Sustainable Technology

IBM builds coalition of partners to align their sustainability solutions behind Green Sigma. …

… “This will allow companies using these combined solutions to better understand energy and water usage, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions across their business operations and make changes to improve efficiency, reduce consumption and waste, and lower environmental impact. ” …

Via IBM: Green Sigma Coalition through Partnership for Green Solutions

Look to efficiency measures as the path to green IT. …

… “the greenest data center is the one you don’t build. ” …

Via Forbes: Data Center Savings

Symantec releases findings of its 2009 Green IT Report, based on survey results from senior-level IT executives. The information technology functions is implementing multiple green IT strategies focused on cost reduction and sustainability. …

… “Core Green IT Initiatives: IT professionals are regularly deploying several key initiatives for green IT purposes. Replacing old equipment was the most popular strategy, with 95 percent reporting new energy efficient equipment as part of their strategy, followed by monitoring power consumption (94 percent), server virtualization (94 percent), and server consolidation (93 percent). Additionally, more than half (57 percent) of respondents see software-as-a-service offerings as green solutions. ” …

Via Symantec: Green IT Study Findings

IBM will implement a modular green data center for ABC Brazil Bank using its best practices. …

… “In addition to occupying less space, the solution’s objective is to increase energy efficiency. The solution will also deliver high availability of the information technology (IT) environment higher employee productivity and easy access to customers’ data and information. ” …

Via IBM: ABC Bank Brazil Green Data Center Solution

The Procter & Gamble Company has be recognized as one of InfoWorld’s Green 15 award winners for successful travel reduction using video collaboration enabled by Cisco’s Telepresence technology. …

… “P&G is constantly looking for efficient ways to utilize available resources. To better enable employee connection and communication and to deliver on its renewed commitment to sustainability, P&G identified, and ultimately implemented, a green strategy supported by a high-end communications system. Telepresence is not only a good business decision but it also has tremendous environmental benefits. P&G began deploying Video Collaboration Studios across its global network in October 2007 with the goal of implementing 43 studios in just nine months. Today, there are more than 50 studios up and running saving the company millions in travel costs with the expectation that these saving will continue to grow as more studios are added and video enabled collaboration tools become embedded in business practices. A significant benefit of the technology is the ability to reduce the environmental impact of traveling. From July 2008 to December 2008, VCS helped P&G eliminate 6000 international flights – the equivalent of taking 3000 cars off the road for a year. ” …

Via Procter & Gamble: InfoWorld’s Green 15

SAP is working with its customers to understand how to harness virtualization for ERP system landscapes and leverage this technology for business value and sustainability objectives. To foster this customer collaboration, SAP is sponsoring a Green IT community. The company expects to generate innovative green IT solutions beyond the traditional data center space and views this horizon as green IT 2.0. …

… “The foreground of energy efficiency and waste reduction – the green IT 1.0 zone where many strategists focus today – will soon be eclipsed by a broader horizon. IT will drive new sustainability value in business processes and public infrastructure projects in the world of green IT 2.0, that will spur IT innovation and growth for years to come. SAP will use the new, SAP-led Green IT community to drive sustainability research and development initiatives with partners and customers. SAP will continue to promote innovative optimization technologies like virtualization together with its partners and offer relevant services, such as system landscape optimization, which help customers maximize the use of their computing resources. ” …

Via SAP: Green IT Strategic Focus Area

Numonyx and Virident Systems team up to integrate non-volatile memory solutions into the GreenCloud server platform. The memory will boost performance and improve the energy-efficiency of high-performance data centers and server clouds. …

… “Virident servers using Numonyx memory will enable dramatic increases in performance for in-memory applications, allowing data centers to meet growth demands of the Internet and cloud computing while managing tighter cost and energy budgets. ” …

Via Virident: Strategic Relationship to Deliver High-Performance, Energy-Efficient Systems for the Data Center

IBM will build green data center for Victoria University that will sustainably meet its needs for data management over the next decade. …

… “The project involves IBM implementing a modular design approach to enable the University to minimize start-up energy demands from the existing site electrical supply. IBM will also employ an in-row cooling solution which offers targeted cooling at the heat load source, combined with free cooling chiller plant technology to leverage the favorable Melbourne climate. Smaller uninterruptible power supply (UPS) module sizes will be used to maximize the amount of usable power and UPS efficiency. This will all result in both substantial energy savings and the elimination of hot spots to provide an optimum equipment operating environment. Energy efficiency is also important to the University. The solution is cost-effective to own and operate, with up to 45 percent less power consumption than a conventional design, potentially saving more than 300,000 kilowatts per year of energy. ” …

Via IBM: Victoria University Green Data Center

The EU sees the information technology industry transforming to carbon footprint and energy efficiency performance through industry-developed verifiable metrics, collaborative development of best-practices and toolsets, and an implementation for transition to the future efficient state of technology operations. …

… “There exists an untapped potential for the ICT sector to focus on systemic improvements and further reduce the energy consumption of its own processes (including operations, manufacturing, service delivery and the supply chain). If the sector were to adopt a more systematic approach to monitoring and measuring energy consumption at every step in a process, it could generate verifiable and comparable data, allowing it to identify opportunities for improvement, and to develop and apply solutions. ” …

Via EU: Mobilise the Information and Communication Technologies Sector to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy (PDF)

Being green means running IT operations at their optimum level of energy efficiency at all times, which is a challenge to respond to dynamically. Start where the inefficiency is the greatest — focus on under-utilized servers and infrastructure. …

… “The starting point in becoming greener, according to Logan, is cleaning up an inefficient array of hardware. That process involves consolidating equipment so power-consuming computers and servers are not ineptly idling when they are not needed. ” …

Via TechNewsWorld: Green IT Operations

IBM will collaborate with partners to deliver green certification through its enterprise content management solution. …

… “In addition to calculating carbon emissions, GreenCert provides instant data analysis and test reports that allow customers to use it as a base for carbon trading. Foxconn will make a significant investment leveraging IBM software and hardware technology to enable this analysis and management. At Kaohsiung Software Park, they will recruit several hundred software engineers with special industry skills to help make the GreenCert technology system meet the specific needs of different Asian industries. Additionally, it will help enterprises in the Asia Pacific region realize their social responsibilities toward energy savings and carbon emissions reductions. ” …

Via IBM: Asia Pacific Region Carbon Emissions