Is Green IT The Answer?

Last month, we at Evolving Solutions celebrated Earth Day.

In the spirit of the day, I conducted an online search on Green IT to see how others in the industry are discussing green initiatives, and found the excellent post, “Saving Green by Being Virtually Green,” by Lilac Berniker.

“The focus of IT departments has shifted palpably in the last few months. Until last year, their focus was on becoming more environmentally conscious and making concerted efforts towards ‘greening the datacenters,’” begins Berniker.  ”Today, the entire focus is on cost savings, cost avoidance and cost deferment. Few organizations realize that virtualization can be a critical link to creating a utopian world where IT can lower costs while at the same time be more green.”

So, can data center cost saving strategies, like server and storage virtualization, transform our world into the utopia envisioned by major proponents of a green lifestyle?

The answer is a resounding ‘maybe.’

Despite its name, Green IT’s focus is almost entirely on cost-savings.  However, when someone offers Green IT as a solution, many see this as trusting a vital part of your business to a faddy, green movement.

A business’ fundamental purpose for existing is to be a profitable entity, and part of what’s keeping this entity alive is a robust, efficient IT infrastructure.  While many businesses have implemented green initiatives, these initiatives are secondary, and more philanthropic than fundamental.

The reason why few organizations realize that Green IT, or initiatives like server and storage virtualization, can be beneficial to the environment is because this is not their fundamental purpose for existing.

Hence the revised focus on selling Green IT as a cost saving initiative.

So, will Green IT save costs?

Absolutely.  The idea behind green IT is lower power costs, essentially.

Will Green IT be beneficial to business?

Yes.  Solutions like server and storage virtualization, while using less power, bring with them the added benefit of more efficient IT processes, leading to a more efficient business altogether.

Will Green IT make our world a better place to live?

Likely so.  In using fewer resources, it would not be out of line to suggest that we are collectively reducing our impact on the planet.

When someone mentions Green IT in your organization, realize that while its benefit towards the greater good for our planet remains to be proven beyond a doubt, its benefit to your business is not the least bit in question.

XIV Storage Systems is one of the newest offerings from IBM.  If you are interested in learning more about this exciting new technology, consider attending one of our upcoming lunch seminars.  On December 4th we will be holding a lunch meeting at the 317 on Rice Park in St. Paul.  Registration and lunch will be available starting at 11:30 am.  A presentation on XIV Storage will begin at noon.  Representatives from IBM will be on hand to discuss the features and benefits of this exciting new storage system.

Our second lunch meeting will be held on December 18th at the Medina Golf and Country Club in Medina.  Following this session, a tour of our BPIC will be available where you can view the XIV Storage System.  Come see first hand a demonstration of how XIV can improve the management of your data, provide business continuity through innovative grid-based redundancy and instant snapshot creation for faster data recovery as well as it’s self healing capabilities.

To register for one of the XIV Storage lunch meetings, visit www.evolvingsol.com/training.

Evolving Solutions held its 7th Annual Technology Update on August 4th. Our focus this year included a technical presentation on Live Partition Mobility, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and an update on Server Virtualization.

One of our Senior Consultants, Ralph Johnson, presented on the features and benefits of utilizing Live Partition Mobility. Ralph has successfully completed installing and configuring systems in our Innovation Center to demonstrate Live Partition Mobility. If you would like to schedule a demo in our lab, please give us a call.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is causing quite a stir in the IT community. Through our partnership with VMware, we are able to offer our clients a look and a test drive on this exciting technology. With the focus today on cost saving, VDI is a technology worth looking in to.

Server Virtualization has been around for a few years and continues to be a “hot” topic for our clients and partners. The values of virtualization in your server and storage environment increases the ease of managing a data center and can give you back time in your day for strategic planning.