Sustainable IT | Ted Samson | June 2007

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June 2007

June 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Legislation calls for development of benchmarks and standards for datacenter energy usage -- similar to The Green Grid's goals

Datacenters have not been entirely forgotten in the proposed energy bill put forth by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. In fact, the draft legislation has an entire section aimed squarely at addressing energy consumption in these oower-hungry IT hubs.

Specifically, a section of the "Energy Independence Bill," as dubbed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would require the Department of Energy and the EPA to consult with members of the IT industry and devise a voluntary information program aimed at datacenter operators. "There is a potential for significant data center energy savings as a result of such a program," the bill reads.

The program would provide specifications, measurements, and benchmarks that would enable datacenter admins to "make more informed decisions about the energy efficiency and costs of data centers."

It would reflect total energy consumption of datacenters, including the performance and utilization of servers, data storage devices, and other equipment; the efficiency of HVAC systems; energy savings from the adoption of software and data management techniques; and other factors.

Interestingly, the bill would have legislators designate an information technology industry organization to coordinate the program. By a remarkable coincidence, such an industry organization already exists: The Green Grid, a consortium of organizations and individuals seeking to lower overall power consumption in data centers. Members include big-name tech companies like Microsoft, HP, Sun, and Google.

The Green Grid, which went public last February, has already set out to achieve the very same goals laid out in this proposed information program. In fact, the group had its first technical summit in April.

Whether or not this energy bill ends up passing, I surely hope that the Feds and The Green Grid can sync up on the project of setting specs and benchmarks for measuring datacenter energy consumption -- as opposed to working separately, which would be wasteful and redundant.

You can read the entirety of the energy bill right here. The portion about the datacenter information program is in Committee Print #1.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 29, 2007 12:22 PM

June 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Dell chills with Emerson

Companies say bundled server and cooling products can deliver an 80 percent increase in system performance

InfoWorld: Dell chills with Emerson As datacenter managers become increasingly aware that it can cost as much to cool a server as it does to run it, hardware vendors are concocting ways to put the freeze on those high energy bills.

While some vendors, such as HP and IBM have developed their own respective cooling solutions, Dell today is announcing a different approach: The company has teamed with Emerson Network to deliver Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions, which combines Dell's PowerEdge Energy Smart servers with Liebert XD and Liebert DS cooling systems.

The companies assert that the bundle can "deliver an 80 percent increase in performance and a 42 percent reduction in facility power, while maintaining high levels of business continuity and availability."

"CIOs and facilities managers are consistently faced with the challenge of increasing computing capacity to meet growing business needs while concurrently minimizing energy costs," said Rick Becker, vice president of solutions for Dell Product Group in a written statement. "By reducing both operational costs and the carbon footprint for our customers, Dell is simplifying the way businesses can take advantage of energy efficient programs and technologies without compromising IT performance."

The Liebert XD system provides high-capacity overhead or rack-adjacent cooling using a high-efficiency pumped refrigerant, which Emerson says can result in inceased datacenter cooling efficiency while letting companies use their existing datacenter infrastructure.

Liebert DS supports the XD system and uses variable capacity Digital Scroll compressors to balance cooling across the room while controlling humidity and filtering out harmful dust and particles, according to Emerson.

Dell says it's in the process of developing Energy Smart Services to complement Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions. The services will help customers identify power and cooling inefficiencies, assess datacenter infrastructure and systems capacities, develop recommendations for improvements to optimize computing capacity, reclaim data center space and reduce energy usage.

The Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions are available worldwide, and are being jointly marketed and sold by the two companies.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 28, 2007 08:00 AM

June 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The healthy carbon diet

Companies preoccupied with their bulky carbon footprints should opt for healthy conservation over "lite" carbon offsets

People are becoming increasingly familiar with the term "carbon footprint" -- that is, the amount of carbon dioxide an organization or individual is responsible for exuding. The phrase has garnered increasing popularity as the world has become more eco-conscious and carbon dioxide has essentially been deemed Eco Enemy No. 1, thanks to the links scientists have made between the gas and global warming.

Also becoming increasingly en vogue: being "carbon neutral," which ought not be confused with being "carbon free." The latter, to me, means you're somehow managing to produce zero carbon dioxide through your business processes. That's an easy concept to grasp but difficult to achieve, given that the fossils fuels on which we depend to power electric companies and modes of transit also generate CO2.

Compare that to carbon neutrality, which means an organization measures its carbon footprint, then invests in projects, or "carbon offsets," intended to negate or make up for the damage that carbon is thought to cause to the environment.

One of the more popular ones -- and I feel a little guilty about writing about it so often -- is Dell's "Plant a Tree for Me" program. Dell teamed up with The Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org to set up this program through which people can donate money to plant trees to offset the carbon produced by, say, a new server or PC.

So, by Dell's calculations, $2 worth of trees will offset the carbon produced by a notebook. Forty bucks will negate a server's CO2 damage.

Neat and tidy, sure, and hey, it's a good cause. But is it the best use of resources for a company that wants to be better steward of the environment? And more important, does a participating company really reap any substantial benefits from it, save for being able to tell people, "Hey, we planted $1,000 worth of trees to make up for our new remote office in Tuscaloosa"?

Another carbon offset strategy: Put money toward nonpolluting alternative-energy projects. Rackspace is among companies employing that strategy for its U.S. datacenters as part of its ambition to become carbon neutral. It uses the fossil-fuel-dependent electricity itself but buys offsets through NativeEnergy for a wind farm project in South Dakota and a methane project in Pennsylvania.

Again, good causes, certainly, but again: Is that really the best strategy a company can adopt to reduce its environmental impact?

I am not at all intending to knock Rackspace or Dell; these offsets are just part of their respective carbon-reduction plan. What I'm driving at here is the bigger picture, for companies that want to be deemed carbon neutral but just want to take a quick and easy "throw money at it" approach.

The fact of the matter is, there are better ways for organizations to reduce their carbon footprint that not only benefit the environment, but have a long-term benefit for the company. Rather than fixating on the somewhat gimmicky goal of being carbon neutral, companies would be better served focusing on boosting efficiency and energy conservation.

Virtualization, for example: Rather than not making any changes in your datacenter and then paying money to some other organization to offset your server usage, how about using virtualization technology so that you can get rid of some of the hardware you have, or postpone buying more anytime soon? You save on your energy and cooling bills (which means less carbon), you get more bang out of the floor space in your facility, and hey, it's like a future carbon offset for the servers you don't need to buy tomorrow, if you want to think of it in those terms.

Or how about putting your carbon-offset fund toward a project such as what HP just introduced: a power-capping tool that you can use to control how much energy each server in your datacenter consumes? Again, less energy used and less carbon emitted. You have the carbon-offset benefit, but you've made an investment in your company that pays off in the long run. Plus, it better prepares you for any future legislation aimed at putting caps on the greenhouse gasses you're allowed to produce.

I can keep listing projects that will have these benefits: Solar panels, such as Google and Microsoft have installed. Telecommuting programs such as Sun and Xerox have. PC-power management tools. More energy-efficient desktops, or thin clients in place of the PCs. You can also look beyond your IT shop: hybrid vehicles in place of regular ones, or software tools for managing lights and A/C in your buildings. The bottom line is, any project you implement to reduce energy affects your carbon footprint, but you're reaping direct benefits down the road.

And there's one other important difference between outsourcing your carbon-offsetting efforts and implementing them at your company: Once you've signed a check and handed it over to the nice executive at CarbonCappers Inc., you can't really be sure whether the dough is going to erect windmills or pay for that exec's new speedboat.

I say that because The Financial Times recently reported on "widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organizations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place."

All told, I wouldn't want to see companies simply jettison their ambitions for a size-zero carbon footprint all together. But I like to think of it this way: If you have an ideal weight in mind, the healthiest route is to invest time and money in a sensible diet and exercise regimen. Eventually, you'll not only achieve the poundage you desire, but you'll have more energy and better general habits that you can carry with you. Sure, you could subsist on diet soda and celery for a couple of weeks and hit that weight goal sooner, but in the end, are you really in a better position?

Like the Tab-and-tasteless-greens diet, save the carbon offsets for shedding those last few unsightly pounds of carbon, after you've exercised your other energy-conservation options.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 28, 2007 01:01 AM

June 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

HP injects power-capping tool in Systems Insight Manager

Feature limits energy-use on a per-machine basis, potentially reducing overall datacenter power consumption by 70%, HP says

With many companies struggle with soaring energy costs as well as limits on getting the power they need to expand, or even run, their datacenters, HP today a new power-capping component for HP Insight Power Manager, part of the HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM) hardware management platform.

Using Insight Power Manager, customers can measure the average and peak power usage of their HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers and cap power at specific wattages, according to HP. That, in turn, can reduce power and cooling costs. Moreover, it helps companies ensure that they don't draw more energy from the grid than they're allotted. Trying to draw more energy than is available to you can reduce in unexpected downtime.

Currently, datacenter administrators plan their power budgets -- the total amount of energy they expect the hardware in the datacenter to consume -- based on collective power-consumption specs provided by the vendors. However, those numbers are based on high-usage scenarios, which some servers never actually reach, according to Jeff Carlat, director of industry standard servers software at HP. Thus, companies are pumping more electricity into certain machines than may be necessary.

"The energy usage grows significantly as you reach that faster speed on the server. The ability to capture the power and drive conservation of power can free up excess power in your power budget to deploy new servers," said Carlat.

Alternatively, depending on a companies needs, you can just put those savings back in your pocket.

According to Carlat, HP found in lab tests that it was able to reduce power consumption by 70% through power-capping, though the tests were limited to ten servers.

Admins can tweak the power-cap on a given server as needed, too. A database server, for example, might need more energy when churning at monthly reports. Thus, an admin could set it to receive 1,000W during report time and 700 the rest of the time.

The potential drawback to not setting the power cap high enough is degraded hardware response time, which admins can rectify by adjusted the cap -- or accept in exchange for the associated savings.

In addition to the new power-capping features, HP also introduced remote management features through Integrated Lights-Out 2, a plug-in application to HP SIM. Through a shared remote console, the tool allows for up to four users at one time to diagnose system issues and execute tasks, from anywhere in the world, according to HP.

Through the console replay capability, users can document procedures, train others or share with others to troubleshoot a problem.

The power measurement and power capping capabilities now ship standard with Insight Power Manager, which starts at $99. HP ProLiant Essentials Integrated Lights-Out 2 is also now available and starts at $349.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 25, 2007 03:00 AM

June 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Scott Adams grooms Dogbert as green consultant

Scott Adams'"Dilbert" can be a pretty good gauge for when a biz-tech trend achieves mainstream recognition and appreciation.

Thus I've found it both interesting and amusing these past few days as friends have IM'd me links to the latest series of everyone's favorite comic-strip engineer. (Granted, the pickings in that category are slim.)

In them, Dilbert's pup Dogbert has become an green IT consultant, dispensing the kind of shoddy advice you'd expect of a dog who revels in making a quick buck at the expense of brain-deficient human beings.

Today's strip, by the way, is a real gas.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 21, 2007 10:16 AM

June 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Telepresence breaks down communication barriers

Evolving technology enables immersive, real-time virtual meetings, face-to-face, without the high costs of travel

As organizations become increasingly distributed and overseas outsourcing become the norm, it's not unusual for execs, engineers, or sales teams to find themselves falling victim regularly to long, stressful, and often unproductive hours in transit on planes, trains, automobiles, and chicken buses (depending on where they are), in order to have face-to-face meetings.

The face-to-face aspect of a meeting is clearly important; it can be downright essential, in fact, for clear and productive collaboration sessions. Human beings pick up and process essential visual cues from their fellow homo sapiens that just can't be readily transmitted via the popular collaboration tools of today, like IM, wikis, and e-mail. Meanwhile, videoconferencing has not, by some critics' accounts, delivered the seamless, full-size, realistic face-to-face experience users have expected.

Fortunately, travel-weary executives and teams alike may just have cause for celebration: Telepresence technology has, by many accounts, achieved a level of quality, reliability, and affordability such that it's truly a realistic alternative to in-person face-to-face meetings.

"Vendors have raised the bar in terms of visual quality and audio quality and the whole environment of virtual meetings to the point that the technology is a viable alternative to actually traveling," says Jayanth Angl, research analyst at Info-Tech Research. "It's that immersive experience that people really need in order to conduct a real face-to-face meeting."

Howard S. Lichtman, president of the Human Productivity Lab (HPL), agrees. "Telepresence meetings make remote participants life-size, with fluid motion, accurate flesh tones, and flawless audio. The experience feels remarkably natural and comfortable for almost any size meeting," he writes in a very thorough research report titled "Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration, and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light."

The big picture
Telepresence essentially gives users a virtual conference room. Participants might sit at tables or at their own desks (depending on the setup) across from one or more large, high-definition video screens. With a couple of clicks, participants connect with one another, the way you might dial into a conference call. Hidden cameras and microphones then capture video and audio stream of each participant and deliver them, via a high -bandwidth networks, to the screens of the other participants.

The result: Everyone feels as though they're sitting in same room, even if they're really separated by thousands of miles. Plus, participants can connect their laptops and share applications and documents on one of the big screens, just like you might do in the conference room at your office.

So what does this all amount to? Suddenly, CTO Bob in New York can meet with engineers in London and suppliers in Tokyo, on the fly. He can see clearly see on the big screen that Engineer Stan's a little nervous about the project timeline, but he can hear the excitement in Supplier Carol's voice about the cost-saving potential of a new component her team has developed. In one afternoon, they can all work together to hammer out the kinks in the plans, in real time, and make changes to the spec document via a shared application -- and Bob can still make it home for dinner.

The company has saved time. It's saved money, both in man-hours and travel costs. And hey, it has spared the air several tons of carbon dioxide by not having everyone travel out to a single location via a 747, a nice green byproduct to telepresence.

An average flight from Los Angeles to New York generates 1 ton of carbon dioxide per passenger, for example, the Los Angeles Times reports. A single roundtrip transatlantic flight emits roughly half the CO2 emissions produced by all other sources (lighting, heating, car use, etc.) consumed by an average person yearly, according to the U.N. Atlas of Oceans. Meanwhile, the number of international travelers is expected to swell from 594 million in 1996 to 1.6 billion by 2020.

Meet the telepresence players
Plenty of companies, including Cisco, HP, Polycom, Teliris, and Telanetix, offer telepresence systems. Solutions range from high-priced offerings that include a full-blown conference room plus service and a dedicated network, to lower-end options that customers can deploy in existing rooms and offices and run across their own networks.

(I want to note at this point that I haven't tested any of these solutions first-hand, nor are the features I mention for any one of them intended to be a complete list.)

HP's Halo Collaboration Studio falls under the prior category. It's a relatively costly investment: A studio starts at $329,000. Each one is essentially a full-blown conference room measuring 17 feet by 21 feet. A studio can seat up to six primary participants.

Participants face four 50-inch, high-definition video screens. Three project the other participants on the call, at life-size. The fourth is used for data collaboration. A high-definition, high-magnification document camera enables individuals to zoom in on objects on the table, "revealing the finest of details, from colors to patterns," according to HP.

Up to four studios can connect at one time, through a few simple mouseclicks. "Meetings are off and rolling literally within a couple of minutes. Less than that a few minutes, most of the time, depending on how long it takes you to click on the mouse," ... says Darren Podrabsky, HP Halo future products marketing manager.

HP delivers a private, dedicated network for Halo, called Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN). "It's one of the biggest benefits we offer. It enables us to guarantee the same Halo experience anywhere you are in the world: New York, London, Singapore, Melbourne ...," Podrabsky says.

As part of the monthly service fee to cover network and operations costs, which start at $18,000 per month, per studio, customers receive support including remote diagnostics and calibration, ongoing service and repair and a 24-by-7 concierge service.

Taking a different approach to HP is Teliris. The company offers a highly modular telepresence technology, called GlobalTable, which customers can deploy as their needs and space dictate. "We can be deployed at many different levels, not just the senior-executive boardroom level," says Marc Trachtenberg, CEO at Teliris.

On the high end, a customer can have Teliris install a full conference room, including up to six flat-panel screens. Additionally, the company offers single-screen solutions that executives can use from the comfort of their own offices. Screen sizes from 42 inches to 100.

The modularity, as well as the company's relatively lower price-point, has positioned it "to lead the pack in installed customer locations," according to HPL's Lichtman. The company "has over 110+ sites either in place or on order, making Teliris the commercial leader in the space."

Like HP, Teliris delivers the life-size visuals and high quality audio, as well as the ability to connect up to six locations at once (which trumps the multipoint capabilities of the competition). Optional features include multi-site document replication, 2D and 3D cams, digital flip charting and storyboarding.

The company also offers what it calls VirtualLive 360, the first telepresence environment to offer a stand-up presentation, with a lectern.

Like HP, Teliris offers a dedicated network, called InfiNet, but customers instead can choose to run the solution via their own network.

Pricing can for Teliris solutions range from $60,000 to $250,000, according to Trachtenberg, plus monthly fees range from $5,000 to $10,000.

Other competitors in the space include Telanetix, a company that offers an very aggressive price for its modular Digital Presence telepresence products: Companies can lease a two-screen system starting at $1,000 per month. The company's CEO Tom Szabo describes the system as "CEO-proof," thanks to its ease of use, as well as future-proof. "Because we're software-based, we're also future proof. We just send out software updates over the network. There's no downtime. No one needs to visit the customer."

Getting more done
Plenty of companies have already adopted telepresence, including PepsiCo, AMD, DreamWorks, AOL, GE Commercial Finance, Mercedes Benz, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

AIG-FP, an international financial institution, purchased Halo studios for its offices in Connecticut, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, and plans to add one in Paris.

The company's CIO William Kolbert speaks highly of the system, advocating it over the more traditional collaboration tools in use at a lot of companies. "It's a clear, crisp meeting experience that results in a true working session. You're not just showing a PowerPoint presentation or some other document, you're truly collaborating."

The technology has helped the company streamline productivity in a big way. "If we didn't have Halo, we would have had to extend the whole timetable for rolling out our SAP system," Kolbert says.

Consultants used the company's Halo studio to train key employees, rather than traveling to major offices for small group meetings.

Another company employing telepresence, in this case, from Teliris, is Pearson, a global 1000 media company. According to Lichtman, the company reaped $2.1 million in hard-dollar travel savings by implementing telepresence in its New York and London offices. But also significant, the company reports a significant boost in productivity through better collaboration and communication. Justine Kanter, a management development and HR executive at Pearson had this to say in a written statement, reported by Lichtman.

"It is not just about saving money on international travel. It is also about getting smarter at communication strategy collaboration. ... Obstacles to collaboration soon fall away when you have tools such as GlobalTable in place," writes Kanter. "We are now discussing strategic initiatives with people in the business that previously were just e-mail colleagues because it is so simple. We are witnessing a massive culture change where people are talking more openly to each other about their markets and products, and not feeling in any way threatened by sharing knowledge. Talking face to face with someone is very different from sending memos and submitting reports."

We can't we all get along?
One of the obstacles telepresence vendors still need to overcome to boost their wares' usability is interoperability, according to Info-Tech's Angl. Right now, a company with a telepresence solution from one vendor won't be able to have a session with partner if they're running another vendor's product. "That's something we’d like to see in the near future... It's just really about extending the usefulness of the system. You'd have to be able to play with others," says Angl.

Some companies, like Teliris and Telanetix are ahead of the game. Teliris unveiled its Telepresence Gateway, which according to Gartner's Research Director Rich Costello will "initially support interoperability with Polycom RPX and Tandberg Experia telepresence solutions, with interoperability support for Cisco TelePresence and HP Halo down the road."

Szabo notes that Telanetix's product works with Polycom and Tanberg.

Other vendors, like HP, have catching up to do there. "We are about ready to roll out interoperability with between Halo and traditional videoconferencing tools," says HP's Podrabsky. As for the interopability down the road, "we're actively exploring it. We would like to be able to offer interoperability with other telepresence solutions. It takes agreement to participating with some of those folks like Teleris, Polycom, and Cisco."

Posted by Ted Samson on June 21, 2007 03:00 AM

June 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Brazilian tribe hopes Google Earth can halt deforestation

Surui's hope capturing satellite images of devastation from illegal logging and mining will spur action

Brazilian tribe hopes Google Earth can save rain forest Some politicians have criticized Google Earth as a potential tool for terrorists. Privacy groups have raised alarms that it can be used as a tool for voyeurists and stalkers. But an Indian tribe in the Amazon hopes that Google Earth will help save rain forests, according to reports.

The Surui tribe in Brazil has called upon Google to "capture vivid images that could help stop loggers and miners from deforesting the jungle and digging for gold on its vast Amazon reservation," the Associated Press reports.

Currently, the tribe has no Internet access, but with time, the tribe's chief, Almir Narayamoga Surui, foresee "many of the 1,200 members of his Surui tribe using computers with satellite Internet connections and high-resolution images from Google Earth to police all corners of their 618,000-acre reservation," AP reports.

Surui hope that the images will provide visual proof to the Brazilian government that illegal logging and mining is taking place, spurring politicians to act. Additionally, he hopes that those performing the illegal operations will cut back, or stop, once they know they're being watched.

According to AP, Google Earth will attempt to purchase high-quality images of the region.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 19, 2007 02:29 PM

June 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Iowa tailors taxes to entice Google

Hawkeye State offers tax breaks in hopes of reaping long-term benefits from 2,000-acre server farm

Lured by special incentives, Google has announced plans to open a new $600 million data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, according to reports. Whether it will be as green as the partially solar-powered Googleplex remains to be seen.

Google will use an existing building on a 55-acre plot of lands in the Council Bluffs; the server farmer could swell to cover 2,000 acres.

Iowa dangled some legislative carrots as incentive for the search behemoth to open shop in Iowa. According to reports, Iowa legislators have decided not to charge sales taxes on the utility bills for server farms, which will spell savings for Google, given the ever-increasing costs of running not only server hardware by the HVAC to keep the cool. Iowa is also waiving taxes on all computers Google will purchase.

Further, Google will reap a property tax break through 2024, according to reports, but it will plunk down about $65 million in property taxes over the next 15 years. Further, Google is expected to pay around $6 million in sales tax for building materials, state officials estimate.

Google will bring about 200 jobs to Iowa with an average salary of $50,000 to $60,000, according to different reports.

The Iowa data center will be situated newly expanded MidAmerican Energy electric-generating station. The expansion has increased the electric station's reliability and capacity to 790 megawatts, another reason Google picked the Corn State as the new home for its server farm.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 19, 2007 12:52 PM

June 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Google basks in $4.5 million solar-energy incentives

Google flips the On switch for its 9,212 panel installation, demonstrates vehicle-to-grid technology

Google basks in $4.5 million solar-energy incentives There's no doubt about it: Google is one power-hungry company. I'm speaking from an energy-consumption perspective, of course, and the company is take eco-friendly steps to sate that hunger.

Google today announced the completion of a 1.6 megawatt photovoltaic system at its Mountain View, Calif.-based Googleplex, a project that has reaped the search behemoth approximately $4.5 million in incentives from PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric).

Google's solar installation is the largest on any corporate campus to date, generating enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. The company will use the energy to power of its several Mountain View facilities, "offsetting approximately 30 percent of the peak electricity consumption at those buildings," according to the announcement.

The announcement was made the same day that Google and PG&E demonstrated vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, another plank in Google's green platform.

"Today's demonstration provides a glimpse of what we are calling the new energy economy," said Brad Whitcomb, vice president of customer products and services for PG&E. "Through our collaboration with Google, we are showing how the high-tech, transportation and energy sectors are intersecting to meet our country's growing energy needs and protect the environment."

V2G technology allows for the bi-directional sharing of electricity between electric vehicles and the electric power grid. The technology essentially transforms each vehicle into an energy storage system, thus increasing power reliability and the amount of renewable energy available to the grid during peak power usage.

PHEVs (plug-in electric hybrid vehicles) include additional battery capacity, which boost the vehicle's ability to run completely on electricity. Down the road, converted PHEVs could as a repository for excess solar energy that could be fed back into Google facilities during peak hours, according to the announcement.

Google's solar installation will boast 9,212 solar cell modules, manufactured by Sharp and capable of producing up to 208 watts of power each, according to reports.

PG&E is handing Google an incentive check for $4.5 million for the solar installation. The utility has interconnected more than 16,000 solar customers who generate more than 100 MWs of solar energy. Through the California Solar Initiative, PG&E will be able to provide almost $950 million in rebates over the next 10 years to help customers purchase their own solar systems.

For more information about about PG&E's incentive programs, go to pge.com.

For a peek at Google's solar installation, go here.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 19, 2007 12:01 PM

June 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Report: 62.4 million work PCs left awake during off-hours

Not to belabor my writings about desktop-power management, but according to a study released today, as many as 62.4 million PCs are left on during evening and weekend hours at companies across the United States, which results in around $1.72 billion of wasted power (assuming even just 50 percent can be put into hibernation or sleep mode).

Those figures come from a report released today titled "PC Energy Report 2007: United States," composed by Harris Interactive and sponsored by 1E, which provides systems management tools -- including solutions for managing PC power consumption -- and the Alliance to Save Energy.

The report says that "a mid-sized company wastes more than $165,000 a year in electricity costs for computers that have been left on overnight."

From an ecological standpoint, according to the report, leaving a PC on overnight creates 920 pounds of carbon dioxide. "If 60 percent of the country's work PCs are used this way — and 50 percent use hibernation or sleep mode — then 14.4 million tons of carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere each year, needlessly. Preventing that amount of CO2 from reaching the atmosphere would have roughly the same impact as taking 2.58 million passenger cars -- more than exist in the entire State of Maryland (2.48 million )-- off the road entirely."

"Ideally, everybody would shut down their PCs at the end of a working day. Research we have commissioned shows that this doesn't happen," writes Sumir Karayi, CEO of IE in the introduction of the report. "Some people assume their IT departments need their machines to be left on overnight in order to deploy security patches and software updates. Others believe an on-board 'sleep' or hibernation mode kicks in, which isn't usually the case. And an alarming number of people admit that they just don't care."

According to the report, "more than 30 percent of employees cite the IT department's policies or activities as reason for not shutting down computer each night."

As I wrote last week, there are, in fact tools out there that enable companies to easily set PCs and monitors to power down when not in use -- and remotely awoken if they need to be patched, backed up, and/or to be ready for use when end-users return to the office the next day.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 18, 2007 02:55 PM

June 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Putting PCs to sleep, revisited

I wanted to address to some comments posted in response to my article about savings you can reap by employing desktop power management at your organization.

Some commentors suggested that shutting down systems at night results in wasted productivity in the morning, as users have to sit there waiting for the PCs to reboot.

That would be true if users were, indeed, expected to turn on their systems each morning. However, products I mentioned in my article are capable of waking up systems at predetermined times, through wake on LAN. Thus, an admin might set policies to wake up systems 15 minutes before users are due to arrive.

Also, powering down the system doesn't necessarily mean shutting it down. There are lower-power modes such as Standby, a state in which a system uses far less energy and which doesn't take much time to wake up from.

A couple of people also posed questions or observations as to why companies haven't done this in the past (or currently).

Based on my discussions and research, I'd attribute it to a few factors:
1. Companies aren't aware that these type of products exist, or don't understand how they work. (See above.)

2. A lot of companies haven't been associating IT energy consumption with electric bills, which is understandable: different department heads, different bills. Thus, getting users to power down down at night hasn't been a priority. (A lot of companies seem to leave their lights on all night, too.) But as the country (and the world) is becoming more eco-conscious, as well as concerns grow about power shortages, that's changing.

3. There are misconceptions that it's "bad" for PC to turn it off and on, because of some perceived excessive wear and tear it experiences when it powers on. Plenty of research I've seen dispels that myth.

4. There's concern that systems need to awake at night for patching and backups, so as not to disrupt users while they work. That's true -- but it's also, again, where various products on the market come in: They can wake up systems for patch and backup, then power them down again.

Finally, a couple of vendor reps, one from Sun and one from Symbio, weighed in to pitch their thin-client products as less energy-hungry alternatives to PCs. I generally don't like my blog to be used as a forum for vendors to pimp their wares, but their general points are worth noting. Though I will point out to Lew Tischler at Symbio that I have written about thin clients recently.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 15, 2007 11:46 AM

June 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

GreenPrint bets that customers will save on printer waste

Program aimed at Fortune 500 lets companies use software free in exchange for half the cost-savings they reap

As I noted in my entry today about PC-power management, there are some technology projects out there with a return on investment that's incredibly simple to measure. GreenPrint is betting that its software, aimed a reducing printer waste, is among them.

Through September, GreenPrint (which I wrote about earlier this month) is offering a program called "Pay the Fortune 500 to Go Green." Through the initiative, GreenPrint will waive the licensing fees for its software for companies with at least 1,000 PCs. Instead, each quarter companies would pay GreenPrint half of the money they save on the paper and ink costs by using the tool. Companies will also get free upgrades.

GreenPrint provides end-users with a simple means of choosing which superfluous pages to remove from a print job; they also can opt to remove all images or all text from a printing, which can also save paper and ink.

Notably, research suggests that each end-user wastes about $85 worth of printer paper and ink each year through unnecessary prints, such as spill-over pages containing a superfluous line of text or gridlines. That means a participating company might expect to send GreenPrint a total of around $42.50 per user, per year, to GreenPrint. The licensing fee for the Enterprise Edition is $70 per user.

"Because the environmental benefit is so significant, we want to do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for large organizations to use GreenPrint," said GreenPrint CEO Hayden
Hamilton in a written statement. "We also see it as symbolic of GreenPrint's revolutionary proposition – saving money while saving the environment. Has any other company ever offered to pay the Fortune 500 to go green?"

Companies and GreenPrint would use the product's reporting tools to assess how much money a company saves each quarter in ink and paper.

For more information, go to www.printgreener.com

Posted by Ted Samson on June 14, 2007 09:24 AM

June 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

When PCs don't snooze, you lose

Companies are waking up to the fact that powering down systems after hours can reap significant cost and energy savings

One of the more frustrating aspects of launching a new technology project at an organization, such as a new document management system or upgraded CRM software, is that the return on investment can be downright difficult to measure in clear, obvious monetary figures.

Therein lies the advantage of certain green projects: Beyond the environmental benefits, the ROI can be so immediate and evident, your CFO might just slap his or her forehead for not doing it sooner.

PC and monitor power management falls under that easy-to-measure, cost-saving, carbon-reducing, CFO-self-masochism-inducing category. The bottom line is, lots of organizations leave their PCs and monitors humming nights and weekends when no one is around to use them. Powering down those systems can result in as much as $45 in energy savings per PC and $30 per monitor, per year, according to Energy Star.

Just chew on that for a moment. That's $75 a year, times the number of PCs and monitors at your organization. Or you can take the more conservative figure of $25. Whatever the case, a company with 5,000 systems is looking at adding around $125,000 to the happy side of the accounting ledger at the end of the year, and for very minimal effort on IT's part.

Environmentally speaking, a machine left on all the time results in an extra half-ton of CO2 emissions per year, according to California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Thus, the ecobenefits are evident as well.

Ripe for the plucking
"What we're solving here is really low-hanging fruit with results that are significantly larger than all the datacenter work that's going on out there," says Sumir Karayi, the CEO at 1E, which is among a host of vendors offering tools aimed at helping network admins get a handle on desktop waste. "The simple reasons for that is just numbers: the number of PCs there are compared to servers. It's at least a 10-to-1 ratio in the corporate space. If you start switching off a percentage of them, even just 30 percent, then the sort of savings you'll see are massive."

1E's Patch Management Pack includes NightWatchman, which admins can use to tailor policies for automatically powering down systems across the network when they're not in use.

Also part of 1E's package is SMSWakeUp, which includes WOL (Wake-On-LAN) technology to rouse systems from slumber when they need to be patched. Admins also can set systems to boot at specific times, meaning end-users will be able to sit down at their desks and start working when they arrive. Moreover, 1E's system is designed to save users' work before shutting down their systems, as well not to shut down if a system is running predetermined applications.

Among 1E's customers is Vision Service Plan (VSP), a supplier of eye care benefits in the United States with more than 2,300 PCs. According to 1E, VSP is using the Patch Management Pack to power down 85 percent of its workstations at night, reaping anticipated savings of $63 per PC per year. That's around $145,000 per annum -- plus the company also derives benefit of far more successful patch jobs.

User needs may vary
Common among these power management solutions are configurable policies, which admins can tailor for particular groups, or even individuals, to reflect their respective hours and needs. Policies also might be adjusted to ensure that a system won't take a snooze if specific processes are running in the background.

Implementing power management without disrupting users is key, which is, in part, where the flexible policies come in handy. Karayi and Bruce Twito, CTO and vice president of product development at Verdiem, both suggest that admins not get too rigid with policies, so as not to overly irritate users. For example, overly ambitious policies might result in the monitor or system powering down every 10 minutes while a user is trying to read an article or when a stats application is running a complex process.

"If people are very IT savvy, they're going to object to not letting them use their machines as fast as they want to," says Karayi. "You can still save a massive amount of power. There's around 9.5 hours in a workday. You still have the 14 hours to play with where machine can be off."

On the other hand, you might want to create stricter policies for the systems that rarely see use, notes Rob Meinhardt, CEO of KACE, which offers KBOX, essentially a plug-and-play appliance which offers, among other features, power management, configuration management and WOL capabilities. "At any given office, you could have literally hundred, thousands of machines in the building. And inevitably, there are machines on the periphery of use that aren't employed. You might have a QA lab where maybe 50 percent of the machines aren't in use. You can power them down."

Or, thanks reporting features, you may just find that some systems simply aren't getting enough use to justify having them around at all.

See your savings
Reporting features are critical to the success of these types of solutions, according to the reps I spoke with. Admins can use them to see how effective their policies are, what savings they're reaping, and where there might be opportunity or need for tweaks. "There's no point in saving power if you can't show how much power you're saving -- and showing how much compliance there is," says Karayi.

Verdiem, which offers a power management product called Surveyor, uses the reporting features at the beginning of the implementation process to help companies gauge just what kind of savings they might reap. "We go into their organizations and install the client on a smattering of machines, and we use it to collect information about how efficient their power management policies actually are. Given user behavior and their policies, we see how much opportunity there is to save energy, and what the ROI would be," says Twito.

One of Verdiem's customers is the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) in Washington state. It has 23,500 students, 48 schools, and more than 11,000 PCs. LWSD has reaped more than $200,000 in savings per year through power management.

The solution garnered praise from the LWSD techies. "Surveyor lets us easily schedule when to leave the PCs on to automate IT tasks, while saving energy and money when no IT work is needed. And to date, use of Surveyor has not resulted in a single help desk call, which is refreshingly uncommon when new software is installed," says Bob Siemers, senior network engineer for the district.

The value proposition of desktop power management is indeed quite evident, and the vendors are finding that it's no longer just the folks in the operations and facilities department -- those who pay the electric bills -- that are asking about them. Now that green is the black among IT companies, technology departments are keen on reducing energy consumption. "Our typical point of contact has been facilities manager because they're in control of the power bill. But in the last six months, IT management is beginning to contact us. They're the primary source of incoming leads now."

In addition to the companies mentioned above, Altiris offers a free Energy Saver Toolkit, built on the company's systems management infrastructure. Additionally, LANDesk announced power management utility last March, which can be used with the LANDesk Management Suite, Security Suite, and Patch Manager via LANDesk Updates.

For more information on desktop power management, check out Energy Star's Web site. You might also look to 1E's Energy Awareness Campaign site, which has interesting information and links.

For home PCs, consider Uniblue's LocalCooling tool, offered for free. I've found it pretty easy to use, plus it tracks your energy savings.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 14, 2007 03:00 AM

June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

IBM aims to double datacenter space, maintain energy use

CIOL (CyberMedia India Online) has an interesting nugget about IBM's Big Green datacenter initiative: As part of Big Blue's $1 billion-a-year service initiative to build and redesign its datacenters to consume less energy, the company plans to double its datacenter capacity from 6 million square feet to 12 million square feet over the next three years -- without increasing wattage.

"There are two ways we will be attaining energy efficiency: One is to reduce the power usage in the existing facilities and also put in energy-efficient systems in the new ones. We are aiming to double the datacenter capacity that will consume as much energy, which is used today. Thus there will be no addition in wattage used, but 40 to 50 percent of power will be saved," IBM Vice President of Global Site and Facilities, Global Technology Services Steven Sams told CIOL.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 12, 2007 11:45 PM

June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Dell Latitude D630 notebook scores gold status for green

Latitude D630 the first and currently only notebook on market to meet the highest EPEAT rating

Dell Latitude D630 notebooks scores gold status for green Dell has added a bit more gold to its green credentials, having released the first notebook on the market to achieve Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) gold status: the Latitude D630.

Dell announced the Latitude D630's gold distinction late last week, not long after HP announced the first EPEAT gold-status desktop on the market, the rp5700. Dell has a couple of EPEAT gold desktops itself: the OptiPlex 740 and 745 Energy Smart mini-tower systems.

EPEAT is a procurement system that helps purchasers evaluate, compare and select products based on environmental attributes. Products meeting all required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold.

Among the Latitude D630's eco-friendly attributes that helped it earn EPEAT gold, the system meets Energy Star 4.0 requirements, plus it has a lifecycle of about three to four years, according to Dell spokesman Jeremy Bolen.

The D630 packs an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an upgrade from the D620, and offer integrated graphics for longer battery life, according to Dell. The hard drive is of the SATA variety, up to 160GB in capacity.

The system is also ruggedized (Dell calls it RoadReady) for longer life with full magnesium-alloy construction.

Power options include a 65-watt or 90-watt AC adapter with cord wrapping. Additionally, Dell uses 25 percent post-consumer recycled content in cardboard packaging.

For more information, go here.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 12, 2007 02:41 PM

June 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Tech companies unite to tackle desktop energy waste

Joining the World Wildlife Fund, the EPA, and Starbucks, big-name IT companies announce Climate Savers Computing Initiative

An all-star lineup of tech companies, non-profits, academic institutions, plus one purveyor of coffee products, have teamed up to reduce waste on the desktop on a grand scale.

Intel, Google, Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Sun, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), MIT, Red Hat, and Starbucks, along with some 27 other organizations, announced the launch of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative today, aimed at "setting aggressive new targets for energy-efficient computers and components, and promoting the adoption of energy-efficient computers and power management tools worldwide."

As with plenty of the green initiatives cropping up of late, the participants cite both the environmental case and the business case for this program. "Today, the average desktop PC wastes nearly half of its power, and the average server wastes one-third of its power," said Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of operations and fellow at Google, in a written statement. "The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is setting a new 90 percent efficiency target for power supplies, which if achieved, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons per year -- and save more than $5.5 billion in energy costs."

Companies supporting the initiative are committing to building energy-efficient products that meet or surpass the EPA's Energy Star guidelines, according to the announcement. "In order to decrease the energy usage of computing, the technology industry needs to make systems that are increasingly energy efficient and better educate consumers about what to buy," said Dave Douglas, vice president of eco responsibility at Sun.

Participating businesses must also commit to requiring high-efficiency systems for the majority of their corporate desktop PCs and volume server purchases, and to deploy and use power management tools on desktop PCs.

The initiative's benchmarks will initially follow the Energy Star guidelines, but with increasing requirements during the next several years. For example, 2007 Energy Star specifications require that PC power supplies meet at least 80 percent minimum efficiency. The initiative would require a minimum of 90 percent by 2010.

(One question I have is, wouldn't the EPA's Energy Star specs surpass 90 percent efficient by 2010 anyway?)

In addition, the initiative raises the efficiency target in the power supply for volume servers from 85 percent to 92 percent efficiency by 2010.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative licensed its name from the WWF Climate Savers program, which involves several leading companies working to reduce their carbon footprint.

"This is the first time our Climate Savers program has been applied to an entire sector, engaging manufacturers, retailers and consumers," said John Donoghue, senior vice president for the WWF. "We are pleased to join these industry leaders to provide solutions to address climate change."

Individuals are invited to the Climate Savers Computing Initiative by signing up at www.climatesaverscomputing.org. The Web site includes information on consumers can take advantage of their computers' power-saving capabilities, which can reduce the amount of energy consumed by up to 60 percent.

The complete list of initial supporters of the effort follows: Intel, Google, AMD, Canonical, CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society), Coldwatt, Dell, Delta Electronics, eBay, EDS, EMC, Fujitsu, HP, Hipro, Hitachi, IBM, LANDesk, Lenovo, Linux Foundation, MIT, Microsoft, Natural Resources Defense Council, NEC, One Laptop Per Child, PG&E, Power-One, Quanta, Rackable Systems, Red Hat, Starbucks, Sun, Supermicro Computer, Ubuntu, Unisys, the EPA, University of Michigan, Verdiem Corporation, World Resources Institute, WWF, and Yahoo.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 12, 2007 12:28 PM

June 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Alternative-power datacenter part of Rackspace green initiatve

New green facility, carbon offsets part of managed datacenter-hosting company's eco-friendly initiative

Rackspace has joined the ranks of companies such as HP, IBM, Dell, and Yahoo announcing plans to become better environmental stewards by embracing carbon reduction, energy conservation, and other green initiatives.

A managed datacenter hosting company with 90,000 square feet of space worldwide, Rackspace today announced that as part of its GreenSpace campaign, it's planning to open a new data center next year in the Slough, England region which will be powered directly by alternative energy from a utility called Slough Heat and Power.

Also, the company has teamed up with NativeEnergy, a national marketer of renewable energy credits and carbon offsets. Rackspace plans to purchase offsets through NativeEnergy for each new customer server it brings online. Specifically, the company will buy offsets through a wind farm project, which powers at Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota, as well as a methane project that powers a dairy farm in Pennsylvania.

The practice of purchasing carbon offsets has garnered criticism from some environmentalists, arguing that companies should take direct measures to reduce CO2 pollution. But Rackspace CTO John Engates said that it's difficult to find utilities in the U.S. offering direct alternative energy. "As power and utility companies in regions we work have alternative power available to buy directly, we'll explore that," he said.

In addition to reducing its carbon footprint, Rackspace has been looking at other ways to reduce its energy consumption, including choosing servers that use less power. "Primarily, we buy from HP and Dell. HP has servers that are our primary model: a dual-process, dual-core server that is many times more efficient than servers of two generations ago," Engates says.

The ongoing chip wars between AMD and Intel have affected which hardware the company buys. "When Intel had problems with power and AMD was winning, we switched to AMD for a vast majority of our deployments," says Engates. "Intel is back on par, perhaps in the lead, and we're starting to offer the latest Intel processors to our customers."

Like other IT leaders, Engates is also concerned about there being sufficient energy available in the future. "If we don't pay attention to this and start to cut power usage, we all in for power problems down the road. We'll still need to continue to build power plants, but hopefully, we won't have to add as many if we can work on programs like these down the road," he says.

Companies like Rackspace are also increasingly concerned with their image as it pertains to energy usage. "The fact that dactacenters are going to be large consumers of power means that we need to work on [conservation]. We don't want to be the bad guys. People will eventually look for large-scale users of power and will ask them to cut their consumption," Engates says.

Finally, in addition to being an active member of The Green Grid consortium, Rackspace is working to foster environmental awareness and education among employees. For instance, the company had a its first "Green Day" event earlier this month, inviting more than fifteen vendors and non-profit organizations to present employees with environmentally friendly tips and product alternatives.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 11, 2007 09:26 AM

June 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

"Clean Tech Open" aims to push green ideas to profitability

California-based competition, with backing from Google and AMD, will give participants a chance at $100,000 plus valuable guidance

In 1998, there was a "South Park" that was amusingly prophetic of the dot-com boom. The characters discovered a colony of gnomes who'd taken to stealing underwear. When confronted over the theft, the gnomes explained it was part of the following ingenious business plan:

1. Steal Underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!

Indeed, the absence of "phase twos" -- actual plans to earn a profit on an arguably innovative ideas -- led the demise of many an Internet startup, and spelled dollars down the commode for many a VC.

Well, now aspiring entrepreneurs are spawning a new crop of green-tech ideas and are in search of seed money to help them bloom. As reported over at Green Options, a California-based non-profit called Acterra: Action for a Sustainable Earth, with financial backing from heavyweights like Google and AMD, has the announced the 2007 "California Clean Tech Open," soliciting green-tech business plans from start-ups.

Participants in the open will have a chance to win $100,000 in funding and services to get their green-tech businesses off the ground, plus they'll be able to attend workshops to build viable strategies to hopefully prevent the eco-efforts from wilting.

Team may enter ideas for one of six categories: Air, Water & Waste; Energy Efficiency; Green Building; Renewables; Smart Power; and Transportation.

AMD is offering $50,000 to the winner of the Smart Power category, which "encourages links between information technologies and electricity delivery that give industrial, commercial and residential consumers greater control over when and how their energy is delivered and used."

Google, meanwhile, is laying down the $50,000 for the winner of the Green Building category, which "focuses on reducing the environmental impact of building construction or operation through improved design or construction practices, new or innovative use of building materials, or new hardware or software applications."

Other sponsors include the Environ Foundation (for the Air, Water, and Waste category), Lexus (for Transportation), and PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E (for Renewables and Energy Efficiency).

Sixty finalist teams will be able to attend a series of workshops, aimed at helping them develop business plans to help them succeed in the marketplace. They'll also received mentoring services and other benefits.

All contestant will be able to attend an Executive Summary Workshop, on June 14, where they can learn more about application requirements and criteria. There's also a series of Innovators' Symposia Events, which will bring together clean-tech companies, entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors. The first one, on Smart Power, is June 28.

The California Clean Tech Open is open to all U.S. residents, citizens, and legal aliens, though all winners must establish their primary place of business in California. Participants need to submit their entry fees and three-page executive business summary by June 30.

For more information, go here.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 7, 2007 10:42 AM

June 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Give telecommuting the green light

Environmental and organizational needs, coupled with evolving technologies, make telecommuting programs look better every day

Give telecommuting the green light I love my morning commute. Sometimes, there are delays, though, thanks to a pile-up or a clean-up effort. The pile-up, however, is generally just laundry that needs to go into the wash. The clean-up occurs if my cat has decided to demonstrate her eco-concern by recycling her breakfast. (I applaud most recycling efforts, but I question the reusability value of hairballs.)

Generally, though, it's about 15 seconds from my bed to my desk. Yep, I'm a telecommuter. I work out of my home office in Sacramento 90 percent of the time; I head to the InfoWorld office in San Francisco, voluntarily, every other Friday.

I count myself fortunate that InfoWorld recognizes the value of offering telecommuting -- not just for me but for the company. Other companies do it, too: Apple, AT&T, Cisco, HP, Sun, Xerox, and Yahoo, just to name a few, have telework programs in place. In fact, according to the Telework Coalition, more than 45 million people telecommute at least once a week. In 2005, 44 percent of U.S. companies offered at least some telecommuting options, according to a survey by Mercer Human Resources Consulting. That figure was up from 32 percent in 2001. The greatest increase in the number of teleworkers, 57 percent, occurred in medium-sized businesses, according to the ITAC, the Telework Advisory Group for WorldatWork.

And there's an abundance of research out there demonstrating that telecommuting programs not only result in greater environmental benefits due to fewer pollution-spewing vehicles on the road, they deliver cost savings for organizations.

On top of the cost and environmental benefits, technological innovations (such as easily accessible and reliable high-speed Internet access, inexpensive and sturdy laptops, maturing collaboration products as well as SaaS, VoIP, VPNs, and so forth) contribute to making telecommuting increasingly attractive and viable for companies.

Relieve gas pains and congestion
From a broad environmental perspective, the potential gas savings alone from telecommuting are impressive. According to the 2005/2006 National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS), we could save about 1.35 billion gallons of fuel if everyone who was able to telecommute did so just 1.6 days per week. That calculation is based on a driving average of 20 miles per day, getting 21 miles per gallon.

So if those of us who could telecommute did so, we'd spare our pocketbooks from gas and vehicular maintenance (a typical household spends 18 percent of its income in driving costs – more than it spends on food, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

We'd also spare our collective sanity with shorter, faster commutes, which are only expected to get worse as congestion worsens. Between 2002 and 2012, vehicle miles traveled by drive-alone commuters is expected to increase by at least 15 percent, generating an additional 43 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and EPA calculations.

Meanwhile, the Federal Highway Administration reports that "[t]he volume of freight movement alone is forecast to nearly double by 2020. Congestion is largely thought of as a big city problem, but delays are becoming increasingly common in small cities and some rural areas as well."

Telecommuting, however, can offset that. "For every 1 percent reduction in the number of cars on the road there's a 3 percent reduction in traffic congestion," according to John Edwards, chairman and founder of the Telework Coalition.

And congestion does take its toll on the economy: "The total cost of traffic congestion to the U.S. economy in lost productivity and wasted motor fuel is almost $68 billion -— or $1,160 per traveler," according to the Texas Transportation Institute's annual study to quantify traffic congestion.

(Of course, fewer cars guzzling less gas means less air pollution, which is nice both for the Earth and for those of us who live on it.)

Business benefits
The environmental benefits of telecommuting are pretty apparent, but business leaders no doubt want to be sure that giving employees the green light to telecommute yields bottom-line benefits. Based on the successes enjoyed by the various companies, the answer appears to be a resounding yes.

For starters, the ITAC found that employers can realize an annual per-employee savings of $5,000 through implementing telecommuting programs. "Your organization could save one office for every three teleworkers (that's about $2,000 per teleworker per year, or $200,000 per 100 teleworkers)," according to the Canadian Telework Assocation(CTA).

Case in point: Through Sun's telecommute program, called Sun Open Work Practice, around 2,800 employees work home three to five days a week; another 14,219 work remotely twice weekly, according to reports. The company says its efforts have resulted not only in 29,000 fewer tons of CO2 emissions -- but the company reaped $63 million in the last fiscal year by cutting 6,660 office seats.

Meanwhile, AT&T reports savings of $3,000 per office, for approximately $550 million, by eliminating or consolidating office space; about 25 percent of IBM's 320,000 workers worldwide telecommute, saving Big Blue some $700 million in real estate costs, according to the CTA.

Business benefits of letting workers do their jobs remotely don't stop with lower office space costs: Plenty of studies have demonstrated that telecommuters are more productive than their at-office counterparts. Conservative estimates suggest a 10 percent advantage. The Colorado Telework Coalition reports, however, that American Express's teleworkers produce 43 percent more business than employees at the office; Compaq teleworkers were found to be between 15 percent and 45 percent more productive than their office counterparts.

Tools for the telework trade
Much of telework's adoption can be attributed to the all-important technologies that keep workers connected to their bosses, peers, and customers. I can certainly attest to the value of good ol' e-mail, VPN, and IM to stay safely connected to work -- plus I have a pretty standard yet mostly reliable laptop that I easily carry when I do head to the office.

Broadband adoption, of course, has been a big catalyst for telecommuting adoption. According to The Dieringer Research Group, teleworkers using broadband from home swelled by 84 percent from 2003 to and 2004, up to 8.1 million.

Not surprisingly, VoIP has also proven beneficial for helping organizations improve telecommuting options. For example, F.W. Honerkamp, a Long Island laminate distributor, has found that its outsourced voice over IP system gives the company the flexibility to hire and retain people who might not otherwise be able to come into the office. "The VoIP system is our main telephone system, and it allows us to have customer service in one place. If someone calls, we can transfer them to the appropriate expert in [another] location right away, or they can contact that person directly," the company's COO Jeff Honerkamp told Network World.

"That person" might be a remote employee in Pennsylvania, but the caller is none the wiser.

Other collaboration tools have come a long way, too. InfoWorld has looked at its fair share of Web conferencing solutions, and our analysts have been impressed. Most recently, Oliver Rist got his hands on Microsoft's new RoundTable device, which, coupled with Microsoft Live Communication Server 2007, can provide meeting participants with the ability to not only share documents and applications, but also get a 360-degree panoramic view of the meeting room where the device is set up.

Of course, telecommuting requires planning, and it might not be right for every position at every company. There are also still misconceptions as to its potential value as some business leaders fret that their employees will goof off if they're not under constant in-office surveillance. And from the employee side, there's fear of being overlooked and forgotten when promotion opportunities come around.

Rightfully so, companies also still have security concerns. Without the proper equipment and training, an employee's home system can be hacked or stolen, which can be disastrous, as evidenced by the numerous laptop thefts we've seen in recent years.

The good news is, the potential cost (and environmental) savings and benefits are compelling, and we're at a place technologically where more companies can, and should, explore telecommuting programs. And there's an abundance of resources out there to help you get started.

Some of my favorite telecommuting resources follow:

The Clean Air Council

It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air, a U.S. Department of Transportation program

Best Work Places for Commuters, a voluntary business-government program that provides recognition and resources for employers offering commuter benefits and telework programs. The BWC site, among other resources, has an online calculator to estimate the financial, environmental, traffic-related, and other benefits of joining the organization's program.

The Canadian Telework Association, a non-profit telework association dedicated to promoting telework in Canada. (It has resources and data applicable to non-Canadian organizations as well.)

State-By-State Congestion Reduction Links, provided by the Federal Highway Administration

ITAC, the Telework Advisory Group for WorldatWork

What do you think about telecommuting? Does your company do it? Why or why not?

Posted by Ted Samson on June 7, 2007 03:00 AM

June 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Dell aims for "greenest tech company" world title

Hardware maker's strategy includes fostering zero-carbon footprint, inducing suppiers to cut emissions

Tech companies of Earth, take note: Dell is determined to outgreen the lot of you. The company this week announced its bold ambition to be nothing less than "the greenest technology company on the planet."

It's a bold ambition, certainly, if not a bit hyperbolic (I still don't know how you can truly assess which company is the greenest). It's also a bit risky, as the company is setting itself up for serious scrutiny from eco-evangelists and critics.

Still, Dell has established a credible track record for environmental stewardship, and as part of this quest, it has laid out further eco-friendly goals.

"Our goal is simple and clear," said Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell in a written statement. "We'll take the lead in setting an environmental standard for our industry that will reflect our partnership with, and direct feedback from, our customers, suppliers and stakeholders, and we intend to maintain that leadership."

Among other things, the company has outline a a zero-carbon strategy, which, according to the company, "will include IT lifecycle assessments, management of Dell's direct and indirect climate impacts, reduction of the company's carbon intensity, and partnership with customers."

More specifically, Dell has pledged to reduce its carbon intensity (which I translate to "footprint") by 15 percent come 2012.

Additionally, the company is asking its primary suppliers to begin reporting greenhouse gas emissions data. "A supplier's volume of Dell business can be affected by the scores earned on reviews," according to the company," according to the company's announcement. Dell will work with suppliers on emissions-reduction strategies once data is collected. (Other tech companies have been putting pressure on their suppliers to embrace kinder, greener practices as well.)

Moreover, Dell is extending its "Plant a Tree for Me" program to Europe, which gives customers an opporunity to donate toward planting trees to offset hardware they purchase.

The company is soliciting ideas from customers as to what else it might to achieve the "greenest technology company on the planet" title. Suggestions will be accepted through June 26; for each person who presents one of the selected best ideas, the company will make a $1,000 donation to a non-profit environmental organization of his or her choice.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 6, 2007 11:23 PM

June 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft talks power savings for the datacenter

Redmond talks up 20% power-use reduction in Windows Server 2008, secret green datacenter plans

Mary Jo Foley conducted an interesting interview over on Redmond Developer News with Bill Laing, the general manager of Redmond's Windows Server Division. With power savings high on IT admin's priority lists, companies contemplating migrating to Windows Server 2008 (the platform formerly known as Longhorn) might be interested in this quote:

We've done power management by default in Longhorn Server. And we think average machines will see maybe 20 percent reduction in power use. You kind of slow the clock down when it's not busy. And it's dynamic enough that you can literally slow the clock down across a disk I/O. If you've got nothing to do while you're doing a disk I/O, it actually drops the power use for that short period of time. It's not like sleeping [for] the laptop; this is really short, what they call P-state for processor state.

In her blog, Foley also points out an entry by Lewis Curtis, Microsoft infrastructure architecture advisor, in which he writes that he is "working towards a Microsoft comprehensive Green Datacenter Strategy. ... We're scheduled to give an internal presention to inernal employees at ... the end of July. This presentation will focused on having a energy consumption strategy in the datacenter, what the industry is doing, what customers expect from us and ideas for Microsoft for the future."

He goes on to say that "This presentation will focused on having a energy consumption strategy in the datacenter, what the industry is doing, what customers expect from us and ideas for Microsoft for the future.

Microsoft has been make some green noise of late. One of the founding members of The Green Grid consortium, the company recently announced that it would work the The Clinton Foundation to develop free Web-based software for cities to monitor their carbon emissions.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 6, 2007 04:37 PM

June 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Free e-mail newsletter: Green IT

I'm excited to announce that InfoWorld will be launching a Green IT newsletter this week, written by yours truly. It's scheduled to conveniently show up in subscribers' e-mailboxes Thursday -- and it's free.

In it, I'll recap some of the top green-tech news of the week, plus I'll welcome questions and comments from readers to generate future content.

To subscribe, head over to the InfoWorld Newsletter Subscription page, enter your e-mail address, and scroll down to Green IT. (It's listed under Wednesday delivery, as I write this, but trust me: It's coming out Thursdays.) Click Submit (way at the bottom), and you're done.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 6, 2007 09:15 AM

June 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Green HP rp5700 desktop strikes EPEAT gold

HP raises the ecobar with energy-efficient desktop system designed for long life and easy recycling

Green HP rp5700 desktop strikes EPEAT gold Sowing the seeds for a new crop of green desktops, HP announced this week the first PC on the market to achieve EPEAT (Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool) gold status.

EPEAT-registered products are designated as "bronze," "silver," or "gold," depending on the number of environmental features they possess, such as reduced levels of hazardous materials, improved energy efficiency, and ease of upgrade and recycle.

Aimed at general business users in industries such as retail, health care, banking, manufacturing, and distribution, the HP's rp5700 Business Desktop PC packs some nifty ecofriendly features.

Among them, it comes with a standard 80 percent efficient power supply; most PCs on the market settle on 65 percent. That extra efficiency means lower electrical usage as well as less heat, all of which contributes to cost savings. (I hope vendors start making them standard elements in their systems -- not just the ones designed or marketed as green.)

Another cost saver: The hardened systems have a five-year lifecycle, compared to the standard 12- to 18-month lifecycle of typical PCs, according to HP. That means less turnover as well as fewer administrative headaches. "Companies can have 10 to 12 different software configurations they're trying to manage, based on different chip sets. The longer they can hold onto a product, the greater the TCO is for them," says Lesley Fagg, worldwide product marketing manager at HP.

Interestingly, the rp5700 is built on HP's rp5000 PoS (point of sales) systems, which were originally aimed at the retail market. However, they garnered interest in other verticals, which is what inspired HP to create this business desktop version.

The systems are for organizations that "do not have complex computing environments. The assumption is that they are using these PCs more for tasks that are repetitive in nature. They don't need latest and greatest technology; they need something that will last a long time. They care about about longevity and stability," says Fagg.

Built on the Intel Q963 Express chipset, the system supports legacy Windows 2000 as well as XP Pro and Windows Business Vista 32-bit, so companies that are content with an older iteration of Windows can stick with it.

The small-form-factor system also has a tool-less chassis design, which makes both maintenance and recycling easier. Speaking of form factor, the systems are built with 95 percent recyclable components, according to HP. The plastic components are made, on average, of at least 10 percent post-consumer recycled plastics, and the outer packaging contains at least 25 percent post-consumer recycled cardboard.

Like other PCs that have recently made it to the market, both from HP and Dell, only certain configurations of the rp5700 meet the Energy Star 4.0 standard, and I remain curious whether any of those ES 4.0 configs are equipped to deliver the "full" Vista experience, including Aero and good performance running basic apps.

Frankly, when I look at the two preconfigured systems on the HP site that come with Vista Business 32, or when I try the Configure and Buy option, it's not clear whether the system I choose meets ES 4.0 of not, nor whether I can take full advantage of Vista. I had similar problems on Dell's site looking for its ES 4.0 configurations.

Interestingly, the fine print at the bottom of the ordering page notes, "Not all Windows Vista features are available for use on all Windows Vista Capable PCs. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run the core experiences of Windows Vista, such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability. Some features available in premium editions of Windows Vista -- like the new Windows Aero user interface -- require advanced or additional hardware."

To HP's credit, the company says it is working "on an update to the online configurator that will display which systems run Vista and meet Energy Star or EPEAT criteria."

Green HP rp5700 desktop strikes EPEAT gold One other thing: HP alluded to an interesting optional feature for the rp5700 in its product announcement: "a solar renewable energy source as an alternative power choice." Turns out that is the Solar PowerPac II, which, when charged, can provide up to 600 watt-hours of power for small loads.

However, the PowerPac seems a bit unwiedly, measuring 14.8 inches tall, 15.6 inches wide, and 12.3 inches deep, and weighs 60 pounds. (It has a 38-inch handle and wheels, so you can cart it around.) The solar-panel kits starts at 75 watts, measures 21 inches by 47 inches, and weighs 16.5 pounds. I'm not sure how practical that would be for most companies, especially with a price tag of $1,325. Anyone out there have thoughts on the utility of this kind of unit?

For more information about the HP rp5700, go to HP's Web site.

Posted by Ted Samson on June 5, 2007 04:17 PM

June 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Do you really need a receipt with that?

Retailers should take a page from Apple Stores and and make paper receipts optional

Do you really need a receipt with that? "I bought a doughnut, and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money, and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut."

That quote comes from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg. I was reminded of it after I went to the post office earlier today in my friendly neighborhood grocery store. See, I needed a 2-cent stamp for a bill I had to mail out. (Thanks for the postage hike, USPS.) I handed the nice lady behind the counter a dollar. She handed me my change -- and my receipt. You know, for the 2-cent stamp that she was affixing to the envelope she was about to send out for me.

The point, of course, is that paper waste clearly abounds in the business world -- this was a great example -- and the costs really can add up. An application such as