My final day at the Gartner Data Center conference included a panel discussion on incenting Green activities, observing the frenetic growth of mobile computing, and side conversations on Green IT. Do you need to increase the efficiency of your data center?

Speak

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) explained their program of paying customers for reducing power consumption. For laptops, they incent the manufacturers to sell more efficient devices. PG&E also provides free engineering services to customers that want to build new or renovate existing data centers. Once the work is completed and in operation, PG&E writes customers a check to subside the cost of the energy efficient devices. This article suggests we look outside the data center.

I commend PG&E. What are you doing? There are a number of power management techniques that can be employed to reduce energy consumption. Besides turning off PCs at night, you could reverse the monitor background where applications permit. Black backgrounds use 25 percent less energy than white. Read this white paper for more information.

See

Most of the attendees are well connected. I see many of them on their smart phones, keeping in touch with their offices and customers. It just reinforces Gartner’s prediction that mobile computing is continuing to grow as one of the top initiatives facing data center operations management. Do you believe it? Perhaps we’ll need to monitor performance and capacity on mobile devices. Considering how my wife uses hers; that could be a challenge!

Hear

I can’t believe all the talk about Green initiatives. Considering the state of the economy, I would have guessed this initiative would have fallen by the wayside. I’ve overheard and been party to a lot of conversations and sharing ideas. It is probably the most discussed topic I have heard over these three days. It’s refreshing to see how many people are so dedicated to working together on work that helps both their company and the environment.

More later

Ron

For most, the real motivation for going green is about the cost and availability of power. Ted Samson said on his Sustainable IT blog that there are four reasons to go green:

• Save money
• Reduce the impact of an imminent energy crisis
• Garner good green PR
• Help the environment 

Helping the environment is nice, but would businesses and shareholders care as much about the environment if power was cheap and abundant?

Greening IT is a noble social cause and we should devote efforts toward it. Being green isn’t new.  IT has had the chance to be green for a long time. Think about it. Overprovisioning hardware, printing tomes of reports and leaving PCs on at night were par for the course in most IT departments and the business.  

When you stand at the edge of a landfill, do you see waste or recycling potential?  What do we see when we look inside our data centers? Do we see recycling potential?

How much power is being wasted keeping data around that we will never use again? It is far too easy to be wasteful in IT. We do it without even realizing it. However, there has never been a need to worry about being green in IT – no outside pressure, no mandates, no accountability. Now that’s changing. 

Economics is the primary driver for a greener IT and I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone. We like the side-effect of preserving the environment, but let’s be honest. 

In IT, if we really want to, we can do a lot more.

Take a moment and read a paper from a colleague of mine – Ron Potter – titled “Shades of Green: Which will your organization choose?” 

We can make a big difference.