To be green or not to be?

HALL: Efforts should be made to recycle outdated equipment, instead of simply opting to purchase a new replacement.

There is much talk in the industry now on the subject of green IT; but what exactly is it? In my opinion, green IT can be defined as:

• Efficient use of energy and natural resources

• The reduction of electronic equipment waste and recycling

• Using environmentally friendly materials

• The elimination of hazardous materials

These are by no means new ideas. The goals are just easier to attain now than ten years ago. Due to the massive advances in technology, lower power consumption processors, memory and storage, Greener computing has been given a jump start. However, the problem isn't the existence of the right technology, it's changing the way we use the technology.

The shrinking data centre

According to many experts, server consolidation and virtualisation is the first major step towards winning the green race. Data centres, with large numbers of under-utilised and poorly placed servers that can be found in massive rooms, utilise large amounts of energy to power and cool down the expensive equipment.

Until recently, many organisations simply ignored the massive energy drain as any solution was too expensive, time consuming and disruptive to normal activity.

Now, traditional servers are replaced with lower profile rack versions capable of cramming more nodes into a smaller space. Packed with energy efficient components, they can be placed in updated or custom designed data centres with highly efficient cooling, clean protected power and state-of-the-art security.

Latest generation data storage technology also allows smaller, faster and efficient storage devices to be installed within the data centre with archival systems available offsite.

All this leads to further size reductions of the data centre. This combined with more efficient networking hardware, cabling systems and management software, means that energy drain in the data centre is now expected to be lower than previously.

Reducing the office

There has been a trend over recent years to increase the number of employees working from home, or creating new office hubs in order to reduce overall office overheads in expensive areas.

Some companies however, are now looking to implement this as a way to reduce environmental costs; drastically reducing the amount of miles commuting employees undergo every day just to work in a large office surrounded by co-workers.

All employees being in one building may appear to at first to be the optimal approach, but is it really necessary? After all, why spend valuable hours and money burning carbon fuels everyday travelling to work, when many workers have access to a perfectly viable working space available right in their place
of residence?

Even if they don't, a growing number of companies now rent out small office hubs within strategic commuting zones, thereby reducing the size of the head office and bringing a cost effective office to the employees. It has reduced costs to the company, and significantly increased moral and performance of the workers who use these zones.

The costs in outfitting home and office hubs with the latest technology to bring the workforce together is comparatively minimal, especially when compared to the cost of outfitting large dedicated offices to support a whole company.

There is an ever growing pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of individuals, companies and whole countries. The idea of having employees work from home or reducing their vehicle usage to the absolute minimum and even cycling or walking to work is being quickly adopted and accepted.

Enhance rather than upgrade

One of the last areas IT managers are focusing on is the actual hardware equipment. The numbers of servers in the data centre may have reduced, and the components in desktop systems may be more efficient, but there is still a great emphasis on buying the latest technology from manufacturers claiming to have ‘green' products.

But, what makes a PC green? Lower power usage, heat production, recycled and environmentally friendly materials are certainly good physical attributes to have.

However, one can argue that while the above attributes can lead (in theory) to the production of a green PC, the actual act of purchasing new machines is not environmentally friendly.

Although we can all agree that when systems become so outdated they must be replaced, efforts should be made for them to be recycled, refurbished for third world countries or used in under-funded schools. In some cases they are. Unfortunately, the majority of outdated systems are either scrapped or left to gather dust in office storage.

This problem is compounded by the fact that systems are replaced prematurely. They are not used to their practical age limit, but replaced as soon as their technical specification falls below the market average. Both desktop and notebook PCs are so inexpensive to purchase, compared to ten years ago, that organisations have begun to replace the machines as a matter of course.

However, as technology improves at a startling rate, a good number of the advancements are not required at the corporate desktop.

What all these machines really need is the occasional "spring-clean" or possibly new accessories such as a keyboard or mice. They certainly do not need the latest processor to run standard office applications.

So why do so many companies replace adequate machines so often rather than upgrade the memory? It is certainly not more cost effective, as memory modules have reduced in cost while processor costs have remained fairly stable.

The subject of green IT has sparked a great deal of publicity, mainly due to the confusion and uncertainty it creates.

That so many organisations have now started to question what green IT means to them is great for everyone, as it will hopefully give them cause to consider their environmental objectives.

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