Simply steps to reduce your IT's carbon footprint - May 31, 2008
Lake Mary Florida -- The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) believes CIOs should be on the frontlines of their states' environmental programs and policies. The organization, which advocates for technology policy, urges its members to take steps now to become leaders in reducing their states' carbon footprints, issuing a 17-page brief on ways to do that.
Although specific to state CIOs, NASCIO's recommendations can be employed by large organizations as well. Here are the group's tips for getting started:
Develop a plan: States that have developed green IT plans, including Missouri, Kansas and Oregon, have incorporated ideas for green efforts in nearly every aspect of their state CIOs' jurisdictions. These include purchasing equipment, recycling, and consolidating and virtualizing data centers, among other areas. Reaching out to states that have developed plans can help put you on the path toward implementing green IT initiatives.
Establish a baseline and determine a metric: Before you move a project forward, ascertain where your state is on energy consumed, greenhouse gas emitted, etc. Developing a baseline and a way to measure progress can be built into a total carbon footprint reduction plan at the outset of an initiative, For state data centers: The Green Grid and other industry groups have published a metric that can tell state CIOs how much energy is spent on the productive use of IT versus wasted on the physical infrastructure.
Track and monitor success: Once a metric is determined, continue to track and monitor a project's success rate. For example, in following a data center consolidation initiative, examining the energy usage rate prior to consolidation and then comparing that to energy usage in the aftermath of consolidation can help determine success and show the benefits accrued from the project.
Become a transformational leader: Utilize existing authority through enterprise architecture or other means to drive toward greener practices without making major jurisdictional policy changes. In other cases, state CIOs must often work to gain authority to implement these programs for their employees. For instance, despite the significant increases in employer adoption of telework, it still remains a subject of debate, particularly among older workers. In order to incorporate a telework process, state policy issues must first be resolved. By emphasizing these green benefits of telework, state CIOs may be better poised to advocate for the implementation of these initiatives.
Don't go it alone -- enlist partners: Collaborate with other agencies within your state to establish jurisdiction and authority and to gain buy-in for a green IT initiative or agenda. Reach out to other states to gather best practices and lessons learned. Engage staff members -- they also hold a stake in enterprise success and may be eager to help drive these green efforts. Tell vendors green initiatives are important to your state. Many vendors offer green components to their products and services, as well as those dedicated solely to incorporating green practices.
Reach-out to a trusted advisor like Sencilo Solutions of Lake Mary Florida that has consolidated 100's of data center thoughtout Florida. Brian McCarthy CEO and Consolidation Consultant advises companies to start small, move your under utilized file servers over to a modern NAS storage device. Most files servers use 80 to 160 giga-byte drives, today's drives are 1,000 giga-bytes with 1,500 gigs units arriving later this summer. Next look at VMware to again consolidate those old Compaq, Gateway, etc. servers in few VM servers. Sencilo has just completed a Florida based Bank and retired several hundred servers in favor of ten dual CPU, quad core units. http://www.sencilo.com/network-attached-storage.php
Leverage the circumstances: With rising energy costs -- particularly fuel prices -- on the mind of nearly every citizen and lawmaker, green initiatives will likely be met with unprecedented support. State CIOs are uniquely poised to become leaders in the green IT revolution.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com/storage-consolidation.php
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Sencilo Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in storage, security and networking solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, EMC, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Hitachi, Symantec, Barracuda Networks, and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
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