More on Metrics

On the weekends, my wife and I start the day by watching CBC’s The National evening news show. The February 12th edition had a segment called The Next: Server Farms (5:03) which provides a glimpse into the power consumption requirements of the Internet.

One statement caught my attention. The reporter said around minute 2:15

“…most people who run corporate data centers aren’t responsible for how much energy their IT systems use. They’re judged on reliability and speed.”

As noted in Mentors, Managers and Metrics, these are great metrics, but again they don’t tell the whole story! Different metrics are needed to measure the work going on within the system itself! So a learning moment for me… electrical consumption for the servers and cooling are an important measure of efficiency in this scenario.

In this story it appears that the biggies like Facebook are learning these lessons already, realizing that reduced energy consumption means big savings. It is the small to medium sized companies that have may have more to gain by reducing – or better managing the use of their idle servers. Food for thought for all my IT friends and colleagues.

When we apply Performance Improvement methods to a problem in the workplace, we try our best to be systemic and systematic in our approach. To do that, we need to “see” the problem (or opportunity) from many different angles and levels inside and outside of the organization. This morning I learned another perspective… and I hadn’t even planned on writing anything!

One more thought popped up while in the shower (where I do my best thinking and some average singing) – I wonder if an environmental impact assessment has been done for the barge server farm in the story… to determine the effects of warming the water around it to cool the servers. An outside of the organization perspective.

Okay – NOW I am off to hockey. Happy Saturday everyone!