In today’s carbon-constrained, environmentally conscious world, becoming a “green” organization can result in real monetary savings. Even though being green is sometimes derisively associated with the extremes of the environmental movement, the fact is that energy will only get more expensive as natural sources of energy are depleted. Saving energy makes bottom-line sense.

By its very nature, IT consumes a hefty amount of energy, and that consumption will only increase as modern organizations’ thirst for data grows. Unfortunately, many IT managers fear that going green is an expensive proposition that will require significant capital outlays. But the fact is IT managers can implement inexpensive ways to go green without spending lots of greenbacks.

Moving Air Pays Off

One of the simplest ways to go green with minimal expenses is to manage the flow of air, specifically hot vs. cold air, in the data center.

John R. Savageau, president of Pacific-Tier Communications (www.pacific-tier.com) and a consultant for international organizations supporting data center projects in developing countries, says the use of open racks is “the biggest waste of energy I have encountered in the new age of high-performance servers.” Savageau says installers often leave large spaces between servers in racks, which leads to hot air recirculation that damages equipment and wastes energy.

To alleviate this problem at low cost, he recommends that administrators get rid of the four-post racks in server farms, implement hot/cold aisle separation, make use of blanking panels, implement hot or cold aisle containment, and, where possible or affordable, use a raised floor.

Carl Cottuli, vice president of product development and services for Wright Line (www.wrightline.com), says administrators should consider utilizing a heat containment system that attaches to the tops of server racks and is used to capture and redirect hot air away from servers and toward air-conditioning units via a plenum. Cottuli says these overhead systems have zero impact on existing data center footprints and allow the data center layout to remain unchanged.

Know Your Equipment

Oftentimes, running equipment improperly can lead to tremendous energy inefficiencies. These inefficiencies can cost significant dollars and prevent an organization from truly going green.

For example, John Pappas and Ron Wilson, engineers with Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch (www.mazzetti.com), point out that IT departments often keep idle servers running even when they are not in use. Pappas and Wilson recommend that administrators, just like a home user turning the lights off at home, remember to turn off idle servers, resulting in immediate energy and cost savings.

Also, it is common to find separate data center cooling units set so that one humidifier is providing moist air while another is dehumidifying, causing both to work harder than they should, they warn. The solution is for administrators to check temperature and humidity controls on HVAC equipment regularly to ensure all are working properly and efficiently.

Administrators can also make procurement decisions that can help an organization’s IT department go green. David Johnson, vice president of The Fulcrum Group, says administrators should replace older equipment with newer energy-efficient models when the time comes to upgrade. Also, Johnson recommends that procurement managers rightsize IT equipment by purchasing small-footprint, low-energy PCs instead of larger tower computers.

Also, says Johnson, admins can save energy by adjusting power settings on devices such as PCs, laptops, or printers such that monitors, hard drives, and CPUs are set to turn off or hibernate after a preset number of minutes of inactivity. This no-cost solution can yield big annual savings.

A careful inventory audit can help administrators identify opportunities to capture energy savings. Shawn Mills, president of Green House Data (www.greenhousedata.com), says administrators should audit server usage and unplug unused servers. For servers that are only used a few times a year, Mills recommends that administrators implement a change management procedure for turning those servers on and off.

Look To The Cloud

A sensible way to reduce energy consumption is to simply get rid of equipment that consumes energy. Organizations that wish to go green but need to continue to run applications and generate business data can now look to the cloud for a solution.

Using the cloud delivery model to house their data and applications can help companies reduce electricity consumption and put a dent on the almost 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions that powering, cooling, and operating PCs and servers generates, says Yehuda Cagen, director of marketing for Xvand Technology’s business development division (www.xvand.com).

Cloud computing is an effective tool for reducing IT energy consumption because users only use what they need and pay for what they use, says Tim Jewell, CTO at Data Deposit Box (www.datadepositbox.com), who explains that utilization matters because implementing higher utilization to do the same amount of work on fewer computers saves the environmental costs of building and powering those computers.

And, he adds, when a business stores applications in the cloud, the organization saves costs because applications are run on a shared infrastructure where hundreds, possibly thousands, of enterprises are using the same server to run applications at any given time.

Computing in the cloud has numerous advantages for organizations looking to save energy costs. For starters, subscribing to a service requires little or no capital investment because the service is delivered over the Internet for a monthly fee, says John Panico, vice president of sales and marketing for Virtual Resources (www.vresources.net). According to Panico, leveraging the cloud allows enterprises to subscribe to IT products, applications, or computing resources provided as a service over the Internet, eliminating the need for enterprises to require their own servers to run an application.

by Sixto Ortiz Jr.