How to Approach Green Technology Adoption

IT professionals are not always the most popular people in an organization. After all, much of the job involves telling people they can have only a certain amount of access to a limited resource, while also enforcing corporate policies that are typically handed down from on high.

So when IT managers think about the implications of green computing, many feel a bit reluctant to kick off such a program. Green computing has the potential to rile users, while also introducing the risks associated with implementing any new systems and processes.

That’s why it’s not a good idea to start with a major effort, such as consolidating data centers. Instead, begin with simpler things that will enable the IT department to develop a groundswell of support for the green concept.

That’s the approach taken by Rob Revels, telecom technologist for the Delaware Department of Technology & Information (DTI). The first element of the department’s green revolution was a relatively simple effort to leverage scripting tools from ScriptLogic to create a set of routines that would, after a set period of time, automatically send PCs into hibernation, spin down disk drives and turn off monitors.

By Revels’ calculations, that step alone saved about 11 cents per kilowatt hour. On an annual basis, that’s about a $10,000 saving for every 200 workstations.