Making the jump to low carbon, low cost computing

For the innovative businesses being "green" is no longer a “nice to have” and has become a necessity.  For those who have yet to make the connection there will soon be legislation to levy taxes on businesses carbon footprints.

There are many ways a company can measure corporate contributions to their carbon footprint by measuring, managing and reviewing waste, utilities and other carbon contributors yet IT systems often get overlooked.

One of the most shocking statistics of recent years is the fact that the Global IT industry is a potential rival to air travel when it comes to carbon contributions.  A shocking fact when you consider this is the same technology that presents us the ability to collaborate more and travel less.

So why is this?

From personal experience I know resources need to be committed in any size organisation to measure and manage power and carbon consumption and without any legislation this is easy to forget.

The key for us was to make the data collection a simple automated process which we achieved with the help of some products from http://www.currentcost.com/ .  Once you put some effort into setting this up you can easily let the device collect data and analyse at your convenience.  This is when the fun starts!

The current cost device allows you to breakdown power consumption into nine separate cost centres giving you manageable chunks of data.  Our main area of focus was our server cabinet.
We were able to ascertain which servers were the worst contributors and why and we made strategic plans to consolidate hardware and migrate to cloud based services in an attempt to reduce power, costs and carbon.  Three months into this exercise and we have been rewarded with tangible cost savings in excess of £500; 2,000 Kg of carbon and intangible gains through reduced cooling, better working practices and more accessible data.

There’s still much more to be done and our strategy is well underway to keep the reductions coming.  Be sure to keep your eye on the blog and our web site for further updates.