Green Computing is Slow Off the Mark

In business circles the green movement has been with us for some time now, but for those in IT, the concept is relatively new.

"Two years ago, green was not even on our agenda," says Graeme Hackland, an IT manager at Renault F1, designer and builder of Formula One racecars based in Oxfordshire, U.K.. Hackland says the shift to green computing at his company has occurred only in the last 12 months.

There is still a lot work to do. Hackland bemoans the lack of industry benchmarks: "What is the industry standard for carbon footprint" (Emissions caused by use of electricity).

"And what is the data centre percentage of that? We are struggling with trying to figure that out," he says.

Hackland was speaking recently at a Green IT Computing roundtable organized by software vendor Symantec Corp. Symantec annually produces a Green Computing report, and according to the report, green computing is being slowly embraced. Only 49 percent of IT managers are aware of a green policy adopted by their company, and only one in seven has implemented or begun implementing a green data center, the survey reveals.

Despite the slow adoption the best way to make a case for green computing is to make it a dollars and cents issue, says Jose Iglesias, vice president of corporate solutions for Symantec. He cites one finding in the study indicating that more than one-half (52 per cent) of chief information officers now consider their electricity bills when adding up their data centre costs, up from 37 per cent recorded last year. Iglesias notes also that while data center footprints over the last number of years have reduced by 50 to 90 per cent, and associated expenses such as real estate have gone, energy consumption remains constant or increased.

Steve Rodin, president of Storage Pipe in Toronto, which offers backup protection services for large computer sites, says it makes perfect sense that green computing is rising on the IT agenda. "Data centers are being reduced in size at the same time that expenses such as electricity are increasing, partly because of the high power consumption demands of higher density computing such as blade servers and solid state storage devices.

At the same time "green computing has lots of advantages and you don't have to be an environmentalist to recognize this," says Rodin. When it comes to green computing, cost-savings is where the rubber meets the road. "When we look at most data centre costs, it's one-time, but recurring operating expenses such as power consumption require greater scrutiny," he says.