VMware and Fundaments: creating sustainable IT infrastructures

Published by VMware (English version)

Sustainability is one of the most urgent issues in our society today. Humanity is depleting its natural resources at an unsustainable rate, and every industry must look inward and assess whether—and to what extent—they are contributing to this problem.

Consumers and businesses must urgently join forces to restore the current state of affairs, as failing to do so will have catastrophic consequences for future generations. At VMware, we are fully committed to playing an active role as a catalyst for this sustainable change.

But our partners also play a major role in achieving these goals. That is why we do everything we can to provide them with a platform that delivers technologies to help customers do business in a more sustainable way. In doing so, we set the standard for others to follow.

One partner that shares our philosophy is Fundaments, a leading Cloud Services Provider (CSP) from the Netherlands that excels in delivering cloud-based projects and initiatives. We recently spoke with Larik-Jan Verschuren-Parchomov to hear how they are already achieving great results using VMware technologies. You can watch our conversation here:

Before we hear some of those stories, let’s look at the role IT must play in achieving our environmental goals.

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Sustainability: more than a requirement

‍Sustainability is no longer just a moral issue; it is rapidly becoming a regulatory and legislative requirement around the world. For example, the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030.

“Companies are really struggling to gain insight into their energy consumption because, in the IT sector, we don’t have energy labels like we do for household appliances,” says Larik-Jan. CSPs, in particular, are facing the biggest challenge in a generation. “Because of this lack of knowledge, things like achieving sustainability goals or addressing compliance issues are a real challenge.”

IT systems already account for about 1-2% of total global energy demand, and in some countries, that figure is significantly higher than in the Netherlands. In Ireland, for example, IT is responsible for 18% of energy consumption. The impact IT can have on your carbon footprint can therefore be significant, especially if it is not implemented correctly.

Concerted efforts are being made across the IT sector to turn the tide, but more must be done. An unsustainable IT environment is incredibly costly, both from an ecological and a monetary perspective.

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What can partners do?

‍Building sustainable IT infrastructures is no walk in the park, as Larik-Jan explained during the conversation. “Every customer has their own landscape,” he noted. “But we do a number of things to gather insights for customers. First, we show them the benefits of energy mapping, looking at cost savings and compliance. And second, we help customers collect actual data from their IT systems to develop insights. Based on this analysis, we then enable the customer to use energy-efficient IT systems and concepts.”

Our partners are an incredibly important piece of the sustainability puzzle: they are perfectly positioned to advise customers on which IT investments will keep them on track with their sustainability and transformation goals.

This is where VMware’s Zero Carbon Committed initiative comes in. We want to empower you to help customers build efficient, traceable, and compliant IT systems. The initiative is designed to ensure that by 2030, using VMware Cloud infrastructure, VMware Zero Carbon Committed providers will use 100% renewable energy to power their data centers, giving customers confidence in the sustainability of their IT. Larik-Jan also noted that the platform plays a key role in enabling Fundaments to achieve its own sustainability goals, while making it much easier for the company to help customers build sustainable IT systems.

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The role partners can play: Fundaments

‍However, we must not forget that every customer’s carbon footprint is different. The work of Fundaments is undoubtedly unique, but it does offer three key lessons that partners can draw upon when helping customers integrate best practices for sustainable IT:

Understand: helping customers understand the benefits of mapping their energy consumption is a must. Not only to reduce their carbon footprint, but also to lower costs and meet regulatory and procurement requirements.

Map: once customers fully understand the benefits, the actual process of mapping their energy consumption follows. Supporting customers on this journey, and having the ability to produce detailed data with accurate measurements of how much energy is consumed by components of an IT system, is incredibly important for the credibility of your advice.

Build: once all the data has been collected, it is time to start building more efficient IT systems and encouraging customers to embrace technologies that support sustainability efforts. For example, Fundaments helps data center customers build a large number of virtual servers, drastically increasing their energy efficiency.

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