interviews, onsite visits, tours and technology inspections a gap analysis between the current practices and considered best practices for energy efficiency were assessed and a comprehensive assessment produced. In addition, the report included pragmatic recommendations and outlined a long term approach that could improve energy efficiency, with a subsequent reduction in energy costs.

The Benefits

The gap analysis identified substantial opportunities for improving cost savings through the application of energy efficiency measures. The quick wins led to a reduction of energy costs of almost ten percent with a further fifteen percent achieved with some minor infrastructure modifications. The focus on energy efficiency enabled availability of new investment for technology based on the proven savings potential and the needed capacity and performance gain it delivered.