BANGALORE, INDIA: Today a CIO is seen as a business-enabler and not just a technology man. With unprecedented business growth and IT being the key driver for it, expectations from a CIO are increasing.

Nagendra Venkaswamy, MD, India and SAARC, Juniper Networks, says, "There is a major lack of visibility into IT electricity and facilities costs. CIOs are expected reduce costs, but at the same time improve productivity. Data centre consolidation and cost optimisation are on the top of the list of a CIO." 

"On one hand when total IT electricity consumption is increasing, electricity costs are skyrocketing globally. Government is pressurizing business houses to reduce power consumption. Whereas, energy efficiency of IT equipment is improving very slowly in today's scenario," he adds.

"Inorder to meet the productivity requirements, one has to implement high-performance network, monitor energy usage across entire IT infrastructure, specify energy requirements of all equipment and design energy-efficient and sustainable network infrastructure," he avers.

To meet the green challenge: 

How IT can contribute to the environmental agenda across and beyond the business is a major concern today.

Here are a few steps towards green IT:

Enable reuse of hardware: Divert landfill: Protect investment and extend the life of the infrastructure and design for recycling and reuse and reclamation of the same.

Space, energy and cooling savings: Deploy right-sized solutions (not forced to over-engineer), use integrated solutions that minimize the number of devices deployed and maximize energy efficiencies 

Enable anytime, anywhere secure remote access: Reduce commute pollution and eliminate operational costs associated with very small offices.