Virtualization and Going Green in IT

How green is your IT? There are some information technology initiatives you might consider that can save you some money and help save the earth.

Something very common in the 1970s and 80s was for companies to partition large mainframes with multiple applications. This concept fell by the wayside with the advent of low-cost PCs.

Now companies have invested in hundreds or thousands of servers in some cases, which are most likely underused and running single applications.

Companies now looking to reduce their infrastructure should consider virtualization of servers through software such as VMware and Parallels. This can reduce dependency on the large number of servers, the cost to maintain them, the energy to run them, and their physical footprint.

One of our large retail clients has successfully moved nine cabinets of processors off the data center floor by outsourcing, with the data available online. This not only has reduced the storage space required, it’s also reducing power and cooling costs by 70%.

Just as there is a movement to go green in other parts of the industry, the time has arrived for IT to implement sustainability best practices. Consider what steps you could take that would help your company cut costs and protect the environment.

Curt Barry is president of F. Curtis Barry & Co. (www.fcbco.com), a multichannel operations and fulfillment consultancy.