In my last blog, I briefly talked how small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) can contribute to the ‘Green IT' initiative that is gaining moment in the global market place. I had a couple questions sent to me to break down two topics: One, how is IT power being consumed by end users and secondly what type of impact can SMBs have as it relates to ‘Green IT'.
Think about how power is used in a business environment, yes there are the basic energy costs of lights in the building and the electricity for your heating and cooling system however there are also power needs for other workspaces in your building. If you walked into you company's breakroom/kitchen, you would probably be able to identify at least 3 items that use power (refrigerator, coffee pot, microwave, etc...).
Now think about your employees' work area. At someone's desk they can have several items that require power: a clock, a fan, a cell phone charger, maybe a singing Dilbert and likely a PC as well. When we think of that PC, there is a lot to consider. There are several studies publicly available that show how much power is being used by SMBs, and how important of an issue it is for their business. According to a 2007 Gallup survey (http://www.gallup.com/poll/tag/Americas.aspx), over 54% of small businesses rate rising energy costs as one of their top business concerns and 43% have already implemented energy saving strategies to control costs.
One of the top power consumption issues, one I have talked to many SMBs about, is the common practice of employees leaving their computers on 24 hours a day. US electricity costs of leaving PCs on (while unattended) reaches $1.7 billion a year. This equates to a lot of money taken directly away from the bottom line. Rakesh Kumar from Gartner states it in future looking terms for large business by saying, "By 2010, about half of the Forbes Global 2000 companies will spend more on energy than on hardware such as servers. Energy costs, now about 10% of the average IT budget, could rise to 50% in a matter of years." This type of energy cost for large businesses will have a similar effect on small businesses.
PC energy consumption has traditionally been a "hidden cost" receiving relatively little attention. Typically when we think power consumption, the large enterprise data centers with their rows and servers come to mind. But the reality is PC power consumption matters as well. Data presented by Gartner demonstrates that on a global basis, compared to servers, PC's actually generate more CO2 emissions as compared with Servers, including cooling. Gartner broke down power consumption in the IT space as follows:
PCs & monitors (39%)
Servers and storage (23%)
Fixed-line telecommunications (15%)
Mobile telecommunication (9%)
LAN & office telecommunications (7%)
Printers (6%)
Source Gartner Inc. "Tera-Architectures A Convergence of New Technologies" by Martin Reynolds July 26, 2007
Moreover, according to an EPA study (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/revisions/downloads/computer/ComputerPowerMnmt.pdf) , up to 90% of PCs have power management disabled, so PCs left running often may remain at idle rather than going to lower power sleep state. Leaving an energy efficient PC running when not in use (night/weekends) is analogous to leaving a car running when it's not being driven.
Not surprising, the main areas that require focus are PCs and monitors. Servers have received a lot of attention because they are an obvious concentration of power consumption. They are power inefficient and offer the opportunity to remove significant amounts of visible costs (and usually, but somewhat more incidentally, CO2). However, the real area where the greatest overall effect can be made is at the desktop and with client devices. This is a harder challenge because of the behavioural issues (leaving systems on the entire day) that are involved in "fixing" the problem.
One approach that many small businesses could do to help conserve energy consumption is to focus on what you can do during non-business hours. For example, if you have PCs (Desktops or Mobile) and monitors that are not turned off on Friday night and run the entire weekend - well, there are 2+ days of wasted power with no business benefit. If you look at a small business environment where there are more than several desktops, notebooks, and servers () (as you've just said that servers shouldn't be the only focus wrt power consumption...), the energy saved by having all machines shut off for the weekend can make a real difference in energy costs. In addition, make sure you purchase Energy Star TM (a system-level specification including components such as processor, chipset, power supply, HDD, graphics controller and memory monitors and computers) products. These products are made up of energy efficient components that will help save power when in use.
So how can SMBs start becoming more Green? Start looking at where you are using energy throughout your company workspaces. If you are not using a piece of equipment on the weekends whether it is a microwave or a monitor make sure the power is turned off to it. I recommend you start by looking look at which PCs and servers are still on when you are leaving the office this Friday. This will give you a good idea of the initial impact your company could provide by reducing your power consumption. In addition, if you are already using a manage service provider (MSP) to manage your network, ask them if they have a power savings plan that you could implement.
I would be very interested to hear what other ‘Green IT' ideas are out there. As mentioned previously ‘Green IT' does not just effect large enterprises. Energy consumption is something that not only impacts the status of our current physical environment but it also directly affects the financial bottom line for today's small and medium sized businesses.
. We'll cover this one specifically in another blog.
