Chapter 15
Enabling Green IT
In This Chapter
Reviewing hardware update strategies
Upgrading components, firmware, and device drivers
Planning for software updates
Large data centers concentrating thousands of servers into the space of a single building consume as much electricity as a small city. Increased processing power and speed of computing devices have created an insatiable thirst for energy and the constant need for cooling necessary for continual operation. Also intensifying is the political and environmental pressure to decrease the impact of technologies on the environment, including the materials used in production, energy consumption during operation, and environmentally friendly disposal at end of life.
Green IT is a sometimes-overused term for reduced environmental impact technologies and IT practices, but it encompasses many aspects that you should consider in the face of rapidly increasing costs for power and water, together with mounting fees for excessive utility consumption. This chapter examines strategies for enacting Green IT projects for economic as well as social perception benefits for your enterprise.
Practicing Green Technology
Before examining specific technologies and their green factors, it’s worth considering technology strategies that can help reduce the environmental footprint of your enterprise as a whole. Many different metrics exist for measuring the “greening” of an enterprise, from the total volume of carbon released during production and ...
