IT Plugs into the Green Agenda

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Being green may once have been considered a luxury, but times have changed, and there are clear financial benefits and corporate advantage to be gained.

Simon Mingay, research vice principal at analyst Gartner, says IT is central to many green innovations. "Operating in a low-carbon economy is not about doing the same things with less energy and lower carbon dioxide emissions, but about doing different things and thinking differently about how things can be done, he says.

There is a big opportunity for IT to contribute towards the reduction of greenhouse gases and the energy integrity of organizations. But how many really understand where the first easy hits are to be found and how to measure the real savings?

The good news is that recent research by DMW Group has revealed that 82 per cent of businesses do have a generic green policy, including areas such as recycling and using low-energy light bulbs. However, respondents also admitted that the area of technology largely remains untouched.

Given that IT can be responsible for up to 40 per cent of a typical firm's carbon footprint, it is a good place to start -- and many organizations are already recognizing that significant efficiencies can be made in the data center.

Professor Andy Hopper, head of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, says computers need not have a negative effect on the environment. "Data centers and server farms play an important role in the modern information infrastructure, he says.

"They provide highly available web sites for users, support day-to-day business processes, and execute offline jobs such as indexing and backup. However, ever-increasing amounts of energy are being consumed to keep them running, and researchers have found that there is only a minor energy reduction when reading the news online as opposed to buying a newspaper.

The need for faster processing and smaller systems, combined with increased energy costs and heightened global awareness regarding greenhouse gas emissions, have made managing power, cooling, space and carbon dioxide a major priority for organizations running their own data centers.

Cardiff University has recently invested £3m in an advanced data center environment to support one of the UK's most powerful new supercomputers within strict energy efficiency parameters. Hugh Beedie, chief technology officer for the university, says the infrastructure operates in line with an overall commitment to environmental sustainability.

To achieve this, the tender process specified that the supporting data center environment takes full advantage of available technologies and techniques to minimize energy consumption.

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