Sustainable IT | Ted Samson » Green tech doesn't reduce computational demands

September 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Green tech doesn't reduce computational demands

TAGS: Virtualization

During a briefing about AMD's energy efficient quad-core processor, a curious question arose. A journalist asked if AMD was worried that it would be ultimately hurting its own sales with the release of Barcelona. The reasoning: If AMD is selling a processor capable of doing twice as much work as its previous CPU, wouldn't that mean that organizations will end buying fewer products from the company?

Similarly, an attendee today at the InfoWorld Virtualization Forum asked panelst Jim Smith of Digital Realty whether he was worried that his company would have fewer datacenters to build because, thanks to virtualizations, companies will find they need fewer servers.

The responses to these questions were essentially the same: most certainly not. The underlying mistaken assumption in the queries, intentional or not, is that companies have maxed or nearly maxed out their processing and storage demands and have no need to grow any further.

Imagine if, through virtualization, storage consolidation, and/or more efficient hardware, you've managed to halve the machine count in your datacenter. Are you going to dust off your hands, smile a satisifed smile, and declare, "Well, my work here's done. There's no way I'll ever be able to use all this space"?

More likely, you'll figure out plenty of ways to cram more machines into that space (power permitting) -- that is, assuming your company has plans for growth (and hopefully, it does).

So green technology investments will deliver more bang for your buck, as well as some breathing room as your company grows. But chipmakers, datacenter architects, hardwares vendors and the like needn't worry about putting themselves out of business selling more energy-efficient wares.

Posted by Ted Samson on September 25, 2007 08:25 AM

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