Going green, going great

BANGALORE, INDIA:  Going green is the latest in-thing in almost all human spheres. And IT is not simply left out. Most of the companies try to be green or at least try their best to appear greener to show that they are responsible corporate citizens.

World over, there is growing concern over the need to remain eco-friendly and cost-effective. And when it comes IT, it becomes all the more important not just because of the advantages the concept provides, but it helps manage the spiraling costs that stalk at the industry every now and then.

Broadly speaking, Green Computing refers to the use of computers and peripherals in the most environment-friendly manner possible, so as to remain cost-effective. Saving of energy, reduction or management of e-waste, maximum utilization of available resources, etc. are the prime drivers of green computing.

It includes implementation of energy-efficient CPUs, servers and reduced resource consumption and proper disposal of electronic waste.

According to a latest report by London-based Datamonitor, one in five major companies around the world have adopted eco-friendly computing practices and another third plan to rollout similar strategies within the next two years.

The report, Trends to Watch: Green IT, forecasts an increase in interest in green IT practices. Tighter regulatory measures and advances in technology are feeding interest.

The survey, conducted among 245 CIOs and IT heads, found that more than 75 per cent considered eco-friendly computing as an important element in their IT strategy. Fifteen per cent rated it as their top IT priority.

History

The history of green computing can be traced to the Energy Star program launched in the US in 1992. It was a voluntary label awarded to computing products like monitors, television sets, refrigerators and air conditioners that minimized the use of energy while maximizing efficiency.

One of the first results of green computing was the sleep mode function of computer monitors, which places a consumer's electronic equipment on standby mode for a pre-set period of time passes when user activity is not detected. As the concept developed, Green computing began to encompass thin client solutions, energy cost accounting, virtualization practices, e-waste, etc.

Virtualization

According to Sun Microsystems, 70 per cent of the servers in most organizations have only one application running on them.

According to Gartner, a traditional data center normally wastes about 60 per cent of the energy that it uses to cool equipment. Gartner also estimates that over the next five years, most enterprise data centers will spend as much on energy (power and cooling) as they do on hardware infrastructure.

Estimates show that most servers and desktops today are in use only 8-15 per cent of the time they are powered on, yet major chunk of hardware consumes 60 to 90 per cent of the normal workload power even when idle.

In fact, vast majority of available applications use only a fraction of the total capacity. Virtualization takes care of the issue of under-utilization of the resources.

Effective utilization of available capacity is critical to cut costs and increase efficiency. The Indian industry is already feeling the heat of an energy crisis. Large data centers consume considerable amount of energy.

Virtualization comes in handy in such a scenario. It simply means making one computer do the work of many, by using a single physical resource such as server, operating system, application or storage device.

Virtualization software and hardware envisage the maximum utilization of the unused capacity, so that multiple users can simultaneously share it.

It is an effective tool for cost-effective, greener computing. By dividing each server into multiple virtual machines that run different applications, companies can increase their server utilization rates and reduce costs.

It can reduce a firm’s electricity bill considerably. A number of virtual machines can co-exist in separate partitions on a single server’s hard-drive, each as a software emulation of another server running its own operating system and software applications.

Indian scenario

Wipro became the first Indian company to launch environment-friendly range of desktops and laptops, compliant with RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive, thereby reducing substantial e-waste to the environment.

The RoHS directive stands for "the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment".

This directive bans the placing on the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants.

Wipro has also set up an e-waste management process called Wipro Green Computing. Wipro is now launching a range of eco-friendly hardware products and promises to make its entire product range of laptops and desktops compliant with RoHS directive.

But, green computing is yet to catch up in a big way in India, as there appears reluctance on the part of the corporates to go green.

In a country where digital divide is so wide and palpable, it is natural that novel concepts like green computing fail to make much headway.

Experts in the industry feel that there is a lack of mechanism to educate markets on the benefits of green computing for the benefit of the environment and its ability in reducing e-waste.

According to K.T. Rajan, director, Operations & IS at Allergan India Ltd, the whole area of green computing is still in its infancy.

“There have been quite a few sporadic initiatives and learnings from such exercises. However, we are still far from a standard mechanism to educate markets and disseminate compelling information on the benefits of green computing,”

He, however, feels that Indian companies are not shying away from green computing.

“They may not have adopted to it enthusiastically at the first instance. The question, as to whether one would embrace this phenomenon or not is different. It’s a foregone fact that it will happen. The only question is when. But Indian companies have other pressing needs and green computing, while on the radar, may not be on top priority,” he said.

He feels that green computing in fact is not just a ‘environmental’ issue. “Its also a financial issue. You could save hard cash. So it will be driven both by the financial pressures and the environmental pressures.”

On the green IT initiatives in his firm, he said that the company has taken up some basic initiatives like the replacement of all the CRT monitors with LCD monitors.

“We have gone far in areas where traditionally desktops were used. Instead we use notebooks. In fact we hardly buy any desktops these days. We have gone far better cooling systems at data centers. Users are discouraged from using fancy screen savers. We have also made relevant progress in the area of virtualization and storage management,” he explained.

Virtualization provider Ncomputing’s desktop virtualization software has found takers in India.

Its software is simple: each user’s monitor, keyboard and mouse will be connected to the shared PC through a small NComputing access device. The access device itself has no CPU, memory, or moving parts.

R Suresh Kumar, director of sales Ncomputing India, told CyberMedia News that the company has sold over 12,000 virtualization kits in the last one year in India.

He says that the number is definitely raising and that the company sees a great shift. “It’s a small number considering the vast country. We have only a few hundred big and small names. But it is growing.”

“Of late, I see a lot of government agencies getting into the act of adopting these technologies with a conscious decision of reducing e-waste and saving the environment. We also see a whole lot of NGOs adopting these technologies. While governments are deploying these technologies, they need to definitely create greater awareness on green computing,” says Kumar.

He adds that he doesn’t believe that Indian companies are really shying away from green computing. “Its just that they are a little slow in adopting these versus a traditional PC. It is more to do with convention than anything else. With power becoming a major challenge, we have to adopt these technologies at least to save power.”

He feels that there is phenomenal potential of green computing devices. “We see at least 20 per cent of the PC users shifting to greener PCs with more global awareness of carbon emissions, power crunch, e-waste. It’s the right time for Indian government to start looking at Carbon Credits for corporates adopting this technology.”

Talking about the ways in which corporates can effectively use green computing, he said that Indian companies can adopt power sharing and non heat emitting devices. “With these measures they can reduce TCO (Saving in acquisitions of UPS/generator sets), saving on power charges and reducing e-waste and carbon emission.”

Global scenario

Chipmaker Intel has come out with eco-friendly products with its virtualization software. Intel has also joined Google and Microsoft, among others, in the launch of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative that commits businesses to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star guidelines for energy-efficient devices.

In order to reduce the huge costs involved in the running of data centers, Google has also built its latest data center on the Columbia River in Oregon so as to use cheap hydroelectric power.

Taking a cue from the Web search leader, HSBC has also built a data center next to Niagara Falls. Microsoft has also taken to green computing to reduce costs on their data centers.