Green IT: The Real Deal

The buzz around green IT is growing increasingly louder, but what are companies really doing to go green? The results from a survey conducted by Ziff Davis Editorial Research for eWEEK show that recycling is currently hot (so to speak) while water-based cooling is not. The results shown below are based on the responses of 336 IT professionals, from companies of 10 employees or more. Respondents could choose as many technologies as applied. (Numbers may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.)

Of the choices provided in the survey, equipment refurbishment and recycling was chosen by more respondents-

Coming in a close second-

Almost half of respondents-

Forty-one percent of respondents have a –

Server virtualization is being used by 40 percent of respondents, while 29 percent of respondents said they were evaluating the technology. Thirty percent said they had no plans for server virtualization.

Thirty-three percent of respondents said they were more carefully monitoring their power consumption, while about 40 percent said they had no plans to do so.

The modification of floor layouts to avoid concentrating heat is a strategy being practiced by 25 percent of respondents. Eighteen percent of respondents are evaluating or planning such a modification, but more than half of respondents-

Data deduplication-

Proponents say that DC power produces 20 to 40 percent less heat and improves server reliability by 27 percent. In addition, given the options in some DC layouts, having fewer parts in the power string means lower cost and easier management. That said, only 13 percent of respondents are currently using DC power in their data centers, and 67 percent have no plans to use it. Twenty percent are evaluating or planning DC power implementations.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they have no plans to install catalytic converters on backup generators. About the same percentage of respondents are using the technology as are evaluating or planning to use it (10 percent and 11 percent, respectively).

Far more respondents have no plans to use fresh-air cooling (73 percent) than are using it currently (9 percent), but 18 percent of respondents are evaluating it or planning to use it.

Another hot term in the world of servers and, more broadly, green IT, is thin provisioning-

Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they have no plans for a combined heat and power co-generation plant, 15 percent are evaluating the idea or are planning an implementation, and 8 percent have actually done so.

The IT managers surveyed seem to have little interest in using heat pumps to shift heat: Only 7 percent of respondents said they have implemented such a strategy, while 83 percent have no current plans for it. Ten percent are evaluating the technology or planning an implementation.

Only 6 percent of respondents said they were harnessing the power of the sun in the data center, while 82 percent said they have current no plans to do so. Twelve percent are evaluating or planning a solar implementation.

Of the list of technologies and strategies survey respondents were given to choose from, water-based cooling for individual computers was selected by the least number as a technology being used to go green, while only 7 percent are evaluating or planning an implementation.