Today small K12 school districts and colleges with less than 1,000 students are accustomed to accessing email around the clock. Email is habit forming at best and compulsive at worst. The digital economy proves funding in-house email services can be staggering. Hidden IT costs remain as budgets are slashed.
Annual IT costs to run legacy back-end email servers, software licensing including (anti-spam, anti-virus, filtering and backup) must run 24/7 from multiple vendors. Annual people costs include training and technical support especially in a high turnover environment.
Some legacy email solutions actually require a dedicated server that cannibalizes the CPU. They are not virtualization friendly. Think OpenText’s WorstClass FirstClass email server.
So what is the largest overlooked annual cost forgotten by IT and financial managers? Electricity. The cost to power all enterprise servers 24/7 can be rather shocking. The first time I collaborated on a private college’s annual budget I was surprised to learn total energy costs for just three buildings on a small campus ran above $260,000/year. Same rates apply for K12 districts with multiple buildings.
If your organization is running real industrial servers (1U or even 3U units) there are significant costs, regardless of rack, blade or tower servers. Many schools on tight budgets re-purpose legacy Pentium desktops into “servers” along with old, energy sucking CRT monitors. Not a good idea. Don’t be swayed by marketing and PR efforts for “green” servers because they run all day and still cost a surprising amount over a five year lease….you do lease your servers right?
Fight the power
So how much does your school’s servers cost to power year-round? Gather total watts for EVERY computer in your server room which includes KVM/SAN/DNS/RTSP/CIPA filter and all spam/virus server appliances along with all those attached monitors and run the metrics.
You must include your HVAC costs. Even small server rooms required large HVAC. Is there a server room (aka Data Center) at your school? You will be looking at a rather BIG number. Hopefully your organization has negotiated an aggressive rate from your regional electrical conglomerate. Your rates may vary but here is a standard rate card:
Monday – Friday:
7:00am to 7:00pm 5 cents / kilowatt hour
7:00pm to 7:00am 3.5 cents / kilowatt hour
Weekends:
7:00am to 7:00pm 3.5 cents / kilowatt hour
7:00pm to 7:00am 3.5 cents / kilowatt hour
I know this is basic stuff but remember your servers run weekends, during all holiday breaks AND all summer long even when K12 schools mostly sit empty. Yes empty….while the server lights blink and nobody is home. You burn budget money every minute of every day. Your CFO will think its outrageous, believe me and followed by a call to auto-shut down idle office and lab computers, Library and business offices including those small pockets of dedicated digital studios.
It helps if your IT staff configures energy-saving scripts into all system configurations. This means computers are configured to power off during idle periods dictated by your patterns of use. However configuring monitors to “dim” is NOT energy savings. Guys the monitor still requires power in “dim” mode so just power the damn thing off.
Believe me the time it takes a student to push the power-on button is worth the green effort. Run the cost matrix above and present the modified numbers to your CFO. The policy to save energy costs will become mandatory in no time.
Can you believe computer labs are configured to NEVER sleep? Yes – no power consumption and burning money 24/7/365. I know first hand its stranger than fiction to watch a budget line burn up right in-front of your eyes. Irresponsible attitudes pass on increased tuition or higher taxes.
Ironic that email administrators have been known to use established certifications as an excuse to continue running an expensive, legacy systems. Remember your school (tuition or taxpayer) is paying for certifications, some approaching $1,000 to re-enforce those same legacy email solutions.
I have watched the use of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) addressing alternative email solutions with a college email administrator…it was a true “deer in the headlights” moment. And of course the issue of being certified was part of the reaction. It scares the hell out of them. Discussions about changing email becomes a threat to some or political firestorm for others. In the end you need to convey that shifts in the computer marketplace continue to accelerate and email servers are now part of that discussion.
After partnering with my regional energy conglomerate to implement a private college’s initial energy audit I learned much about implementing changes that directly impact the IT carbon footprint while reducing annual energy costs. Today’s students are more aware of their need to reduce carbon footprints while junior faculty are embracing green energy savings at home and at school. There is real momentum despite any IT team’s outdated FUD approach to let everything run all day and all night.
At a college operations meeting with executives I learned the college was going to partner with the energy conglomerate regarding a financial gift. I asked for the gift to be shaving $0.15 off our kilowatt/hour rate. The leadership however did not recognize that avenue of thinking. Remember that $260,000 annual energy bill? The school pays it yearly. In a belt tightening budget I would hope a-quarter-of-a-million-dollars would change the way people think about energy.
Google Apps for Education
By migrating from an internal email server (and associated services mentioned above) to Google Apps for Education (GAE) schools eliminate server related energy costs. And maybe your school is forward thinking enough to replace that expensive annual Microsoft site licensing for Exchange server with GAE. Yesterday Google announced two more states have adopted GAE for 3,000 schools across Colorado and Iowa. Lots of financial and energy savings happening there.
Its all about change. And I know change is hard. If you find yourself in a similar boat may I recommend Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. And at the same time share your energy cost saving spreadsheet with your school’s decision makers.
Tags: Google, Google Apps for Education, email server, Postini, technology budget, increased tuition, taxpayer, tipping point, carbon footprint, K12, trends