Save power in standby mode

By Staff Writer for Gartner

Johannesburg, 03 Jul 2007

Today's IT organisations need to understand their enterprise's corporate social responsibility policies, and interpret how that applies to their activities, in particular to the environmental implications, says Simon Mingay, research VP of Gartner.

Many companies needlessly run office equipment, and particularly PCs, 24-hours a day, he adds.

"This will not be seen as acceptable in the future, so companies should not wait to be told to change things. Take the initiative and educate users through a communications programme. After all, consuming less power will result in cost savings as well as reduced carbon dioxide emissions."

As a proportion of the average office power consumption, IT equipment and office equipment will typically constitute 9% to 15% of the total power (desktop PCs and monitors typically represent the biggest single part of that), and consumption is increasing rapidly, he notes.

ICT contributes approximately 2% of global carbon dioxide emission, which is equivalent to that of aviation. PCs and monitors make up about 39% of ICT's total carbon dioxide emissions. "If most people placed their PC and monitor in a low-power state, or switched them off after-hours and made more aggressive use of power-management features, then carbon dioxide emissions and related power costs from the operation of those PCs could be cut by up to 40%," says Mingay.

Unfortunately, the power-management settings in most enterprises are disabled or not optimised. "Turning the equipment off or using a standby mode will not increase failures or reduce the life of the equipment."

According to Mingay, most employees and associates take their lead from those around them. If the culture is to leave things on, then they just do what everyone else does. It is important to emphasise the need for individual responsibility.

However, appointing a team member to conduct a sweep of the office before going home can make a big difference.

He says for obvious reasons, some equipment needs to be left on; however, simple training and labelling can tackle that. "For example, problems may arise with network cards and suspend modes, and these issues are often used as excuses to leave equipment on or disable power management.

"However, many of these issues can be resolved or worked around. They don't justify blanket policies to leave all equipment powered up."