GlassHouse Technologies, a leading independent IT infrastructure consulting and services firm, today announced the expansion of its green consulting services to include an entirely original offering, the Energy Proficiency Impact Analysis (EPIA). The new service helps companies to improve their IT efficiencies and address the compliance mandates outlined in President Obama’s American Clean Energy and Security Act legislation that has recently passed the House of Representatives and which is awaiting Senate action. The EPIA identifies changes that can be made to streamline IT infrastructure in line with necessary green mandates, without sacrificing mission-critical business operations.
GlassHouse is partnering in this new venture with two other leading industry experts, RACKWISE and Fortress International Group. Both firms are respected authorities in the field of mission-critical infrastructure and management. Each partner also brings their own specialized competencies to the EPIA offering. RACKWISE provides its solid and extensive applications product line for data center management and Fortress supplies consultative design and analytic skills—focused on physical building infrastructure—to address the significant facility options that face the data center management team.
Making the data center operate efficiently is paramount in running a successful business and energy has become a major cost consideration in operating the data center today. To that end, GlassHouse has created the EPIA offering using tools that help organizations evaluate their data center’s efficiency, model proposed changes, and see the financial and physical impact (power, heat, space and weight).
Organizations today increasingly find themselves forced to expand data center operations. However, with limited physical space in which to operate, this challenge has proven difficult. Adding to this are new compliance mandates on energy use and emissions that complicate the situation even further. GlassHouse’s new EPIA enables enterprises to address these concerns head on, offering insight into inefficiencies that could affect their compliance standing as well as cost-effective solutions to help ensure they remain in line with new regulations.
The service provides two strategic results: the Green Proficiency Analysis (GPA) and the Cost Proficiency Analysis (CPA). When combined, these reports are designed to help organizations identify opportunities for change that address operational inefficiencies in power and cooling. The reports also outline measures that will ensure compliance with green legislative and regulatory mandates. Additionally, the reports provide a breakdown of the full-scope cost impact these changes will have on the client’s operations.
Through a five-step process, the EPIA provides a current state analysis of the data center environment and offers recommendations for how to achieve a more efficient IT and facility environment based on metrics and standards established by The Green Grid. These recommendations will range from such possibilities as expedited technology refreshes to facility improvements to operational reconfigurations. Further, the EPIA allows enterprises to model the changes before implementation, ensuring they will not have a negative impact on mission-critical operations. Based on the analysis recommendations, the team then validates the projected net financial savings resulting from the proposed changes and shows a breakdown of when organizations can expect to see financial ROI from the new, greener practices.
In addition to the Energy Proficiency Impact Analysis, GlassHouse offers customers a way to measure their carbon footprint before and after a data center project. The results provide IT and business leaders with concrete metrics by which they understand how their data center is impacting the environment. In a recent server virtualization project for a major pharmaceutical company, GlassHouse’s team consolidated over 1,400 servers down to just 700, reducing power and cooling costs by over 40%. The resulting carbon footprint impact is equivalent to taking over 4,000 cars off the road, or planting 2.1 million trees.
“In this challenging economic environment, organizations are looking to cut costs across their IT environment, especially in the data center where power and cooling have become a major expense,” said Mark Shirman, CEO of GlassHouse Technologies. “GlassHouse is committed to working with customers to reduce these costs by rationalizing their infrastructure environments, thereby saving money and also reducing their Carbon footprint.”
Further demonstrating its commitment to the practice of green initiatives, GlassHouse has made major strides to improve their own carbon footprint. GlassHouse recently provided the employees in its Israeli office with electric cars to reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Additionally, Mr. Shirman recently contributed to a book titled “Inside the Mind of a CEO” where he outlines specific green initiatives companies can employ to make a positive impact on the environment, demonstrating his expertise and passion for the green movement.
Added Shirman, “GlassHouse believes very strongly in furthering the advancement of green technologies, initiatives and practices. Therefore, we are continually looking for new ways to help both our customers and employees live greener lives that will help improve the overall state of the environment.”
About GlassHouse
GlassHouse Technologies is a global provider of IT infrastructure services enabling organizations to consolidate, virtualize and manage their IT environments. GlassHouse delivers services through TransomSM, a unique delivery framework comprised of proprietary software tools, methodologies and domain expertise. We reduce costs, decrease risk and improve service levels by providing measurable results and vendor independent solutions. GlassHouse focuses on the storage/data protection, virtualization and data center markets.
About RACKWISE:
Founded in 2003, RACKWISE develops innovative software technology for the data center. RACKWISE software visualizes, documents, models, analyzes, and manages the data center. The RACKWISE product family is broadly used by Global 2000 enterprises, service providers, and SMB’s to intelligently plan and manage their IT physical infrastructure.
About Fortress International Group
Fortress International Group, Inc., experts in the design, construction and operations of mission-critical facilities, is leading the industry into a new era of maximum uptime and efficiency. Fortress has combined the knowledge and experience of Total Site Solutions and Rubicon Professional Services, two experts in critical facilities infrastructure. With that foundation, Fortress provides its worldwide clients with Consulting & Engineering, Construction Management and Site Support Services (24/7/365) for organizations that are highly technology-dependent. As a trusted advisor, Fortress delivers strategic guidance and pre-planning to make every stage of the critical facility lifecycle more efficient—providing innovative, end-to-end services that cover IT strategy, facility design, construction, procurement, energy controls, project implementation, capital management, and operations solutions to optimize performance and reduce cost. Fortress (NASDAQ: FIGI) is headquartered in Maryland, with offices throughout the U.S.
