My online class, Modernizing Enterprise Data Centers for Fun and Profit, starts again next Monday (September 26th)
Cern datacenter
Photo credit: By Hugovanmeijeren (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
I’ve been struggling for years to convince executives in large enterprises to fix the incentive, reporting, and other structural problems in data centers. The folks in the data center know that there are issues (like having separate budgets for IT and facilities) but fixing those problems is “above their pay grade”. That’s why we’ve been studying the clever things eBay has done to change their organization to take maximal advantage of IT, as summarized in this case study from 2013:
Schuetz, Nicole, Anna Kovaleva, and Jonathan Koomey. 2013. eBay: A Case Study of Organizational Change Underlying Technical Infrastructure Optimization. Stanford, CA: Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University. September 26.
That’s also why I’ve worked with Heatspring to develop the following online course, the latest version of which starts September 26th and goes through November 6th, 2016:
Modernizing enterprise data centers for fun and profit
I wrote an article for the September 2015 issue of DCD focus with the same name, which describes the rationale for the class.
Here’s the course description:
This is a unique opportunity to spend six weeks learning from Jonathan Koomey, a Research Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, and one of the foremost international experts on data center energy use, efficiency, organization, and management.
This course provides a road map for managers, directors, and senior directors in Technology Business Management (TBM), drawing upon real-world experiences from industry-leading companies like eBay and Google. The course is designed to help transform enterprise IT into a cost-reducing profit center by mapping the costs and performance of IT in terms of business KPIs.
Executives in this course will gain access to templates and best practices used by leaders in your data center. You’ll use these templates to complete a Capstone Project, in which you will propose management changes for your organization to help increase business agility, reduce costs, and move their internal IT organization from being a cost center to a cost-reducing profit center.
I’m excited about this class, but we need more signups. Please spread the word!
Also see the related super-short course for upper management: Data Center Essentials for Executives: A Beginner’s Guide
