How to Reduce Energy Consumption in IT Operations

dotmagazine: Why is it important for companies to reduce energy consumption in IT operations right now?

Philippe Strübbe: We know from our various customers in environments such as Internet and service providers as well as carriers and utilities that there are also growing needs outside of social responsibility.

The EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) for data centers, for example, stipulates that energy consumption attributable to customers must be disclosed from 1 July 2024. This reinforces the mega-trend of IT sustainability as an increasingly important decision-making factor for providers. The provider energy balance will ultimately be included in the customer’s ESG report.

Ultimately, however, the provider’s energy mix, costs, and the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) value simply remain the biggest factors for differentiating yourself from the competition in terms of price. Especially in times of soaring electricity prices and rapidly increasing computing and energy-intensive AI workloads.

For customers in colo or on-prem data centers, capacities including electricity, are fixed for years. But ever-more-powerful systems are required, creating a delta that can ultimately lead to an expensive move or costly expansions. More powerful devices that are also more efficient prevent this and allow the planned cage utilization to continue. The investment, therefore, saves money in the long term, especially in the new age of AI.

What advice do you have for companies? How should they increase efficiency and reduce energy consumption?

Strübbe: Examples include the consolidation of servers and the virtualization of IT resources in order to optimize capacity utilization and save energy. Furthermore, as described above, companies should use energy-efficient hardware and devices that increase energy efficiency. Energy management systems can also help to identify and utilize potential savings.

Nomios Germany advises customers holistically in close co-operation with leading manufacturer partners such as Arista Networks or Juniper Networks. After all, the new AI workloads also bring new requirements in terms of “green IT”.

Should companies rely on renewable energy sources for their IT operations?

Strübbe: Here too, the German Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG) provides a clear answer for data centers: data centers in Germany must cover their electricity consumption with electricity from renewable sources. Since January 2024, 50 percent and from 1 January 2027, even 100 percent.

However, the use of renewables also has an impact on the importance of “Germany” as a data center location. We can set a focus here and catch up with leading regions such as Sweden or Norway.

It is exciting to see that IT could also play a role in the energy transition as a whole in the future. It is conceivable that the scaling of workloads could balance out grid fluctuations and support the necessary grid stability. These approaches are conceivable for computing-intensive but not time-critical AI workloads, for example.

Are there ways to reduce energy consumption through automation? What could concrete measures look like here?

Strübbe: Yes, automation can be an effective method of reducing energy consumption in IT. One example is the automation of resource management. By implementing tools, companies can ensure that only the required resources are active and that unused resources are automatically shut down. Automated load balancing mechanisms provide additional support here. Intelligent cooling systems based on sensors and automation technologies also offer an effective solution for saving energy.

How can companies raise awareness of energy efficiency in the IT team? Should the topic be “top of mind” in all processes?

Strübbe: We have the impression that engineers, in particular, are very interested in this and are actively pushing the topic within their company. Together with our manufacturer partners, we want to actively support this positive attitude and advise on all technological innovations and their individual ROI for the entire business.

IT has already changed so much in society for the better - for example with its open-source concepts. This is why we are sure that it will also prevail in terms of sustainability.

Philippe Strübbe has been helping IT companies to grow for over 10 years. Before working for Nomios, he played a key role in initiating a worldwide NVIDIA partnership for a GPU cloud service provider, ran repositioning projects for several renowned tech companies and found a new approach to selling Kubernetes before it became hyped. In his previous life, Philippe worked in advertising as an internationally awarded creative and strategic director.