Introduction:
What is Green IT
Environmental
and energy conservation issues have taken center stage in the global business
arena in recent years. Fueled by the reality of rising energy costs coupled
with increased concerns over the global warming climate crisis and other
environmental issues, green IT solutions are being actively pursued by
enterprises worldwide as a means to bridge the gap between improved
profitability and socially responsible business management.
But what exactly is this thing called Green IT? Simply put, Green IT is the
practice of implementing policies and procedures that improve the efficiency of
computing resources in such a way as to reduce the environmental impact of
their utilization. Green IT is founded on the triple bottom line principle
which defines an enterprises success based on its economic, environmental and
social performance. This philosophy follows that given that there is a finite
amount of available natural resources, it is in the best interest of the
business community as a whole to decrease their dependence on those limited
resources to ensure long term economic viability. Just as the logging industry
long ago learned that they need to plant a tree for each that they cut, today’s
power consumption enterprises must maximize the conservation of energy until
renewable forms become more readily available. This is often referred to as
sustainability that is, the ability of the planet to maintain a consistent
level of resources to ensure the continuance of the existing level of society
and commercial enterprise.
Green IT solutions address a broad set of environmental issues targeted at
attaining sustainability. These solutions include:
- Energy Efficiency Maximizing the power
utilization of computing systems by reducing system usage during non-peak
time periods.
- Reducing Electronic Waste Physical
technology components (keyboards, monitors, CPUs, etc.) are often not
biodegradable and highly toxic. Several business and governmental
directives have been enacted to promote the recycling of electronic
components and several hardware manufacturers have developed biodegradable
parts.
- Virtualization By utilizing a single
server to provide the virtual services that would otherwise need to be
provided by multiple systems, overall power consumption is reduced.
- Employing Thin Clients These systems
utilize only basic computing functionality (and are sometimes even
diskless), utilizing remote systems to perform its primary processing
activity. Since antiquated systems can be used to perform this function,
electronic waste is reduced. Alternatively, new thin client devices are
now available that are designed with low power consumption.
- Telecommuting providing the facilities
necessary to allow employees the ability to work from home in order to
reduce transportation emissions.
- Remote Administration allowing
administrators the ability to remotely access, monitor and repair systems
significantly decreases the need for physical travel to remote offices and
customer sites. As with telecommuting, this reduced travel eliminates unnecessary
carbon emissions.
- Green Power Generation many businesses
have chosen to implement clean, renewable energy sources, such as solar
and wind, to partially or completely power their business.
Of all these, Energy Efficiency provides the greatest
potential for quick return on investment, ease of implementation, and financial
justification. Several commercial solutions for improving computing energy
efficiency have recently become available and Enterprise Management Associates
(EMA) strongly recommends the adoption of such a solution not only for its
environmental implications, but also for its common-sense reduction on IT
infrastructure costs.
The
Business Case for Automated Power Management
Today’s economic realities underscore the need to reduce
expenses associated with increased IT power requirements. In fact, Enterprise
Management Associates (EMA) primary research indicates reducing energy costs as
the primary motivator cited by 94% of IT managers for implementing energy
reduction initiatives. This should be no surprise as significant saving can be
achieved with energy reduction solutions, often justifying the implementation
cost of the solution in less than a year. This value has changed the focus of
green IT solutions to be more about the green in the wallet than the green of
the grass.
In many areas, energy reduction initiatives can actually be used to generate
revenue. Power and carbon emission reductions (sometimes referred to as white
and green certificates) can be sold as a commodity in locations that have
implemented a trading system. Although such programs are more common in Europe,
a few U.S. States have instituted them and legislation for a national program
is expected to be introduced to Congress very soon. Currently more common in
the U.S. (as well as countries abroad), however, is the availability of
incentive and rebate programs offered by the utilities that either reduce or
reimburse a percentage of power costs as a reward for utilizing energy
efficient resources.
Although economics is the primary driver for implementing energy efficient IT
solutions, the value is by no means limited to the financial advantages. For
instance, a major challenge exists for organizations that have reached the
limit of available power for their facilities. Typically, these impact data
centers that were initially designed for capacities far below current business
IT demand. By limiting growth in the data center, these enterprises must either
reduce existing power consumption or risk limiting the growth of their
business.
Certainly, a sense of social responsibility has also encouraged many
organizations to reduce power consumption in order to decrease carbon emissions
and geopolitical confrontations associated with a dependency on oil. Lacking
collective business altruism, many government institutions worldwide have
instituted regulatory compliance initiatives to limit or reduce power
consumption to achieve these social requirements at local, state and national
levels. For many enterprises, energy reductions solutions are critical for
achieving these regulatory goals without encoring a business impact.
Additionally, the marketing value of implementing power reduction solutions
should not be underestimated. Not only do businesses often receive free
publicity in mainstream markets, but publically traded energy enterprises that
are energy efficient become more attractive to fund managers looking for
fiscally and/or socially responsible investments.
Regardless of which value proposition provides the greatest motivator for
introducing power management initiatives, it is clear that introducing energy
efficiency solutions specifically for information technology implementations,
both in the datacenter and on the desktop, can achieve some of the greatest
reductions in total enterprise energy consumption. For organizations dependent
on IT, power requirements for supporting the technology infrastructure can
dwarf any other energy expenditures in the enterprise. Achieving maximum value
in IT power management initiatives, however, requires a holistic approach to
reducing energy consumption across the enterprise.
Reducing
Operational Costs with Energy Efficiency
A common-sense approach to reducing household expense is
to turn off the lights whenever you leave a room. You would think this same
philosophy would be adopted by business IT centers. Sadly, however, this is
rarely the case though sometimes for some very sound reasons. Servers and
workstations are often left fully functional and operating 24x7x365. Sometimes
this is done to provide 24 hour production support; sometimes to facilitate
after hours functions like backups and maintenance; but principally this is
done because the manual process of daily shutdowns is both cumbersome and
impractical. True energy efficiency in IT business systems requires all these
factors to be taken into consideration.
First attempts to introduce energy efficiency to computing were made in 1992
with the introduction of Energy Star, an EPA sponsored program promoting
voluntary labeling of products that enhanced energy efficiency. This led to the
development of automatic power downs of unused systems and hibernating tools
that suspend system operation without the need for a full system shutdown.
These tools are primarily used for desktop and client systems which do not
require continuous operation and were initially developed to replace the
inefficient screen savers applications commonly used at the time. Screen savers
do not diminish power usage, but instead are designed to prevent burn-in on the
monitor. In fact, many screen savers became so graphic intensive that they
actually drew more power when the systems were not in use. Modern power
management tools built directly into operating systems now allow users to
determine a period of inactivity as a trigger for initiating either a shutdown
or system hibernation. This is certainly a much more cost effective solution
than footing the bill for digital fish to swim on a computer screen in an empty office.
In July of 2007, the EPA established more stringent requirements for Energy
Star, calling for an 80% or greater power supply efficiency. Other industry and
governmental regulatory compliance mandates have been introduced worldwide
calling for improved power management solutions. This has challenged business
IT groups to find innovative methods for performing power management on large
number of client systems. Fortunately, recent advances in automated systems
management tools have also become available to assist in this process.
As indicated earlier, however, data centers require a more sophisticated
solution to power management then desktops. They need to regulate power
utilization without impacting day-to-day IT production requirements and
business needs. Here again, automation is the key to success. Once a
comprehensive policy has been established, triggers and schedules can be set to
automatically power down unused systems and power up prior to production use on
a maintenance activity.
Implementing
a Power Management Solution
Desktop workstations account for a significant portion of
total IT energy costs in many cases surpassing that of datacenters. The broad
distribution of desktop workstations (PCs and laptops) creates a significant
opportunity for energy reduction. Even small percentage reductions in power
consumption can add up very quickly to significant cost savings when managing
desktop deployments enterprise-wide.
The primary challenges to reducing power consumption on client workstations
stem from the common lack of control IT organization have over these devices.
Users are often left to manage power conditions on their desktop with little,
if any, accountability on energy costs. Modern workstations typically include
power management features that automatically place systems in low power
consumptions modes (sleep, hibernate, power down monitor, spin down disk drive,
etc.) following a designated period of inactivity. According to an EMA study,
however, roughly 1/3 of common desktop users claimed to have disabled these
features by setting them to never initiate. The same study indicated that on
average, desktops were only actually being utilized 56% of each workday,
leaving a significant amount of time for systems to be fully powered, but not
used. Even worse, 43% of respondents indicated they did not even bother to shut
systems down during non-work hours (evenings and weekends).
In most modern enterprises, the decision to standardize on a power management
solution needs to be directed at the executive level. This is due to the common
practice of separating computing support services from building facilities
services. The former manages computer resources and the later manages power
consumption. They often have separate budgets and differing priorities. Worse
yet, some larger enterprises further subdivide budgets and resources based on
project or business department. It is unlikely that IT or department managers,
burdened with a variety of project related challenges, will voluntarily take
the time and effort to implement policies to reduce energy costs when those
expenditures do not come directly out of their budgets. A facilities manager,
on the other hand, does not have the ability to implement system level policy
changes and will more likely simply deny power access to new projects if the
available quota has already been met. It is the executive (most likely a COO or
CFO) that is in the best position to enforce policy change.
Once a power management directive has been established, appropriate tools need
to be identified to ensure compliance with the corporate energy policy.
Preferably, the solution will provide a centralized interface to automate the
power utilization of all systems in an IT infrastructure. The solution should
also provide the flexibility to account for business and IT specific activities
so as to not hinder business performance. Although cost will certainly play a
role in choosing a solution, this should be balanced against the cost savings
expected to be achieved once the product is implemented. In most cases, a power
management solution will provide rapid and justifiable return on investment.
Automated power management solutions are available today that can enforce
corporate policies by reporting and automatically configuring power management
setting according to established criteria. These solutions also enable
automatic power downs of systems during non-use periods. The more robust
automated power management solutions also enable automatic power-ups either by
leveraging wake-on-LAN enabled infrastructures or intelligent chip sets, such
as the Intel vPRO. By creating dynamic schedules for powering down and powering
up workstations, IT administrators can reduce power consumption while working
around activity periods such as for backups and maintenance windows. Automated
power management is among the easiest green IT solutions to implement and
provides some of the greatest enterprise-wide energy reductions.
