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How to make your network green and energy efficient: Five tips to make sure your equipment is environmentally friendly

Five top tips:

·         Refresh your equipment

Cisco estimates that its new equipment gains 15% to 20% in energy efficiency every two to three years. The energy savings alone aren't enough to justify replacement, but it's a good reason to keep your refreshes on schedule.

·         Make use of energy-efficient features

These features can vary by vendor, or even by model, so check before you buy. For example, Cisco's Nexus 7000 switch can reduce power consumption in empty line-card slots, but that feature is not yet available in the vendor's more popular Catalyst 6500 series. Other vendors, such as HP, allow you to turn off empty slots, but the process is a manual one. Juniper Networks lets administrators cut power to unused ports, but only by writing a script that lowers the power once a certain activity threshold is reached.

·         Virtualise
Server virtualisation increases network utilization and reduces network equipment needs by allowing multiple virtual servers to share one or more network adapters within the confines of a single physical server. On the switch side, features such as Cisco's Virtual Switching System allow one switch to function like many, which means more than one server can connect to the same port. This works because most organizations overprovision switching capacity based on peak loads. Reducing the total number of physical ports required lowers overall power consumption. Similarly, HP's Virtual Connect technology abstracts HP server blades from Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks. It requires fewer network interface cards, reduces cabling requirements and increases network utilization.

·         Be careful with cabinets

Make sure networking equipment that goes into a hot aisle/cold aisle row uses front-to-back airflow, not side-to-side cooling. Vendors prefer side-to-side venting, which allows them to get more equipment into the rack, but units using a side-to-side design may blow hot air back into the cold aisle, or directly into an adjacent rack, and overheat it. If the vendor doesn't offer switching equipment that supports front-to-back airflows, you'll need to retrofit the cabinet with a conversion kit, available from vendors such as Panduit and Chatsworth, which redirects it for use in a hot aisle/cold aisle configuration.

·         Use a structured network design

Your best bet for the greatest energy efficiency is to follow the Telecommunications Industry Association's TIA-942 Telecom Infrastructure Standard for Data Centres, says Rockwell Bonecutter, global lead of Accenture's green IT practice. The specification locates networking equipment in a main distribution area, which ultimately connects to servers, storage and other IT equipment in individual racks.

Credit to: Robert L Mitchell

(http://howto.techworld.com/green-it/3221355/how-to-make-your-network-green-and-energy-efficient/?intcmp=ros-md-hwt)

How your ERP system can help your company manage its energy use:How SAP helped the City of Palo Alto reduce its carbon emissions

A few years ago, we had the local electric company do a home energy audit. Our 19th-century house was hard to heat, and as we suspected, the inspector found we didn’t have enough insulation. But our most cost-effective change turned out to be the purchase of a new refrigerator. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Once you start looking at the right data, the results can lead you to 

solutions you hadn’t imagined.

I thought about this as I was reading the CIO 100 application from one of this year’s winners, the City of Palo Alto. In 2007, the city council set a goal to reduce its carbon emissions five percent by 2009 and then to 15 percent of 2005 levels by 2020 — one of the first cities to establish such targets. Every department got a carbon emissions budget, and managers were expected to come up with their own ideas for staying within it. As the recession deepened and fiscal budgets began to get squeezed, “it became clear this couldn’t be an add-on green thing,” says Karl Van Orsdol, the city’s energy risk and greenhouse gas manager. “It had to be cost-effective and we had to report on what our savings were.”

Officials already collected plenty of data about energy usage and spending, but didn’t look at it. Someone would key a code into the city’s SAP system to pay the utility bills, but “there was no accountability and no incentive to conserve,” Van Orsdol recalls.

That changed in early 2009 when the city deployed environmental and energy-management software from Hara, based in Redwood City, Calif. This software-as-a-service solution lets managers extract detailed data about their energy and water consumption from the SAP system and analyse it. Out of 150 green projects the city has launched, more than half also show potential for cost savings. The city estimates it will save $520,000 on energy this year compared to 2005.

Like Palo Alto, you probably have data that could be used to develop options for running your company more sustainably. You just have to begin using it.

Start With ERP

copyright of SAP

Any organisation with an ERP system keeps data on its resource use. For instance, if you’re running a vehicle fleet, you should know how much gasoline you’re buying. Palo Alto runs its own electric utility for the city and residents, so it also has details about its power consumption—information that’s often also available from independent power companies.

Every time a city vehicle fills its tank, SAP captures that data. With such records, the police department discovered it could save fuel by using fans in parked canine unit vehicles. When the project is completed, officers won’t have to leave the cars running when the dogs are inside.

Other initiatives include upgrading compact fluorescent lightbulbs and replacing old, inefficient equipment (such as refrigerators). City officials use the Hara software to track their progress toward those carbon emissions goals.

Palo Alto’s CIO Glenn Loo didn’t want to spend much money or staff resources managing a niche analytics tool. But a SaaS solution could be installed quickly, and the city wouldn’t have to assign anyone to learn a new application. Loo’s team wrote an interface between SAP and Hara to integrate the two applications. Having to pull data from multiple systems would have been harder, Loo says, but Palo Alto had just consolidated four legacy applications into a single SAP instance.

“In the end, we took something that was a sideline and we really built it into an energy-management system,” says Van Orsdol. “We built it as a business process.”

credit to: Elana Varon 

(http://howto.techworld.com/green-it/3238526/how-your-erp-system-can-help-your-company-manage-its-energy-use/?intcmp=ros-md-hwt)

The Top Ten Green IT Trends

The Green IT revolution is here and those organizations that make the effort now will be big winners this year, and beyond. This is Green Tech’s year for making innovations part of mainstream business. With soaring energy prices and increased consumer awareness of the danger to the environment, organizations will have to get serious about the migration to Green Tech. There will be winners and losers, hype and reality. Follow these trends to ensure your organization is a winner on the Green IT front. Here is how to effectively plan:

Defining the Green IT Paradigm

Getting clarity about the definition of Green IT will be vital this year. The Green IT Paradigm should involve: Conservation, waste reduction, pollution controls, resource allocation, energy efficiency and alternative energy use. Areas such as reducing costs on travel, telecommuting and the ecological use of resources, will be important to factor in. The end-game for Green IT is better and more responsible corporate accountability, so get ahead of the wave here, now. Keep in mind that Green IT is also about a culture change in your organization. As with any culture change there will be resistance and denial. Tie this to the bottom line and it will have a better chance for success.

Green Data Centers

The move towards green in data centers, which are the largest part of the power-hungry IT ecosystem, is evolving. Data Centers may be contributing to over 15% of total energy usage by some organizations. Better efficiencies, smarter cooling, use of alternative energy, and smarter utilization of data resources are all part of this evolution. Make sure your outsourcers understand this and support it.

Holistic Green IT Strategy & Plan

Formulating a holistic Green IT strategy may be the most important exercise for every company this year. Don’t try and do everything at once—have a plan. Having in place a meaningful and comprehensive strategy and plan that is focused on what and when to embrace Green IT actions is essential. Also, Green IT needs to be organization-wide, not just IT. Green IT is not just about buying more efficiently, but about a process change as well in how you think about energy, resources, waste, materials and products.

Green IT Metrics

Measuring the performance of your Green IT efforts should be top of mind. A lot of promises without results will not separate you from the crowd. There will be a lot of talk and customer doubt that organizations are serious, so get good metrics. Saving money, being efficient, reducing costs is part of the deal—being environmentally responsible is just as important for the long term.

Create Meaningful Green IT Results

Many results that are minor may not translate into a seriously perceived effort by customers, vendors or top management. Or, don’t attempt to do the impossible and fail. Manage expectations, but get results. Have small wins and build on them. Conservation and waste management, then energy, is a good path. Work hard to select meaningful and relevant results that can demonstrate your serious Green IT efforts. Some efforts may actually increase costs, so cost alone is not always the best measure.

Showcase Your Green IT Wins

Many organizations do not celebrate, promote and showcase their wins. When it comes to Green IT, bake this into the sales promotion, shareholders communication channels and media. Even vendors and partners should be evangelized. Most of all, promote your wins to customers.

Transform Your Supply Chain

Do an analysis of your supply chain. How green is it? Efforts internally to go green without affecting vendors and partners in your supply chain will come back to haunt you later. Influence them to make changes with you, even go so far as support efforts and award business to those that get green with you.

Create a Green ROI Formula

A Green IT Return-on-Investment is a formula for both selling and justifying the need to change, and what capital or investments in people or equipment you will need to deliver on for your Green IT plan. If you invest X, what will be the ROI? Will it be in customer appreciation? Reduced costs? New business?

Become a Green IT Innovator

This is the year when innovations will go mainstream, so what are the key innovations in moving data, services, people, transactions and systems that will demonstrate your commitment to being a Green IT innovator? Find clear green innovations that you can implement in how you move data, people, paper, systems, transactions and communications. Choose 1-3 innovations in each of these areas that can produce an effective green result, a EGR, over the next 30 days. Then choose another set for the next. Then use these to offer to rest of the organization, vendors and customers.

Serve Customers Smarter with Green IT

Green IT is an excellent way to serve customers and grow market share by being an innovator. Green will affect customer buying decisions this year. Get green and succeed. Deny it and suffer. Keep in mind, most customers are green supporters, they expect your organization to make change. Also, you can use Green IT to teach your customers how to become green. Share the learning. Grow the market. Be accountable for the Green IT revolution.

Credit: Dr. James Canton

(http://www.globalfuturist.com/dr-james-canton/insights-and-future-forecasts/the-top-ten-green-it-tech-trends-for-2009.html)

Why Green Technology is Important!!!

Green technology is environmentally friendly technology that is created and used in a way that conserves natural resources and the environment. Novothink is a part of the renewable energy branch of the environmental technology movement. We have taken the active solar panel technology that has been in use for many years in a wide variety of industries and applied it to the popular mobile gadgets that are now a common accessory to both geeks and tech newbies.

The definition of technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. Green technology is simply applying eco-friendly standards through the use of technology for practical purposes. Making solar power a practical alternative is the core of our goal here at Novothink. There are several large scale goals for green technology companies.

Sustainability Goal: Using natural, renewable resources to meet the needs of society without endangering the needs of future generations.

Recycle by design: Ending the cycle of manufactured products that are not reusable by creating new standards that are designed to be recycled and reused.

Source reduction: Reducing waste and pollution by changing patterns of production and consumption.

Innovation: Continued revolution of standards to utilize resources that are not damaging to our health or the environment.

Viability: Create a center of economic activity around technologies and products that benefit the environment, speeding their implementation and creating new careers that truly protect the planet.

These are the standards that will make a difference in a world of decreasing resources. Green technology is a viable industry that must take steps to merge tomorrow’s technology with today’s renewable resources.

Hello.....

Assalamualaikum,

My name is Mimi Halim, and I'm a newby in blogging. Currently, a full time student Master in Business Administration at UiTM. Before, graduated from UUM majoring in International Business. 

This blog is part of project for MIS 750 course.I have a great interests in Green Technology and International Business. So, this blog will be dedicated to support integrating Green Technology in business. 

Stay tuned!

Go GREENISM!

Mimi Halim

MBA Class of 2011