I'd like to introduce myself--my name is Ilene Aginsky and I'm the new site community manager for the IT@Intel zone on Open Port, Intel's online IT community site. I started out in IT about two years ago and got very interested in the green aspect of IT.

We have had quite a few discussions out here in the community on green versus efficient Greening Data Centers or Make 'em Efficient? and I'm not as concerned by what it is called but rather what we must do to ensure we don't damage the environment.

The issues are not simple and require a balancing act. It is important to look at the picture holistically, from cradle to grave. For example, Intel IT will be refreshing approximately 20,000 servers this year with new servers that will consume less energy and reduce our carbon footprint. This begs the question: what happens to the old equipment and what are we doing to prevent it from ending up in a landfill?

I asked my colleague Robert who is the Secure Data Control Program Manager for IT and he told me that all end-of-life (EOL) servers at Intel follow the same process. We make sure that we secure all the data by removing and sanitizing the hard drives.

Once the data has been sanitized there are three possible paths:
Resale - we prioritize re-sale
Donations - some organizations need servers, even without disks
Scrap - anything deemed worthless to resale or donations is sent to scrap vendors for material reuse and recycling

What does your organization do with old equipment?

I won't go into a long dissertation, but I would like to hear what the masses are thinking about Green or Efficient efforts for the Data Center landscape.



As you all know Green is taking off -- our world is becoming concerned with the legacy we'll leave for our children and their children. I admire that because it identifies how we're a caring nation in the U.S. as well as a compassionate world.

But I believe we're mixing the messages down at the lower levels; In my opinion, "Green" means giving something back to mother earth. It means offsetting your carbon impact by planting trees (as I learned from one of the earlier companies I worked for ), or it means buying energy from alternative means such as wind power -- the direction Intel and other companies are moving towards. Those are green efforts from my point of view. However "Efficiency," is defined by Encarta's North America dictionary as this.. "The ability to do something well or achieve a desired result without wasted energy or effort."

Those are two different directions as I see them, and companies running programs to enable more efficient Data Centers must understand how to correctly identify their approach.

So, what does everyone else thing about Green vs. Efficient?
Share your opinion Greening Data Centers or Make 'em Efficient?