Posts Tagged ‘IT’
The goal of Performance Management is always the same: to explicitly determine priorities, establish regular measurements, set targets, and review progress in a repeatable fashion.
Historically, performance in IT has generally been measured in terms of cost and service levels.
Some describe Green IT as the environmentally responsible and sustainable use of IT assets, incorporating triple-bottom-line philosophies (Note: for a wider perspective of Green IT, see Fabian’s previous post). Even taking into account a very narrow viewpoint that simply focuses on energy efficiency, it is obvious that performance in IT needs to be expanded to take into account some new standard metrics.
Issues and considerations
Firstly though, let’s take a look at some issues that we can address so that we can determine some valid metrics:
- IT assets consume significant amounts of electricity and devices are often left on when not in use.
- Over time it has become culturally acceptable in many organisations to leave work PCs turned on overnight to save the hassle of turning them on in the morning. This alone is responsible for a large amount of wasted energy.
- Data Centres are responsible for a very large amount of energy usage, not only because of all the servers, storage and comms equipment, but in the environmental conditioning required to keep them at the correct operating conditions.
- e-Waste is a fast-growing issue which is compounded by planned obsolescence. e-Waste can be reduced by planning to keep equipment longer before replacing it. e-Waste can also be reduced by evaluating the environmental impact of the manufacture and disposal of assets using the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT).
Metrics to consider
You might like to consider these kinds of metrics, depending on your priorities:
- Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) — This is an industry standard metric for determining the energy efficiency of the data centre infrastructure. Total Data Centre Power Consumption divided by IT Equipment Power Consumption. It is also expressed as its reciprocal, Data Centre Effectiveness (DCiE).
- Average User IT Energy Footprint — Total electricity used attributable to IT equipment for a period, divided by the number of users in the organisation for the period.
- Average Daily Desktop Run Hours Per User — The total number of hours desktops are turned on divided by the number of users. These numbers should be targeted between 8 to 12 hours.
- Average Energy Per Gigabytes Storage Capacity — Total electricity consumed by server storage devices divided by the total gigabytes of storage capacity provided by those devices.
- Number of Pages Printed Per User — The number of physical pages printed (i.e. pieces of paper) and/or the number of page impressions, dividing each by the number of users. Measuring both can give an indication of total printing volume as well as behaviour choices such duplex printing. In circumstances where total volumes cannot be reduced, duplex printing should be encouraged.
- Energy Star Compliance — The percentage of IT assets that comply with various Energy Star ratings.
- EPEAT Compliance — The percentage of IT assets that comply with various EPEAT ratings.
- Desktops Purchased Per User Per Year — This is for long term trending to determine if length-of-life targets are being met.
Decisions can be made regarding the granularity of calculation, for example, by division, by department or by building floor to allow cross referencing and benchmarking.
Once these metrics are collated, it is important to publish the metrics so they are visible across the company. Graphically appealing dashboards with rich user interfaces are an engaging way to present this data.
Collating these metrics often requires new data to be collected. There are tools available to streamline the collection of the underlying data to minimise the human effort involved.
How we can help
Greensense has helped companies implement customised Green IT Performance Management Frameworks including the supporting data collection and we also have many years experience in visualisation technologies. Please contact us here at Greensense if you would like more information about these services.
If you would like to reduce your company’s carbon footprint then personal computers may be a great place to start. There are clear-cut and proven strategies, a lot of resources available to help and in most cases your initiative should be cost-negative.
This list of strategies published by the UK Government CTO Council is a great resource. Here are the reduction strategies they suggest for personal computers:
- Remove active screensavers. A monitor left running with an active screen saver uses the same amount of energy as when the screen is in full use.
- Switch monitors to low power mode after 5 minutes of inactivity. This prevents a longer period of wasted power.
- Shut down PCs after office hours. For the regular working day of 8 hours the overnight period lasts 16 hours, so a running computer could waste twice as much energy overnight.
- Enable active power management on desktops (switch to low power mode after a period of inactivity). Having active power management will match the consumption of energy more closely with use, reducing wasted energy.
- Aim to reduce and re-use equipment that is no longer required but is still serviceable. Some sources claim that the majority of energy in the life of a PC or laptop is consumed in its manufacture, delivery and disposal. By ensuring equipment which is still servicable is re-used you are therefore saving energy which would have been required to dispose of the old product and manufacture a new one.
- If re-use is not possible ensure recycle and disposal is green. PCs and Laptops contain various components, some of which can be recycled, some which can’t and some which may be toxic. By recycling where possible, and using green disposal methods if not, then the end-of-life environmental impact can be minimized.
- Specify low-power consumption CPUs and high-efficiency Power Supply Units (80% conversion or better) . Do not over specify system requirements. The richer the functionality on a device the more mains power is required. Power supply units convert mains AC power to the DC power needed by computers. More efficient units minimise the loss of energy from this conversion in the form of heat.
We have a few other points you might want to consider in your green PC strategy. Firstly, consider providing laptops as an alternative to desktop personal computers. Laptops use less power and have better power management then most desktop computers. If this is cost prohibitive then consider subsidizing the purchase of laptops. In Australia laptop computers can be salary sacrificed and aren’t subject to fringe-benefits tax.
If an employee has a laptop they may be able to avoid the need for a second computer for home. An employee with a laptop may be able to work from home and avoid the carbon impact of commuting to work every day.
Providing a laptop will be perceived as a benefit by most employees and so can be linked as an incentive to other carbon reduction strategies, for example related to business travel.
Secondly, make sure you are able to measure the emissions and energy use associated with personal computers in your organization before you start. By baselining your emissions and energy use you can track progress and demonstrate the benefits of your actions. As well as making good business sense there may be regulatory reasons for proceeding in this way.
Lastly, you may note that many of these strategies can be implemented centrally without action from your employees. For example computers can be shutdown remotely and automatically after hours.
However, we strongly recommend any carbon reduction strategy has communication and change management its heart. This will help ensure that employees will appreciate the action you are taking: they will forgive any personal impacts (for example the need to contact the IT help desk when they are working after hours); it will encourage them to take these actions back with them to the home; and, it will help engender support for future initiatives.
Implementing these strategies will reduce your organization’s carbon footprint but should also — if properly managed — improve employee engagement and reduce costs. Please contact Greensense if you would like help implementing your green PC strategy.
