How green is your IT?

Abstract

This paper deals with computing infrastructures which are packed with noxious substances, but they are getting a lot more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient to boot. Computer equipment has traditionally been stuffed with hazardous materials from the cadmium in batteries to lead used for soldering. Power consumption is also an increasing problem. Industry watchdog monitor the environmental effects of the electronics industry. Lead oxide and barium are found in CRT monitors, can, be replaced with LCD. Data centres from a material point of view are loaded with non-environmentally friendly materials that have large scale batteries and UPS systems, and that technology includes lead. Thus, today companies are striving to produce green desktops and servers. The regulations will help make computing environments greener. Much of the power benefit can be offered by virtualisation, which is a concept offering huge environmental benefits for data centre managers. Virtualisation gives each application its own operating system, and lets multiple different operating systems run on a single server at once. In most cases, making green decisions in the computing environment saves company money from its capital expenditure budget or reducing the data centre's facilities by lowering energy consumption. In spite of the rhetoric around corporate social responsibility, the real driver for environmentally friendly computing is financial gain.