Are US Federal Agencies Ready to Comply with

Current Energy Management Mandates?

Empowering Efficient IT

February 16, 2011

Energy and Server Efficiency Solutions Could Save Fed $6 Billion Over the Next Five Years;
Research Suggests Federal Agencies’ Top Energy Management Priorities are Consolidating
Hardware and Generating Internal Awareness
Results have now been released of a recent study carried out by 1E to measuring Federal agencies’ awareness of
and ability to comply with energy management rules and regulations. The research indicates that only 13 percent
of Federal agency respondents were “definitely ready” to comply with mandatory energy reduction programs at
the end of 2010.

The study found that more than a quarter of respondents think their Federal agency is not required to comply with
mandatory energy reduction programs. Basic awareness of programs varied – 50 percent were aware of the
Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, 38 percent were aware of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) Scorecards and 31 percent were aware of the Executive Order 13423 and Executive Order 13514.
Meanwhile, twenty-three percent of respondents were unaware of any such programs.

Energy management strategies varied across respondent agencies, though consolidating hardware and generating
awareness were top responses when asked about current energy management strategies. This suggests that
energy management is still in its infancy within federal agencies. Proven PC power management solutions like
NightWatchman have been available for several years and have saved commercial customers more than $550
million in energy costs to date. Comprehensive server efficiency solutions are also available, like NightWatchman
Server, which helps identify servers that are not doing useful work. Server consolidation and awareness alone do
not lead to lasting savings.

Virtual server sprawl may be set to become a larger problem within federal agency data centers, as 58 percent of
respondents were aware of the issue, yet 29 percent do not monitor their virtual servers’ performance to
determine if those assets are doing useful work, or the tasks for which they were bought and provisioned. As
many respondents indicated that their energy management strategy is to consolidate hardware, the survey
suggests that underused virtual servers will become a greater cost drain on agencies if gone unchecked.
 Are you aware of any of the following federal government
mandatory energy reduction programs? (select all that apply)

50.00%
45.00%
40.00%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
Executive Order Executive Order Federal Data OMB scorecard I am not aware Other
13514 13423 Center of any such
Consolidation programs
Initiative
(FDCCI)
 Is your organization required to comply with any of the following
programs? (select all that apply)

40.00%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
Executive Order Executive Order Federal Data OMB scorecard No, my Other
13514 13423 Center organization is
Consolidation not required to
Initiative comply
(FDCCI)
Is your organization ready to comply today with the programs you
checked in Question #2?

12.50%
70.83% Definitely ready
Still planning
16.67% Not ready
How would you best describe the direction of your current energy-
management strategy? (select up to three that apply)

50.00%
45.00%
40.00%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
 Are you aware of “virtual server sprawl,” where unused or
underused servers are virtualized without analyzing what “useful
work” the servers are doing?

20.83%

Yes
58.33% No
20.83%
I don't know
 How does your organization currently analyze physical server
performance and useful work? (select all that apply)

50.00%
45.00%
40.00%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
CPU Network traffic Application use We do not I don’t know Other
monitor
physical server
work or
performance
 How does your organization currently analyze virtual server
performance and useful work? (select all that apply)

30.00%

25.00%

20.00%

15.00%

10.00%

5.00%

0.00%
CPU Network traffic Application use We do not I don’t know Other
monitor virtual
server work or
performance
Please indicate the number of servers within your organization:

8.33%

16.67%
41.67%
0-200
201-500
501-1,000
16.67%
1,001-5,000
More than 5,000
16.67%
 Please indicate the number of supported users within
your organization:

16.67%

8.33% 37.50% 0-1,000

1,001-5,000
5,001-10,000
20.83% 10,001-50,000
More than 50,000
16.67%
 Questions?

Contact Jon Stotts

917-339-7364
jon.stotts@1e.com