Greening of IT

IDC Survey Finds Energy Efficiency Still Dominates, But Other Factors Influencing Green IT and Sustainability Policies of U.S. Companies

Some of the results from IDC’s third annual Green IT & Sustainability Survey were announced in a recent press release. According to the release “Energy remains the dominant reason why U.S. companies have adopted green IT and sustainability strategies. However, the survey found that energy is less of a policy factor today than it was twelve months ago, when 77% of U.S. companies identified energy as the primary reason for their green IT and sustainability strategy compared to 64% in 2009.”

The release goes on to state “The most dramatic change among the factors driving green IT and sustainability policies was the increased focus on the growth of corporate IT infrastructure. In 2008, 31% of respondents identified as an important policy factor, placing it fourth overall. In the 2009 survey, it was the second most important factor according to 46% of respondents.”

Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC's Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research added "IDC believes that IT executives are feeling the pinch of their budgets being squeezed. Because they understand that much of their expanding infrastructure remains underutilized – adding to their company's capital and energy costs – green IT policies can help establish a more comprehensive approach to utilizing their assets."

The survey also identified four green IT project areas with very strong change goals that respondents hope to initiate within the next 12 months.

• Change customer behavior from print to online (92 % of U.S. respondents)
• Migrate to a modular data center design (81 % of U.S. respondents)
• Implement a "Thin Client" or "Client Device" strategy (80% of U.S. respondents
• Deploy software for data center thermal dynamic modeling and control 

Click Here to read the entire press release.

Economic and climate imperatives combine to elevate Green IT as cost-productive priority

Dana Gardner, the founder and senior analyst at Interarbor Solutions recently interviewed five executives from HP to discuss Green IT. The resulting podcast is available at this link. You can listen to the podcast, read excerpts or download the entire transcript.

Green Growth for Handsets

Juniper Research has created a white paper containing material abstracted from their report ‘Green Mobile Handsets & Applications: Strategies, Scenarios & Forecasts 2009-2014’. The report found that green handset shipments could reach 500 million units globally within five years.

Click Here to read the press release for the report

Click Here to download the free white paper (PDF format)

The Equivalent of 231 Million Notebook Batteries Could Be Saved by SSDs in Three Years By reducing the cells in notebooks, an environmental benefit could arise

According to an August 2009 article by the analyst firm iSuppli,

“While much attention has been paid to the electricity consumption reductions yielded by Solid-State Disks (SSDs), the use of these flash-memory-based solutions also potentially provides another environmental benefit: a major cut in the batteries used in notebook PCs, according to iSuppli Corp.

A typical notebook PC uses a six-cell battery. However, the use of an SSD can allow a notebook to achieve the same battery life with only four cells.

If all 250 million of the notebook PCs set to be shipped in 2013 used SSDs and moved to four-cell batteries, it would be the equivalent of saving 80 million batteries.”

Click Here to read the entire article

Second-order effects on mobile from environmental challenges

An interesting blog post from the analyst firm Disruptive Analysis discussed first-order and second-order changes being made by the wireless industry to respond to pressures to be more “green”. The post lists the following first-order changes which have already been adopted by many vendors:

• Base stations and other network elements which use less power
• Solar and wind power, rather than diesel, for "off grid" sites
• Recyclable handsets (and better recycling processes)
• Standardization of handset chargers, auto switch-off when fully charged etc.

Second-order effects “are where environmental initiatives and trends elsewhere in society and industry have a knock-on effect on mobile.”

Click Here to read the entire post and learn more about some of these possible second-order effects.

Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center

Greg Schulz, the founder and Senior Analyst at StorageIO, as well as the author of The Green and Virtual Data Center (Auerbach/CRC) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) has an excellent article on the greening the virtual data center on GreenerComputing.com.

To read this excellent article, use this link.

HP reinforces focus on responsible printing while controlling costs

A recent article by the UK-based analyst firm Quocirca states that “HP is not alone in extolling the fact that optimising the print environment can help reduce costs and improve environmental credentials through replacing older, less efficient, and either under or over utilised devices with higher performance and energy efficient devices. HP has seen more customers, such as a UK division of WPP, the communications services group, requesting full environmental assessments as part of their MPS tenders, reflecting the importance that environmental impact measurement plays in MPS decision making.”

To read the entire article, use this link.

Parks Associates forecasts 6 million homes with Smart Meters by 2012

According to Parks Associates, “The market for residential energy management will increase significantly over the next four years due to increased consumer demand and new government and industry initiatives. The number of U.S. households with a smart meter will grow to over six million by 2012, according to Parks Associates.”

The international research firm recently announced its new research project Residential Energy Management: Opportunities for Digital Systems and Services, which analyzes this market, current and future deployments, and consumer preferences.

To learn more about this new research project, use this link.

Parks Associates forecasts 6 million homes with Smart Meters by 2012

According to Parks Associates, “The market for residential energy management will increase significantly over the next four years due to increased consumer demand and new government and industry initiatives. The number of U.S. households with a smart meter will grow to over six million by 2012, according to Parks Associates.”

The international research firm recently announced its new research project Residential Energy Management: Opportunities for Digital Systems and Services, which analyzes this market, current and future deployments, and consumer preferences.

To learn more about this new research project, use this link.

Gartner says PC Power Management Activation Can Save a 2,500-PC Organization More Than $40,000 a Year

According to a recent news release from Gartner, “Organizations that are actively employing power management functionality can expect to save $43,300 per year, compared with an unmanaged 2,500-PC organization. In addition, turning off and unplugging machines saves another $6,500, but this may affect employee productivity because updates will need to be carried out during working hours.”

To read the entire release, use this link.