Published: February 08 2012, 11:50 AM | no comments
by Cynthia Curtis

I often have discussions with colleagues from other businesses about the fact that they would like to start reporting on their carbon emissions and energy usage, but it seems like a daunting challenge. My advice to them is always the same: Just Do It! CA Technologies has been reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) on our energy usage since 2006 (CDP reporting questionnaire #4), and during that time we’ve come a long way – both in terms of our ability to gather data and information, and our ability to create actionable, value-creating projects as a result of that information. However, we wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are now if we hadn’t taken the first step. While every business is different and each organization needs to customize this effort to their own particular situation and operating methodology, here are some detail about how started the ball rolling, how we’ve progressed over time and some things we’ve learned.

Gather what you can, identify what you don’t know
When the CA Technologies board decided to report with the CDP for the first time in 2006, Brett Prochazka, CA Technologies Senior Principal of Facilities Services, was tasked with the project.  As he explains it, “We didn’t know what we didn’t know.  We were starting with nothing, so as a technology and software company, we went where we thought we could get the most detailed information – the energy bills from various offices.We quickly learned that, for a variety of reasons, there was not as much detail there as we had hoped.” 

“Only eight offices out of 150 plus locations could provide us with the monthly energy usage details by kilowatt/hour that we needed to make our initial estimates. But that is what we had, so that is what we went with. We took the kw/hr rate for those locations, identified the kilowatt per square foot burn rate in each office, averaged it out and multiplied that by the square footage of the entire enterprise to identify the number kilowatts we consumed. We then translated this into carbon emissions and we had our first number. It wasn’t the most sophisticated method; however we learned a tremendous amount in the process and identified areas for future improvement. A key lesson we took away from this initial effort was transparency.  Be very clear about your methods, be upfront about the fact that you’re going to make mistakes, and keep everything in the open. This way nobody can accuse you of greenwashing.”

Improve over time
Since this initial foray, we’ve made sustainability a key tenet of CA Technologies corporate culture and as a result have been dedicated to continuing to improve our reporting capabilities.  Some of the areas where we’ve progressed include: 

Number of offices reporting:  We’ve continued to identify offices that can provide detailed energy usage information to improve our visibility. We now have 56 out of 134 locations reporting on a monthly basis (a number of locations have been consolidated). These locations represent about 85% of the total square footage in the company.

Emissions factors:  We started taking emission factors into consideration. This provides detail about the amount of carbon released per kw/h by the utility at each location (coal vs. natural gas vs. hydro), and results in a much more accurate understanding of our carbon footprint.

Automation through CA ecoSoftware:  The reporting process was becoming more sophisticated and time consuming as we continued to make progress. We realized we needed a better way to do this than Excel. So, being a software company, we created a platform that we called CA ecoSofware which allowed us to track details on carbon emissions, water use, recycling, waste generation, gas, transportation and more. Over 30 employees now enter data into the system as it becomes available and the organization has greatly benefitted from the time savings and additional insights this platform provides.

Identifying opportunity in the data – and the market
The old saying goes; you can’t improve what you can’t measure. That is certainly true when it comes to measuring carbon and energy use. As we’ve moved down the path of gathering energy use information we’ve identified a number of areas where we and improve and benefit the company as well.  A few examples include:

Offices using too much energy:  As we gathered data, it became clear we had some offices using substantially more energy than similar offices. By taking a closer look at these locations, we were able to identify some of the inefficiencies and correct them, in the process dramatically lowering energy costs.

Inefficient data centers:  The data also highlighted the vast amount of energy we were using to support our data centers. We used this insight to begin an initiative to improve energy efficiency at all levels of our data center infrastructure, substantially lowering energy costs and streamlining operations.

Leveraging expertise to create sustainability products:  As our efforts and understanding in the sustainability space expanded, we realized there were market needs that we could use our expertise to address. We launched our CA ecoSoftware solution in 2009 to enable other businesses to streamline their data collection, reporting and monitoring efforts and to help them identify opportunities in sustainability. 

Keys to moving forward
When Brett and I spoke about key lessons learned over the 5+ years of reporting with the CDP, he summed things up perfectly.
1.Get Started:  Do the best you can out of the gate and realize you will have to improve over time.
2.Automate:  As you improve and expand your efforts, automate as much as possible.  It makes things a lot easier.
3.Governance:  Put a governance program in place to get all the data you can access collected in a timely and consistent manner.
4.Opportunity:  Once you are rolling, keep your eyes open for opportunities in sustainability that you can capitalize on within your business and your areas of expertise.

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Published: February 06 2012, 04:53 PM | no comments
by Dhesikan Ananchaperumal

Today in The CA Cloud Storm Chasers Blog, George Watt, Vice President, for the Enterprise and Cloud solutions group at CA Technologies, discusses the company’s progression through three levels of green awareness and maturity in its early cloud years. The levels included are:

1. Collateral Greenage
2. Deliberately Green
3. A Measured Approach
 
To find out more about each of these levels and how cloud computing can “make you greener,” check out George’s blog post “Pragmatic Cloud: Peeling the Cloud's Green Onion” here.

*Image: digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Published: February 02 2012, 12:42 PM | no comments
by Cynthia Curtis

When CA Technologies made sustainability a driving principle of our organization we immediately got to work on some good-old-fashioned governance initiatives. We performed a competitive analysis, gathered as much information and data as possible on our current status, set up a project management office to help drive key initiatives, and developed key metrics and lenses for examining projects and priorities. While doing this work, it quickly became clear that to integrate sustainability into the corporate culture as well as drive efficiencies and cost savings we needed engaged employees and a motivated workforce.

Green Teams Help Focus Grassroots Energy

As we reached out to employees around the world to discuss sustainability, it was obvious that there was good stuff happening. Individuals and ad hoc teams were spearheading projects and acting as advocates for their workplace. Unfortunately, there was no way to track success, share information, or even know what initiatives were underway in the various offices.

Enter Green Teams. The concept is simple:  Develop small groups of committed employees at individual offices and provide them with structure and corporate support in order to harness their innovation and effort in a manner more likely to produce concrete results. In order to test the concept and the process, we decided to initiate a pilot program to start. We chose three offices around the globe - Sydney, Paris and Framingham, Mass. - and recruited 44 employees to be part of the effort.
  
Providing Green Teams with Structure Promotes Success

In order to support the team’s efforts, we provided each group with:
•Potential projects:  We had defined a list of 12 pre-approved sustainability projects of which each team had to choose three
•The Playbook:  A business plan template defining the key components of the initiatives that the teams were responsible for defining and executing on
•Data:  Baseline data related to their projects, if available
•Executive leadership:  Each team had a direct line to me and my team for support and executive coaching

Prior to executing, the team needed to develop and get sign off on:
•Business model
•Metrics for measuring success
•Project plan
•Communications plan
•Budget

After sign-off, the teams executed on their projects in a two month sprint. Currently we are reviewing benchmarks and data from the first group of sustainability projects completed by the three pilot green teams. We are also gathering feedback from a post-project employee survey to identify changes that have occurred as a result of the projects. Initial indications are that results are very positive, both from a cost reduction perspective, as well as from an employee awareness point-of-view. We’re also reviewing “lessons learned” and taking away ideas that will help us execute more effectively on projects going forward and that we can share across the business.

Nine additional locations around the globe have already requested permission to start their own green team and we are in the process of recruiting leaders at these offices. Our intent is to roll out the green team initiative globally, thereby empowering local employees at every location to define and execute on projects that are of key importance to them in their geographic area (i.e. water conservation may be more important to some, building efficiency or recycling to others).

Stay tuned and we’ll keep you up to speed on the green team initiative as we continue to roll it out throughout CA Technologies. Be sue to visit often for posts on the projects that the first three teams chose, how they executed on them and the results produced. 

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Published: January 30 2012, 10:27 AM | no comments
by Terrence Clark

Today we announced new and enhanced offerings in our CA ecoSoftware solution that are designed to further extend the company’s support of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IT energy management. The improved capabilities in CA ecoMeter 3.0 and our new CA ecoDesktop offering can help IT and facilities staff gain greater availability, agility and efficiency in their data center and IT operations.

As organizations become increasingly dependent on data centers – either on premise or in the cloud – to provide critical applications and services, the challenges and risks associated with uptime, power and cooling capacity have become more pronounced. In addressing these challenges, our CA ecoSoftware solution reaches from the desktop to the data center and across the enterprise. It helps customer provide for availability, reduce costs, and more rapidly meet the demands of the business.

CA ecoMeter 3.0:  Expanded DCIM Capabilities
In CA ecoMeter 3.0 we’ve expanded the existing DCIM capabilities to include template-driven auto-discovery of facility and IT assets to accelerate inventory capture for rapid implementation. The product also provides integration with CA Application Insight Modules for accurate mapping between logical or virtual components and the physical infrastructure on which they depend, for efficient management of IT and cloud-based services. CA ecoMeter 3.0 also leverages CA Executive Insight for Service Assurance to provide mobile device users with role-based insight into availability, performance and operational efficiency across the data center.

We’ve also partnered with Cisco to introduce new bi-directional integration capabilities in CA ecoMeter 3.0. The product has an advanced gateway that gathers a wide range of IT and facilities system parameters that can be published to and utilized by Cisco EnergyWise-enabled systems. Customers can also obtain power data from Cisco EnergyWise-enabled devices for improved energy management.

According Bruce Gorshe, Director, Data Center Operations at Avnet, “Avnet has chosen to implement CA ecoMeter in its North American data center environments as a part of a continuing commitment to environmental sustainability. We will work with CA Technologies over the next year to deploy the solution. When completed, CA ecoMeter will help reduce energy use by providing better consumption data and key metrics for Avnet’s data centers.”

CA ecoDesktop: Desktop Power Management
Many organizations incur substantial costs to pay for the energy consumed by desktop computers, with estimates showing that on average one third of all desktops are left on 24 hours a day. Enterprises and government organizations often seek to reduce the unnecessary consumption.

CA ecoDesktop is a new solution that supports an inventory-based approach to managing desktop power. It helps organizations identify savings opportunities and implement profiles to increase efficiency while addressing the requirements of end users for uninterrupted access to their systems. CA ecoDesktop also delivers reporting to help organizations demonstrate energy cost savings and reductions in carbon emissions.

CA Technologies has also entered into a partnership agreement with Devoteam, a leader in ICT consulting in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Under the agreement, Devoteam will offer implementation and consulting services for CA ecoDesktop customers in EMEA.

Our joint customer John Madsen, IT manager, Municipality of Ballerup in Denmark said about their implementation, “We use CA ecoDesktop for desktop power management and it was successfully implemented by Devoteam. It is easy to use, meets our requirements and has not disrupted our operations. We implemented CA ecoDesktop to reduce operational costs and to reduce our impact on the environment. This will save approximately $549,000 on energy costs over the next three years and reduce carbon emissions.”

We applaud Avnet, Municipality of Ballerup and all of our CA ecoSoftware customers for their efforts to provide for availability, reduce costs, and more rapidly meet the demands of their business as well as for their commitment to sustainability.

For more information on CA ecoSoftware, visit:
•CA Technologies Named a Worldwide Leader in Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
•CA Technologies Named a Leader in Energy Management Software
•Brochures and White Papers
•Product Demonstration
•@CAecoSoftware on Twitter

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Published: January 23 2012, 03:40 PM | no comments
by Cynthia Curtis

When people think about Green IT, you don’t find a lot of people who immediately say, “Oh yeah, that’s all about mainframes.” Affectionately known as Big Iron, this tried-and-true technology that has been around for years is not always on top-of-mind when a discussion about energy efficiency in the data center comes up. But it should be for medium and large companies with significant computing requirements, says Dayton Semerjian, General Manager, Mainframe at CA Technologies.

“Mainframes are quite simply the most energy efficient computing systems available today. To start with, an entry-level mainframe provides the computing capacity of about 1500 servers and it does so in a device about the size of a refrigerator,” says Semerjian. “And because mainframes work as a single integrated system, they are designed to make extremely effective and efficient use of their vast computing resources.”

As we discussed in a post (Energy Savings: One of the Key Benefits of Server Virtualization) a few weeks ago, energy savings is one of the key benefits of server virtualization in a distributed server environment in a data center. By having multiple virtual machines run on a single physical server, companies have used virtualization as an effective means to lower energy costs. But here again, don’t count mainframes out, says Semerjian.

“Mainframes have been running at a 95% to 100% virtualization rate for years – well before it became all the rage in distributed environments. The closed environment of a mainframe allows the system to make extremely efficient use of its computing resources in much the same way a more complex, distributed virtualized environment does.”

More Reasons Why Mainframes Are Energy Efficient:

•Lower total power costs:  According to Sine Nomine, a research and analysis firm, mainframes are responsible for 1/7 the total power cost, when compared to distributed server environments
•Lower HVAC costs:  Sine Nomine also estimates that mainframes are responsible for only 1/20th the energy costs of dedicated HVAC systems
•Less space:  According to IBM, mainframe environments only require 40% of the physical data center space required by distributed server environments. Less area to cool and maintain
•Less support:  Fewer boxes and more efficient, integrated machines means smaller support staff per unit of computing capability.   At up to a 25% reduction in support reduction according to Clabby Analytics, this means less energy consumed supporting the machines.

“Obviously, mainframes are not right for every business,” says Semerjian. “However, for the many organizations they do make sense for, there are clear sustainability benefits, including lower energy costs, lower operating costs and a rapid return-on-investment.”  And when you add in a mature, stable, secure environment, what’s not to like?”

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