Beware the Low-Hanging Fruit
IT professionals are well aware that so-called “simple” solutions usually have their own formidable complexities. Rick Freedman, author of “The IT Consultant,” recently provided a classic example. It seems IT consulting company EDS last year was eager to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency “Energy Star” program for reducing computer energy use, and in the process save $480,000 a year.
“Its plan didn’t involve wholesale replacement of servers or storage devices or virtualizing and consolidating the data center,” Freedman writes. “It also didn’t require the company to pipe chilled water into its facility or install solar panels on the roof. EDS simply used the existing power-management capabilities of its 90,000 desktop PCs to turn off the power when idle.”
But what seemed like a perfect example of “low-hanging fruit” had some serious hitches. Some applications had problems coming back online. Backup operations had to be rescheduled. Entire systems disappeared from consoles and set off alarms. EDS had to put the brakes on the plan and re-implement it as a multi-phase project to eliminate the problems.
“EDS’s experience seeking energy efficiency tells us a couple of things,” Freedman concludes. “First, applying the most basic Green IT tactics, such as turning off the lights, can reap significant green rewards and cost savings. And, second, even the simplest tactics have complications.”
