Posts Tagged ‘recycling’
Green Computers
Monday, September 26th, 2011
Green IT AWARENESS
General awareness – examples, from the Carbon Trust, include:
- A computer left on 24/7 will cost about £37 a year, whereas by switching off at night and weekends, the charge can be reduced to about £10 a year – enough energy to make some 34,900 cups of coffee
- A PC monitor switched off overnight saves enough energy to microwave six dinners .
- Turning off all non essential equipment in an office for one night will save enough energy to run a small car for 100 miles
- Monitors account for almost two-thirds of a computer’s energy use
- Office equipment is the fastest-growing area, accounting for up to 20% of total energy use.
Thus , a need has aroused for effective Greening to raise awareness at all levels and assess Green impact of your technologies, practices and behaviours, identify hot spots, establish baselines and identify simple things to do first. Since this is a position paper, we do not present results but rather suggest interesting directions for core networking research. The impact of saving energy is huge, particularly in the developing world where energy is a precious resource whose scarcity hinders widespread Technology deployment.
- INTRODUCTION
Modern IT systems rely upon a complicated mix of people, networks and hardware; as such, a Green Computing initiative must be systemic in nature, and address increasingly sophisticated problems. Elements of such a solution may comprise items such as end user satisfaction, management restructuring, regulatory compliance, disposal of electronic waste, telecommuting, virtualization of server resources, energy use, thin client solutions, and return on investment (ROI). The energy consumption of the Internet is “too high” and that since this energy consumption can only grow as the Internet expands, this is a cause for concern. One may disagree, as we do, with the qualitative statement that the energy consumption of the Internet is too high, because it is a small fraction of the overall energy.
Green IT is the technology industry’s way of asking itself what role it should play in the global movement toward building a more sustainable civilization. The answer is typically three-fold:
- Minimize energy use
- Reduce CO2 emissions
- Better manage electronic waste
Why Green IT is important
While many in Silicon Valley and in the Environmental movement have very altruistic reasons for pursuing green initiatives — “passing on a sustainable world to our children” — there are also very pragmatic reasons that this is becoming a major concern for businesses:
- The cost of energy
- Concerns over the future supply of energy
- Exploding use of energy as data centers expand
- Threat of government regulation of energy consumption
- First targets for Kyoto Protocol (reducing greenhouse gases) coming in 2008-2012
- Growing political support for managing and regulating CO2 emissions
Green IT is implemented to reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve building performance. Some important Steps to implement Green IT could be overall process improvement and going for envoirment friendly components ,Power saving processes.Use a low-power blade server embedded with 10 Gigabit Ethernet for data centers that it says encourages a flattened data center network and consolidated infrastructure, resulting in IT cost savings.
Power saving through changing over to energy efficient devices and appliances including PCs, Work Stations and Servers. As cited blade servers with thin remote clients is emerging IT technology to save on power, maintenance and storage. Computer systems which are outdated and no more used by an organization can be donated to various charities or non-profit organization to use it.Parts from outdated systems should be salvaged and recycled as it can keep harmful materials such as lead, mercury, out of landfills.
Power saving while maintaining a nice powerful machine is easy to make. buy a CPU fabricated on a 45nm process, saving power while maintaining speed and lowering the power requirements for a PSU. ATI Radon 4850 is a nice speedy card, and very power efficient compared to cards with the same performance! A efficient PSU, keeping in mind that a non-efficient PSU can waste as much as 40% energy.
2. ENERGY SAVINGS OPPORTUNITIES
Green IT is essentially a rallying call for tech to take a proactive approach in its role to energy conservation, climate change, and electronic waste. In some cases, this can also have a very positive effect on the bottom line — especially in relation to energy savings.
- Power-down the CPU and all peripherals during extended periods of inactivity.
- Try to do computer-related tasks during contiguous, intensive blocks of time, leaving hardware off at other times.
- Power-up and power-down energy-intensive peripherals such as laser’s according to need.
- Use liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitors rather than cathode-ray-tube (CRT) monitors.
- Use notebook computers rather than desktop computers whenever possible.
- Use the power-management features to turn off hard drives’s and displays after several minutes of inactivity.
- Minimize the use of paper and properly recycle waste paper.
- Dispose of e-waste according to federal, state and local regulations.
- Employ alternative energy sources for computing workstation’s, servers, networks and data centers.
3.Contradictory Perspective
IT is responsible for just two percent of global CO2 emissions. Also to add that population explosion is a much greater concern for CO2 emissions and that attention should be directed toward that. He also claimed that measuring CO2 emissions isn’t consistent and so it’s difficult for IT to even gauge its status.So, it shall be more useful for IT to simply focus on reducing power consumption.
IT organizations should expect to come under scrutiny for their practices in relation to Green IT, in the same way that Google is being put under the microscope for its policies and approach. So I would recommend running a fire drill to put yourself under the microscope first, so that you have a good idea of where you stand.
- 4. CRITERIA Of SUCCESS
The goals of green IT include minimizing the use of hazardous materials, maximizing energy efficiency, and encouraging recycling and/or use of biodegradable products — without negatively affecting productivity. In this article, we’ll look at 10 ways to implement green IT practices in your organization.
The world of big business is making daily headlines by “going green” after discovering that what’s good for the planet is also proving good for business.IBM recently announced “Project Big Green,” a $1 billion initiative to reduce energy consumption by offering new lines of energy-efficient IT products. Wal-Mart is adding solar power to more than 20 stores.
PepsiCo is buying renewable energy certificates to offset its carbon footprint. Even major banks and energy firms are being asked by shareholders to prove that they, too, are going green.
It’s not just the biggest businesses that are attracting new customers and shareholders and reaping huge profits by “going green.” Small businesses also are growing eco-profits by embracing surprisingly inexpensive strategies to add value to their products, services and brand
#1: Buy energy efficient hardware
Usage of notebooks, workstations, and servers that meet the EPA’s Energy Star guidelines for lower power consumption standards set by the IEEE to measure “environmental performance.” All EPEAT-registered products must meet Energy Star 4.0 criteria.
Multicore processors increase processing output without substantially increasing energy usage. Also look for high efficiency (80%) power supplies, variable speed temperature controlled fans, small form factor hard drives, and low voltage processors.
#2: Use power management technology and best practices
Modern operating systems running on Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)-enabled systems incorporate power-saving features that allow you to configure monitors and hard disks to power down after a specified period of inactivity. Systems can be set to hibernate when not in use, thus powering down the CPU and RAM as well.Hardware vendors have their own power management software, which they load on their systems or offer as options. For example, HP’s Power Manager provides real-time reporting that shows how the settings you have configured affect the energy used by the computer.
There are also many third-party power management products that can provide further flexibility and control over computers’ energy consumption. Some programs make it possible to manually reduce the power voltage to the CPU. Others can handle it automatically on systems with Intel SpeedStep or AMD Cool’n'Quiet technologies.Other technologies, such as Intel’s vPro, allow you to turn computers on and off remotely, thus saving energy because you don’t have to leave systems on if you want, for example, to schedule a patch deployment at 2:00 A.M.
#3: Use virtualization technology to consolidate servers
You can reduce the number of physical servers, and thus the energy consumption, by using virtualization technology to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical server. Because many servers are severely underutilized (in many cases, in use only 10 to 15 percent of the time they’re running), the savings can be dramatic. VMWare claims that its virtualized infrastructure can decrease energy costs by as much as 80 percent.The same type of benefits can be realized with Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization technology, which is an integrated operating system feature of Windows Server 2008.
#4: Consolidate storage with SAN/NAS solutions
Just as server consolidation saves energy, so does consolidation of storage using storage area networks and network attached storage solutions.
#5: Optimize data center design
Data centers are huge consumers of energy, and cooling all the equipment is a big issue. Data center design that incorporates hot aisle and cold aisle layout, coupled cooling (placing cooling systems closer to heat sources), and liquid cooling can tremendously reduce the energy needed to run the data center.Another way to “green” the data center is to use low-powered blade servers and more energy-efficient uninterruptible power supplies, which can use 70 percent less power than a legacy UPS.
Optimum data center design for saving energy should also take into account the big picture, by considering the use of alternative energy technologies (photovoltaics, evaporative cooling, etc.) and catalytic converters on backup generators, and from the ground up, by minimizing the footprints of the buildings themselves. Energy-monitoring systems provide the information you need to measure efficiency. This Microsoft TechNet article discusses various ways to build a green data center.
#6: Use thin clients to reduce GPU power usage
Another way to reduce the amount of energy consumed by computers is to deploy thin clients. Because most of the processing is done on the server, the thin clients use very little energy. In fact, a typical thin client uses less power while up and running applications than an Energy Star compliant PC uses in sleep mode. Thin clients are also ecologically friendly because they generate less e-waste. There’s no hard drive, less memory, and fewer components to be dealt with at the end of their lifecycles.
#7: Use more efficient displays
If you have old CRT monitors still in use, replacing them with LCD displays can save up to 70 percent in energy costs. However, not all LCD monitors are created equal when it comes to power consumption. High efficiency LCDs are available from several vendors.
#8: Recycle systems and supplies
To reduce the load on already overtaxed landfills and to avoid sending hazardous materials to those landfills (where they can leach into the environment and cause harm), old systems and supplies can be reused, repurposed, and/or recycled. You can start by repurposing items within the company; for example, in many cases, when a graphics designer or engineer needs a new high end workstation to run resource-hungry programs, the old computer is perfectly adequate for use by someone doing word processing, spreadsheets, or other less intensive tasks. This hand-me-down method allows two workers to get better systems than they had, while requiring the purchase of only one new machine (thus saving money and avoiding unnecessary e-waste).
#9: Reduce paper consumption
Another way to save money while reducing your company’s impact on the environment is to reduce your consumption of paper. You can do this by switching from a paper-based to an electronic workflow: creating, editing, viewing, and delivering documents in digital rather than printed form. Send documents as e-mail attachments rather than faxing.
And when printing is unavoidable, you can still reduce waste and save money by setting your printers to use duplex (double-sided) printing. An internal study conducted by HP showed that a Fortune 500 company can save 800 tons of paper per year (a savings of over $7 million) by printing on both sides.
#10: Encourage telecommuting
The ultimate way to have a greener office to have less office. By encouraging as many workers as possible to telecommute, you can reduce the amount of office space that needs to be heated and cooled, the number of computers required on site, and the number of miles driven by employees to get to and from work. Telecommuting reduces costs for both employers and employees and can also reduce the spread of contagious diseases.
5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we identify the problem of excessive energy consumption in the Internet and propose sleeping as the approach to save energy. Further, in order to maximize the amount of energy conservation,we note that some modifications to the Internet architecture may be needed (particularly adding more links to allow packet aggregation along fewer routes).
Sophisticated open source & commercial power-meters, carbon calculators along with carbon footprint dashboards to be addressed within the approved green budget that deliver the maximum ROI.The champion must also explore ‘opportunities’ like web communities, VNC
About the Author
Pawan Shanker Sharma Operation Head Jupiter2xlearning.com
MBA(HR),BE(Computer Sc),MCSA
Green Computing
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