by RichardGardiner | Mar 31, 2016 | Energy, ICT
In a new move from the EECA, funding applicants need a programme partner who has CMVP (Certified Measurement and Verification) certified individuals. Total Utilities’ CMVP certified staff can help you with EECA applications under the CMVP partner programme in New Zealand.
Certified Measurement and Verification provides transparency
A change in policy within the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (EECA) means that funded Energy Efficiency projects now require that programme partners follow the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) framework.
Any Measurement and Verification (M&V) is to be undertaken by a person or persons that have received appropriate training and have the necessary level of expertise demonstrated by the completion of the Efficiency Valuation Office (EVO) Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP) course and passing the CMVP exam.
Total Utilities Staff are CMVP Certified
Total Utilities is pleased to announce that both Chris Hargreaves and Pushkar Kulkarni have recently been approved as certified measurement and verification professionals. Awarded by the Association of Energy Engineers in conjunction with Efficiency Valuation Organisation (EVO), both Chris and Pushkar join a global community of around 4,000 professionals certified in the measurement and verification field.
What is the EVO?
The Efficiency Valuation Organization (EVO) is the exclusive global training body for the Certified Measurement & Verification Professional® (CMVP). EVO developed and owns the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol® (IPMVP) and training material used with the CMVP examination.
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by DavidSpratt | Jul 14, 2015 | ICT
This is the fourth and final part of this blog series on cloud service management.
We’ve written in the past about cloud service management but, in this final installment of our cloud management series, we’re talking about a strategy to ensure you are getting the most value from your providers’ service management activities, whilst simultaneously retaining a tight focus on your business’ own needs and the needs of your client – all while staying under budget, of course.
Sounds like magic, right? Well, so did the cloud a decade ago!
So how do we work this magic? How do we manage a cloud-based infrastructure environment (IaaS) in a way that allows us to benefit from the simplicity, scalability and quality of these services without cost and consumption blowouts?
First off, in order to achieve our multi-faceted goal, we need to go into battle. To win this battle, we need to understand who our enemies are. In this case, they are fourfold: Complexity, Transparency, Proliferation and Vested Interest. Let’s divide and conquer: (more…)
by RichardGardiner | May 6, 2015 | Energy, ICT, Waste
The recent Commerce Commission ‘ruling’ on Unfair Contract Terms for utilities is great news for businesses.
Total Utilities has been negotiating utility agreements since 1999 and a recurring bugbear for us in the past 16 years has been the use of automatic contract roll-over and right of renewal/price-matching provisions by some suppliers to constrain effective competition.
Put bluntly, these clauses have been used as a ‘hospital pass’ by the suppliers in question to avoid a level competitor playing field – especially in the waste services/recyclables and natural gas markets.
As of 16 March 2015, the applicable new agreements must not include such clauses (i.e. Unfair Contract Terms).
It must be emphasised however that these contract clauses are still allowed if existing supply/service agreements are renewed for a further term.
The implications of this are very clear, businesses should negotiate brand new agreements covering the utilities etc in question – don’t just roll your existing agreement on the basis of unchanged contract terms and conditions.
Reference should be made to the Commerce Commission website for full details of their ruling. A PDF of the ruling can be downloaded here.
by DavidSpratt | Aug 25, 2014 | ICT
Having outlined some of the structural issues facing CIO’s and providers of cloud service management processes in my previous blog on managing cloud infrastructure I am left with a real challenge.
As a critic of the old, over scaled, expensive and wasteful ESM/ITIL based service management systems, how can I now offer some constructive suggestions on a new way of looking at service management in the cloud?
Cloud service management strategies
1. Find a common language
- ITIL provides a meaningful and commonly understood language for all parties. We can use this language to identify the differences between a global public cloud (Azure, Amazon, Google, Rack Space et al) and a locally hosted private or public cloud service management model (DIY, All of Government, Datacom, HP, Gen-i, IBM etc).
- We can run through the ITIL framework step by step and identify where the global public cloud provider owns the service management environment; where it is owned by a local outsourcer; and where this responsibility is shouldered by the internal IT Department.
- This allows the service consumer to see and pay for the value being delivered while ensuring all other parties have a clear, profitable and sustainable model for delivering on their promises.
2. Be clear on the desired outcomes
- Rather than requiring that major public cloud providers redesign their internal processes (unlikely when dealing with players bigger than Australasia’s biggest companies) we should instead focus on the key elements we require. Namely:
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by RichardGardiner | Aug 4, 2014 | Energy, ICT
An automated utilities monitoring service has been developed by Total Utilities to assist High Schools and Colleges spending more than $100,000/year on electricity, gas or computing and telecoms.
The new monitoring service will simplify financial management of utilities by generating and displaying usage reports to help identify trends. This will allow School Business Managers to quickly pinpoint any issues and will make investment and strategy decision-making more accurate, according to Mike Ette of Total Utilities.
“Many High Schools and Colleges struggle with the financial management of their utilities,” said Mike. “It’s difficult to know if you are getting value from these services if they are not monitored and measured. Once Business Managers can identify trends, it becomes easy to ask key questions like – is the usage increase in line with changes in the school? Or – nothing has changed so why is usage going up?” (more…)
by DavidSpratt | Jul 23, 2014 | ICT
I get a strong sense that CIO’s across New Zealand want to make changes but feel burdened by their existing provider and service constructs. Ironically the situation is the same whether they do the work in-house or outsource it to a trusted provider.
CIO’s and Service Managers are also expressing increasing levels of concern around the Service Management and Service Desk environment needed to support private, public and hybrid cloud instances. Many providers seem to be struggling to monitor and support an infrastructure and services environment that has been designed by someone else and is located outside their control in the Public Cloud.
This difficulty is not unique to New Zealand. I have also had a series of conversations with some very large organisations struggling with the same issue in the US and Australia. So what is the cause of all this angst?
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