With energy costs spiralling out of control, now and in the foreseeable future, IT departments are coming under increasing pressure to do their bit to reduce the cost base and do their bit in respect of environmental sustainability. Most assume that to reduce energy you need to invest in latest generation processors or thin client/virtualised solutions. Not so, says Tim James, director at sustainableIT.
The most important thing IT can do is to switch devices off when not in use, with PCs being the most obvious candidate, James elaborates. According to Energy Star, an average office PC can consume the equivalent energy of three fridge freezers over the same period, in excess of 1 000 kilowatt hours per annum and well over a ton of CO2.Turning these devices off or placing them in standby when not used is an obvious solution.
Challenges do exist for IT in doing so however. For those IT departments happy to switch off overnight, communication campaigns urging end-users to turn off typically fail within three months and are difficult to monitor. Many IT departments refuse to turn off however, as mission critical patching and software distribution is carried on overnight.
Enterprise-wide PC power management solutions exist that companies can deploy to manage power offs and power ups automatically through centralised systems management. While some leading system management vendors have this built into their enterprise solution, many organisations cannot afford this extensive capital outlay and these tools.
NightWatchman, part of a power and patch management solution introduced by sustainableIT into South Africa, powers down devices based on group policies and in so doing, backs up any unsaved data on the desktop. Importantly the solution also reports on energy use, CO2 emissions and costs in the environment, an important factor in driving behaviours and delivering quantifiable ROI. James concludes that this cost effective solutions, specifically designed for shutdowns and wake-ups offers an ROI payback of less than 12 months. A simple solution but offering enormous cost savings.
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