IT focuses on CO2 reduction

Johannesburg, 21 Jul 2009

Today more than 80% of all large IT organisations have goals to reduce carbon emissions and save power. Such plans are now an accepted practice in IT, according to Andrew Harrison, senior manager of systems engineering at Symantec UK.

Harrison is the chairman of the second annual ITWeb Green Summit, taking place on 18 August, at The Forum in Bryanston. The summit will examine how to deploy a green IT strategy to transform IT and data centres into more cost-effective and environmentally-conscious operations.

Harrison notes that government initiatives have identified IT as a large emitter of carbon dioxide and consumer of power. “So they asked IT organisations to reduce power consumption and carbon emissions.” Governments realised that IT organisations can also play a key role in greening programmes, he points out.

IT is now taking a more holistic approach to power saving and carbon dioxide reduction, according to Harrison. This is being done by redesigning data centres, sourcing energy-efficient servers and storage, implementing more effective power management and improving utilisation. It also involves looking at application redundancy to ensure organisations are not running superfluous applications that can be retired, says Harrison.

Best practices

In order for IT organisations to take a holistic approach to greening, they have to measure where they are consuming energy, Harrison advises. “They then have put programmes in place to reduce energy consumption in each of these areas.”

In a data centre, one would look at the design and take opportunities to improve its power efficiency. “This may also involve moving data centres to cooler locations to reduce air conditioning inputs,” Harrison adds.

“Sourcing of energy-efficient servers and storage is also very important.” Harrison explains that this can be done by improving utilisation through virtualisation. “Carbon reduction and power consumption can also be reduced by leveraging tiered storage.'

Data de-duplication to remove data redundancy should be a common practice, according to Harrison. “Active application portfolio management, identifying redundant applications or where there is overlapping functionality, and rationalising should be done.”

For desktops, laptops and printers, this means sourcing energy-efficient devices. “Putting effective power management regimes in place is crucial,” says Harrison. Initiatives that reduce the amount of consumables for hard copy are also important, he adds, which could include double-sided printing, electronic rather than paper distribution and so forth.

Organisations should recognise that IT is part of the environmental problem and put strategies in place to alleviate this, argues Harrison. “They also need to realise IT is part of the solution, through initiatives like video conferencing, electronic content distribution and management, and auditable hazardous waste disposal.”

The Green IT Summit will feature international speakers like Eric Greffier, EMEA director of End User Computing Practice at Dell, and Tore Brynaa, business solution manager at BMC Software.

This summit is targeted at senior IT, technology, procurement and strategic planning executives tasked with managing the energy consumption and cost implications of IT within their organisations.