BT’s carbon-busting IT project lands Computacenter an award for innovation

An innovative IT project that saved millions of pounds and reduced the carbon footprint of BT’s Windows datacentre estate by 85 percent has been singled out for a prestigious award. The project, which was delivered by Computacenter, beat off competition from some 130 other entries to be selected as the overall winner of BT’s first ever Supplier Innovation Awards. As well as improving sustainability and significantly reducing BT’s operational expenditure, the IT initiative has enabled the communications giant to increase uptime and speed up the deployment of new business and customer services. Neil Rogers, BT’s Chief Procurement Officer, who presented the awards, said: “Companies who help us to innovate will be the ones who create greatest impact on customer experience and best value for shareholders in the future. Computacenter came up with an innovative idea that showed a great level of thought leadership, with tangible benefits for BT.” BT joined forces with Computacenter in spring 2006 to address its datacentre capacity challenges, which had not only resulted in high operational costs and a significant carbon footprint but were also hampering the company’s agility.

Mike Norris, Chief Executive Officer for Computacenter, commented: “By drawing on our datacentre expertise and proven processes – which have been developed in our Shared Services Factory – BT was able to minimise the risk and maximise the business benefits associated with the project.”

The Windows Greenside Virtualisation project, which was completed in April 2007, enabled BT to achieve a server consolidation ratio of 15 to 1. With around 1,400 fewer servers to power and cool, the company has been able to cut its energy consumption by over 5,000MW per hour, which accounts for savings of almost £800,000 per annum. BT has saved a further £750,000 per year on datacentre floor space costs – more than 375 server racks have been freed up as part of the project – and has also dramatically reduced its IT managed services bill. Michael Crader, Head of Windows Consolidation for BT, commented: “Computacenter helped us maximise the financial, operational and environmental benefits of deploying a virtual Windows server infrastructure. The project was a great success and has delivered an even higher return on investment than we anticipated (ROI).”

The project – which paid for itself in just eight months – will contribute to BT’s future growth and profitability, as the company now has more datacentre capacity for both internal IT programmes and new customer engagements. “This project demonstrates the innovation that can be achieved through BT and Computacenter working together,” commented Norris. “We are proud to have won this award, which demonstrates our commitment to helping our customers deliver IT services solutions that meet their goals.”

The project has been such a success that it has now moved into its second phase. This has already seen an additional 810 servers and 180 racks removed from BT’s Windows estate. The associated power savings equate to 567KW – the same electricity needed for 9,450 60-watt light bulbs. Phase two – which started on 1 April 2007 and is already halfway complete – is expected to result in the removal of a total of 1,600 servers and 400 racks.