Green IT is a topic that’s on many people’s agenda. I’ve noticed the change quite rapidly, from those meetings where a grid guy or server owner would say “power/space is a data center issue, an IT problem”, to one of what can I achieve to meet my business need. On the understanding that real estate and power is an issue, what balance of infrastructure will give me the best performance at ‘least cost’, what in effect can I get in the door that will work for the project, be it a DL385 instead of a DL380G4, a lower voltage blade than the high performance one. Regardless, little changes now can save a significant amount of revenue long term, it’s cheaper to spend a little money on the server, the storage or network switch, or on virtualization than it is to commission a new data center, to re-develop my existing one.
The challenge going forward might be in the realms of business justification, of return on investment, I’m happy to be green where I can, but not if the payback is going to be longer than I’ll have that platform, that application. Refreshing the hardware for example might give you an instant payback in energy savings or in your hardware support contract, deploying a new air conditioning system, replacing cabinets might give similar results but take longer to be noticed. We’ll have to see, the green message is an important one, but more so when put in the constructs of efficiency and ability to deliver.
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Dear Martin,
Interesting read! I would agree with you that although Green IT is an important factor in company plans, it has to be placed in the context of business success. All CIOs are looking to achieve both their business goals and environmental goals with forthcoming investments. This is amplified by the current economic pressures plus the rising cost of energy, Parliament’s recent passing of the Climate Change Bill, the implications of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) legislation and the imminent change in environmental policy due to the Presidential change in the US.
In this respect many people are actively purchasing technologies and solutions that achieve their business goals whilst reducing the energy consumed. The business case is thus the sum of the improved results plus the savings in energy/C02 per year. This trend is seen across a variety of technology areas including datacentre design, servers, storage, switches and PCs.
Regards
Ian Brooks
HP UK&I, Head of Innovation and Sustainable Computing