Green IT: Energy Saving

Green IT or Green computing is a technological trend is to take into account the energy consumption of computers. This is currently a major trend in computing, it can save even more energy than computers (computers and servers) is important. The objectives of Green IT is therefore to measure and improve the energy performance of the production computer. The Green IT, but also new forms of management organization in the company.

Quantify your consumption

The share of energy consumption of computers is estimated at approximately 10% of the budgets of departments. The materials are the most greedy servers, whose power consumption has increased by 10% in 2008. Although it is considered that, in considering the life of a computer, the electric bill is more expensive than buying the park itself!
Although consumption quantify and define the needs of your IT is the first step to save money on energy bills. In addition, analysis of needs to better targets the team strategy within the company.

Renovating your computer

Buy a new computer

Manufacturers now offer lines of computers and servers, less power hungry. Do not necessarily the purchase price of "raw" material, but see longer term by calculating its power consumption. Most computers and energy-efficient servers are labeled. Two major labels refer the subject: Energy Star and EPEAT. Hence the purchase of qualified computers, you will surely win in the end.

In 2007, approximately 109 million EPEAT certified computers were sold around the world. Energy savings associated with use was estimated at 42 billion kWh. Throughout the life cycle of these computers, a total savings of $ 3.2 billion could be achieved.
Another tip to save energy when renewing your fleet, consider the precise needs of each user. All your employees may not necessarily need ultra-powerful computers. Make sure to define the adequacy user / computer.

Renting computers

This is another solution to reduce its energy note. It is particularly well suited to small to SMEs because it allows them to keep their cash flow. The rental of a computer allows the company to have access to a recent material, most often less dependent on energy, without straining its cash flow. In most cases the maintenance is included in the rental price. The location also allows greater flexibility, since you can rent that the number of posts used in the event of departure of one of your employees, you can do to make the computer that you used more.

The other big advantage of the location of computers is of course to enjoy a park renewed every two years on average and thus benefit from devices more efficient.
The rent is calculated by post, will take about 18 to 30 dollars per item for a PC and 30 to 45 dollars for a server.

Virtualize your servers

Server virtualization is to share a physical server into several virtual servers. Considering that most of the time, the servers are only used only 20% capacity. Server virtualization makes it possible to use a maximum of one physical server, using the economy of additional servers. This technique allows to save money on procurement and maintenance of servers, but also on energy costs induced by the multiplication of these servers.

Microsoft, Sun or Novel offer services of server virtualization.

Encourage video conferencing

Using video conferencing can organize a meeting in saving costs for the trip to get there. More and more companies now use solutions video conferencing to conduct meetings in which the players are remote. Also remove the cost of trips, they also consume less paper, since the printing of documents is no longer necessary. Finally, this type of assembly requires a very small investment as simply a computer, a webcam and possibly a large screen.
Many free and commercial solutions exist to conduct the meeting through video conferencing. The side of free solutions, Skype and Windows Live Messenger may allow the holding of meetings by video conference, but you may soon be limited by these solutions. As for pay solutions, WebEx, Cisco and Orange Business Services also offer solutions for video conferencing.