CIOs and other IT leaders have probably had their fill of hearing from corporate executives that they need to do more with less. The “less” usually refers to IT budgets, which suffered during the lean economic years of late. Increasingly, however, IT departments suffer additional restrictions on their operations, including limits in data center power, cooling and rack-and-floor space. They may also need to do more in terms of applications and users they support, the complexity of applications and the data they manage.

A recent survey of 124 IT executives and managers at organizations with 100 or more servers shed light on their needs and objectives as they relate to data center efficiency and automation. Conducted by IDG Research Services, the survey received responses from a wide range of industry sectors and organization sizes. This paper highlights key findings from the survey, including the various IT needs and opportunities that fall under the “automated energy optimization” umbrella, concluding with a look at the intelligence, automation and optimization capabilities delivered by HP ProLiant Gen8, the latest generation of advanced servers.