The Four Pillars of Green IT!

The Four Pillars of Green IT!

How governments and corporations can become more energy efficient in IT!

Many organizations are now coming into focus with Green IT.  We have moved away from the original idea that all computing is Green because it is all online or inside a computer.  Just because it is paperless, doesn’t mean there is no room for improvement on environmental and energy efficiency. Believe it or not, three years ago, I heard this from information technology engineers when they queried me about Green IT.  Green IT is energy efficient computing from the desktop to the data center, from hardware to software, from the network to the virtual cloud.  There are four core areas of competency, all equally important.  I will construct the pillars in order of importance, based on my own beliefs.

Pillar #1 – Carbon Accounting & Management

You will hear this statement used over and over incorrectly, but for this purpose, it is correct.  “You cannot improve on what you cannot measure.”  Compliance issues and environmental key performance indicators dictate that organizations must measure their carbon footprint.  As corporations look to gain market share I their vertical market, it is becoming increasingly important to look good on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Global 1000 Sustainability Index, and many others…

• 2011 Global 100
• Dow Jones Sustainability Index
• Carbon Disclosure Project
• Global Reporting Initiative
• Global 1000 Sustainable Performance Leaders

Pillar #2 – Cloud Computing | Consumerization of IT

Many organizations have not fully realized the benefits of Cloud Computing to an organization.  There are several reasons for this, including:  job security, trust, hype, and past performance.  Many IT executives are wondering what will happen to all the IT jobs within their organization.  I say, repurpose the IT staff for more strategic work besides break/fix maintenance and email.  Not trusting the service provider is quite understandable, but just like a good employment search, you must do a good provider search. The one good thing about a reputable cloud service provider is the Service Level Agreements (SLAs).  If your in-house IT staff screws it up, you have to pay their salary until they fix it, unless they cannot fix it.  The consequences of firing someone in this economy are paying unemployment benefits, and paying recruiting costs to replace them.  If the service provider gets it wrong they have to agree to the terms of the SLA.

What workloads should be consumed by cloud computing? In my most humble and accurate opinion, email and computers should be consumed by cloud computing.  Why on earth would I want to keep my highly paid IT staff working on common workplace services like email and desktop computers, when that type of work can be done more efficiently with a cloud provider?  Let’s say that you’re an older organization running Lotus Notes and you want to migrate to Microsoft Exchange, or you just want to manage an existing Microsoft Exchange Platform.  Why bother?  Move that email to the cloud. Focus on more strategic things.

Computers-as-a-Service (CaaS) is starting to gain ground these days. Bypass the in-house desktop virtualization projects and focus again on more strategic issues.  I think we’ve been doing business long enough to know that there are core software programs that everyone uses.  In some cases, it is worth paying $100/month per desktop computer for core applications.  I remember talking to the world’s largest credit union about break/fix maintenance. They have 60 people dedicated to break/fix maintenance on computers.

EcomNets has developed so Cloud Services in the form of Cloud Documents, Managed Hosting, Managed Storage, and Disaster Recovery in our Danville Green Data Center. http://www.ecomnets.com

  

Pillar # 3 – Data Center Energy Efficiency

Many organizations start with the data center, which is understandable, but when you offload to the cloud, your data center will have changed slightly.  If you work on my cloud initiatives first, you can consolidate your data center, even more.  Data Center Consolidation is the most popular area for CIO’s to focus on.  There are many reasons:

1. Data Centers Design has become more efficient.
2. Data Center Energy Consumption has been doubling over the last decade.
3. Organizations cannot afford to ignore the expense of the data center.
4. Virtualization has promoted more density within the data center.

There are many tools on the market to help data center managers get a handle on data center energy consumption and performance.  If you have a data center efficiency project in the works I suggest that you look at Joulex and/or Power Analytics for help.  These tools can monitor more than just IT equipment, they can also manage the facilities equipment.

 

Pillar #4 – Enterprise Energy Efficiency

The Enterprise Energy Efficiency pillar is the most overlooked aspect of Green IT, but has more efficiency gains than any other pillar.  The reason for this is based on assumption and appeal. Many IT executives believe that the data center is the biggest carbon producer, and in some cases it that would be correct.  In many instances with large organizations, that would be incorrect.  PC Power Management can reduce up to 40% of carbon emissions of all IT equipment.  Imagine deploying JouleX for the entire enterprise, and it can turn down PCs, Servers, Printers, Network Devices, Copiers, and Phone Systems, which can get you up to a 91% carbon reduction.  In addition, we have telework, green printing solutions, and electronic filing solutions, and electronic waste management programs that can increase reduction of carbon footprint.

Making the case for Green IT!

Green IT is so easy, even a caveman can do it!

Every time someone asks me what I do, I tell them, “I’m the Green IT Guy and I help companies and organizations become energy efficient from the desktop to the data center, from hardware to software, from the network to the virtual cloud.”  It took me a while to articulate that.  For some reason energy efficient computing was not hitting the mark.  Sometimes you have to repeat yourself over and over again.  IT professionals would snicker and say stuff like, “Isn’t the Internet already Green because it is paperless, and online?”  This illustrates how far the industry has gone from the last couple of years.  Now Green IT is a little more digestible.  Others would say, “That’s just Green Washing, Marketing Hype!”  If I can walk into any organization and cut their energy usage, carbon output, and IT expense in half, I don’t see how that could be considered green washing or marketing hype.

I’m going to try to make a case for Green IT to dispel any lingering myths.  Industry changes have occurred resulting in Green Regulations such as: Federal mandates (E.O. 13415 , GSA Green Products Compilation), corporate standards (Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Wal-Mart Sustainability Index), state legislation (City of Riverside), and future carbon accounting regulations.  Companies have gone from voluntary to mandatory regulations.  Investors were a minority, now they have a few sustainability indexes.  IT departments once considered Green IT a niche, and now see it as a core part of their business, as they rapidly consolidate their data centers.  Finally, upper management is tying the electric bill to the performance evaluation of the CIO, and that’s a good thing.

 

UPS’s package software eliminated left-hand turns to save $8.4M in gas and 32K tons of CO2 emissions, according to Forrester Research.  Sprint ($40B US Telco) achieved dramatic results in just 1 year:

• They retired 127 applications
• Decommissioned 2,200 servers
• Reclaimed 290,000 GB of storage
• Eliminated 75% of printer output
• Saved $20M in annual IT operating expense
• And cut 10,000mt of GHG emissions

It’s no secret that main stream America is virtualizing their data centers.  There are some very big companies and federal organizations consolidating data centers. In fact, the federal government illustrates their goals online.  They plan to consolidate 800 data centers worldwide, both physical and virtual.  The GSA saved $50/PC/year by shutting down PCs during non-business hours.  The City of Palo Alto cut carbon footprint by 5% in one year.  Here are some companies that have joined the ranks of data center consolidation:

• Amway Global
• Boise
• Charlotte County
• Children’s Hospital Central California
• Chino Unified School District
• City of Boston
• City of Chicago
• City of Pittsburgh
• Defense Contract Management Agency
• Department of Energy
• FICO
• Florida Department of Transportation

I could go on and on about data center consolidation, but there are too many examples. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, data center consolidation has gone main stream. But just in case you have, go to VMware’s case studies.  What about Sun’s Openwork program saves 100 hours/year for each of 18,000 employees?  This openwork program is a telework program.  Employees working from home so they do not pollute the highways.  What about handheld devices?  UPS avoids $12M per year in capital expenses using handheld devices for package tracking.  Can Green IT strengthen the supply chain? I think so.  Tablet devices are moving into hospitals.  No more wall mounted PC’s.

What I really wanted to say is this: Green IT is a good deal. You should consider it and make your company look good, efficient, and socially responsible.  It only takes four simple steps:

1. Assess your situation from top to bottom. (Enterprise, Printers, Desktops, Data Centers)
2. Execute a Green IT Action Plan
3. Realize a greater than 50% reduction in cost, energy consumption, and carbon output.
4. Brag about it through press releases, blogs, and social media. (Ask me how.)

The next thing you know, your company will be listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.  You came, you conquered, and you lived to tell about it.

The Evolution of Green Printing

Printing is a huge environmental hazard resulting in exorbitant paper usage to the toxic production and usage of toner.  Any way you slice it, printing is a total environmental waste.  According to a survey of environmental pet peeves among over 1,569 adult U.S. and Canadian office workers by Harris Interactive, here are the top ten:

1. Mindless printing resulting in increased waste (40%)
2. Leaving lights on (37%)
3. Lack of recycling bins (33%)
4. Excessive air conditioning in summer and heat in winter (29%)
5. Excessive use of paper products, like cups, plates, etc. (27%)
6. Coworkers not recycling (27%)
7. Cowrorkers not printing double-sided when they can (24%)
8. Too many cover sheets when faxing or printing (24%)
9. Having to store paper copies of existing, electronic files (24%)
10. Leaving computer on and not powering down when going home (23%)

As far as printing goes, I would try to eliminate the whole process.  But that’s not going to happen, right?  If we had some other medium to convey thoughts and ideas, I would be all for it, but the reality is we still must print, and in some cases, we still must fax.  So let’s try to do it better.

Century Gothic Font

I chose to write this article with Century Gothic because it is the most effective font for saving toner ink, thus it is environmentally friendly.  Unfortunately, when I copy/paste from my Word document, WordPress is going to change the font for me.  According to theUniversity of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Century Gothic uses much less ink, saving money on printer ink.  They reportedly switched their default e-mail and printing font from Arial to Century Gothic because it uses about 30% less ink.  Century Gothic font is the low lying fruit for green printing because it is virtually free.  Change your settings.

 Ecofont Software

Ecofont Software prints green fonts with holes to save in toner and reduce printing costs.  Ecofont Software adds a print button to your toolbar.  With just one click of the mouse you can save up to 50% toner when printing text. Ecofont Software is compatible with all printers, copier and multifunctionals from Brother, Canon, Dell, Develop, Epson, HP, Konica-Minolta, Kyocera, Lexmark, Muratec, Océ, OKI Data, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp, Tally Genicom, Toshiba, Xerox, etc.  Keep in mind that there is an economic driver in the print management business, especially the pay per page strategy or pay per cartridge strategy.  Some vendors may tell you that Ecofont software is not compatible with their equipment just to maintain profit levels with toner cartridges.

I think the Ecofont Software is very innovative, but why should I pay for it?  Century Gothic is free.  The last time I checked, free is still a good price.

GreenPrint Software

GreenPrint Enterprise provides a best-in-class software solutions to eliminate unnecessary cost and waste associated with enterprise and individual printing activities.  GreenPrint Enterprise product increases profitability and sustainability by providing employees with an innovative interface that allows them to eliminate pages, images and selected content from print jobs before they are sent to the printer.  This simple yet powerful exercise reduces organizational print volume by 17% to 25% and saves an average of $80 to $120 per employee per year, which is validated by GreenPrint’s robust data collection and reporting mechanism.

GreenPrint’s ability to allow me to delete unnecessary blank pages and images does save on paper, but I need more savings and control.

PretonSaver Software

PretonSaver Enterprise can save as much as 70% on your existing printing costs without compromising on quality.  In these troubled times, businesses are constantly looking for ways to cut costs. Unfortunately, these cuts are usually painful, as they require some kind of concession.  But, what if you could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year without compromising anything?

Watch the Video!

Leave it to the Israeli’s to come up with such an awesome software product, with print management capabilities.  To write an algorithm that manipulates and eliminates pixels is pure genius in my book.  To save up to 70% on toner usage is even more fantastic.  Imagine being able to enforce print protocols that eliminate Internet printing?  I use to see sports sections in the men’s bathroom, which were printed from the Internet. Imagine using default settings for duplex printing, or restricting certain groups or individuals from color printing.  Imagine cutting your toner budget in half.  Between PC Power Management and PretonSaver Software, I think every company in the world needs to invest in these cost cutting measures that definitely contribute to the triple bottom line.

So, to all you large enterprise organizations printing copies multiple times without collaborating in an electronic portal, start Green Printing!