Gartner: MSPs, IT Departments Need to Support Sustainability Monitoring, GreenOps

Roughly 50% of organizations will leverage sustainability monitoring technology to manage hybrid cloud energy consumption by 2026, Gartner predicts.

Read between the lines, and Gartner essentially is telling MSPs (managed IT service providers) and IT departments to embrace GreenOps -- which include tools and processes to monitor energy usage, water efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and more. The idea is to integrate GreenOps with more traditional IT monitoring of data centers and cloud services.

What's driving demand for sustainability monitoring and GreenOps? Gartner points to net zero legislation in Australia, Europe and the United States. But to truly catch on, we believe MSPs and IT departments must emphasize potential revenue and cost-saving benefits of sustainable IT services.

A few examples:

• For end-customers, sustainable IT services can drive down monthly energy costs. Green software development and energy monitoring can reduce the cost of running on-premises and cloud-based systems. IT Asset Disposition (ITAD), hardware as a service (HaaS) and certified refurbished gear can improve security while driving down IT costs.
• For channel partners and MSPs, sustainable IT services can improve profit margins -- particularly on monthly recurring revenues. Blend HaaS with certified refurbished hardware and cloud cost management services, and you'll likely lower your costs of goods and services delivered while lifting your top-line revenues.
• Bonus - Generative AI Energy Management: Cloud service providers (CSPs) and data center providers are extremely worried about generative AI's energy consumption. MSPs that tackle energy management for GenAI applications stand to benefit.

MSPs, Channel Partners and Sustainability: Recent Milestones

Roughly 50% of partners worldwide said that they expect to generate revenue from sustainability solutions in 2024 – up three percentage points from 47% in 2023, according to research firm Canalys.

Among the key MSP moves to note:

• Ensono of Chicago, Wheelhouse IT of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Worldwide Technology (WWT) of Maryland Heights, Missouri, each launched sustainability-related IT services.
• Logicalis, a MSP, became the first partner globally to achieve Cisco’s Sustainable Campus Access add-on specialization, the companies said.
• NTT Data, a global MSP, launched Sustainable Device as a Service to help customers reduce PC-related carbon emissions. The effort leverages HP Managed Device Services.
• ZYZYGY, an IT services company and custom software developer focused on sustainability, has deployed Centreon's IT monitoring platform to assist customer engagements across the United States and Latin America markets, the two companies said.

Sustainability Software for MSPs

Meanwhile, some software companies now develop sustainability tools for MSPs. One example:PC Powersave develops software to reduce computer energy consumption and generate environmental reports for MSPs and their customers. PC Powersave is part of PitchIT 2024 -- an incubator that fosters more software in the ConnectWise ecosystem for MSPs.

PC Powersave CEO Daniel Ellis, who also runs an MSP and an EV charger network company, shared additional strategy details in this 2023 Podcast:

More Sustainability Guidance for MSPs

How can IT departments and MSPs align their technology initiatives with overall sustainability strategies? Some clues and guidance emerged in this Green IT Playbook -- developed by Rackspace Technology and Smart Columbus, in partnership with the Green IT Working Group.