[November 23, 2008] Save energy using technology Tweet Nov 23, 2008 (Omaha World-Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Consider: --Electronic devices that run on an operating system consume 2 percent of the world's energy. --Energy costs for data centers are likely to increase up to 400 percent in the next four years. --Ten years ago, the power to run a server was just 17 percent of the cost of the server. Later this year, the power used to run a server will cost more than the server itself. Those three statistics -- and dozens more -- were part of a Green IT conference held in Microsoft's Omaha office late last week. Aimed at helping local businesses become more environmentally friendly through technology, the conference featured Toby Velte, an expert in green IT solutions and the author of several best-selling books. Velte focused on the future of power use in data centers, while offering money-saving solutions ranging from turning off monitors at night ($55,000 per year) to completely overhauling a server farm (up to $8 million per year). It all translates to money savings, said Brian O'Halloran of Microsoft. "Go green for the money first," he said. "The rest will follow." Velte's head-turning data were provided in the example of a fictional company with 1,000 individual servers. By eliminating older models (250 in this example) and replacing the remaining servers with new, advanced models, 68 servers can do the work previously done by 1,000 servers. The reduction was aided by "virtualizing" the servers, a process that optimizes hardware to take advantage of computing power. By using virtualization, a server can operate at its full capacity and do the work of 12 separate servers. In the fictional company, that reduction results in energy savings of $6.94 million per year, and offers a return on the investment in 14 months. Add "smart" storage through optimized hard drives, and it's $153,000 more in energy savings. Push the changes down through 5,000 PCs, which would change to a "thin client" (no CPU on the desk, but a network boot instead), and it's $1.26 million more. "These are huge savings in both power and carbon emissions," Velte said. The chance to improve efficiency in both areas brought more than a dozen local IT professionals to the conference. Ron Niewohner and Beth Ganer, both of West Corp., were particularly interested in Microsoft's RoundTable video conferencing device. According to O'Halloran, one client in Kansas City, Mo., saves about $2,000 in travel costs per employee per year because of RoundTable. "That's big," Niewohner said. "It's great when new technology is taking environmental impact into account." Ganer says green IT solutions are best when they're not a one-time deal. "You want the cost savings to be ongoing," she said. "You want to do it on a sustained level." Both acknowledged the PR benefits of green business practices. "It tends to attract a certain quality of worker to your company," Niewohner said. --Contact the writer: 444-1387, [email protected] To see more of the Omaha World-Herald, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.omaha.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]