Green IT

I was [plugged] on the podcast of Green IT, Sponsored by Verdiem. I would like to put some of my own understandings from the research done by me.
Definition: refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT.

Stake Holders: Government, Users [Organizations,Independent computer owners], Vendors, NGO’s and environmentalist.

Goals: for
Government: To maximize energy efficiency, reduce the use of hazardous materials and promote recycling of products.
Users, Organizations: Reduce energy-related operating expenses, Reduce other IT operating expenses [maintenance], Do the right thing for the environment, Improve the company’s brand image with customer and public.
Users, Individual:  Save Power.

How: There are vendors, who are expert in providing solutions to convert your IT into Green IT. They do so in form of Software Solutions, Policies, Standardize some of your process, suggest ways to reduce your h/w infrastructure and more.

Challenges: Organizations: The biggest challenge to implement Green IT would be the Will. Are IT Managers willing to do this, Do they have time to think about it right now. The cost savings are good in terms of total power usage in the organization. But if we compare to the total IT budget, it is very negligible.
The other challenge would be the awareness, to make them aware of the problem might be a daunting task.
For big organization there can be a revision in the policies / standards / processes or other documents, due to the implementation.
There are some other minor issues like, if implemented how will Auto updates, patches and fixes will respond or be done. [This has been taken care by most of the Vendors]

Benefits: Organizations: Apart from Brand building and Power savings the other benefit can be the carbon points. The carbon points which they can earn, if they show they are reducing the carbon emission. This can also be easily done by the vendors, if they measure and monitor the emission from the hardware’s. The ROI on a typical Green IT solution would be between 6-12 months.

The Author is ICT consultant, for medium and big organizations.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mridulksingh

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