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Green IT Initiatives Provide Business Savings

Kim Mays |   NEW TOOLS FOR IT   |  13 AUG, 2013

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For businesses, going green often means cost savings. Nowhere can this be truer than in the area of IT. Smaller, more efficient computers and servers, cloud computing and even advancements in software can bring about significant budgetary and carbon-footprint savings for the business. This brings many companies to start thinking about creating greener data centers.

But where and when do you begin to adopt greener policies? How do you know what to buy?

The book “Green Computing: Tools and Techniques for Saving Energy, Money, and Resources,” by Bud E. Smith provides an in-depth look at green IT initiatives. It begins by explaining why a company should go green, and then continues with chapters that give detailed explanations on cost savings, environmental drivers and climate change issues. Other chapters give informative looks into:

• Cloud computing
• Mobile devices
• Device disposal
• Key indicators of green devices and suppliers
• Energy costs
• Greenhouse gas reductions

In our IT Downloads, you can read an excerpt of this book, Chapter 7, “Green Servers and Data Centers.” This excerpt provides insightful information on how to move your data center toward being more environmentally friendly. It gives concrete data on why it is important—data that you can use to convince management of the importance of “going green.”

Data centers have been estimated to use between 1% and 1.5% of the world’s total energy, according to an article in the IEEE’s IT Professional. Data center facilities use more than 100 times the energy than standard office buildings, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

This chapter also recommends the type of building and power supplies you should use to ensure your data center is as energy efficient as it can be. It gives you a list of factors to consider, including:

• Floor space
• Power provisioning
• Device power usage
• Cooling

It follows up with a section on servers, networking, and storage considerations, explaining how to judge hardware based on size, power consumption, output of heat, and flexibility in usage. The author includes a brief section explaining how a company can lease data centers from a supplier, and then manage as much of the process as the company needs.

If you are considering demonstrating your company’s dedication to our environment and, let’s face it, saving money, by creating a more environmentally friendly data center, this book can start you on the right path. It is loaded with educational data and tools to help you gain approval, create your strategy and begin your build.