That's what got me thinking, and that's why I've written about it twice before, here and here. Green IT is not a crunchy Marxist plot. It's a bottom-line money saver than can make heroes out of IT departments that successfully institute its basic principles. This is a very hot (pun intended) sector today. Just watch as the job listings for data center design and network management start to include words like "power management skills" and "sustainable strategies." The truth is, being a Green IT guru doesn't have to be terribly challenging. The basics for any green upgrade, which are laid out in this white paper, are pretty simple: Get a computer room cooling efficiency health check, seal the computer room envelope and the raised floor, improve the above-the-floor airflow management, refresh your servers when you can, virtualize them, and turn up the heat in the server room. I Google runs its server farms at a rather warm 80 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than I would have guessed. If you really want to make some waves in Green IT, try suggesting that departments and employees are held to account not just for the space they take up but also for the power they consume. Think of it as an internal carbon tax. Imagine how many department heads would be running around the office telling people to turn off their lights if they knew their bottom line was being affected. The other big Green IT career trend, of course, is in cloud computing implementations. I flipped through this white paper by Accenture on behalf of Microsoft, and learned that companies can save anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their energy use and emissions by moving IT operations to cloud computing infrastructures. (Microsoft suggests you consult them, of course.) If you were the person who showed up at the CFO's office to report that you had just cut energy costs by that much, you'd probably be in line for at least a promotion. It's interesting to note that many big tech companies practice what they preach when it comes to Green IT, and we can all learn from them. Greenpeace maintains a Cool IT Leaderboard that's almost always topped by networking giant Cisco, which is "making IT climate solutions an increasingly core part of its busines's strategy. (The company offers some Green IT coaching here.) It's followed by Ericsson, Fujitsu, Google, and IBM. You'll also find a burgeoning market for Green IT certifications that help re-orient IT careers in this new direction. CompTIA's Strata - Green IT certificate, for example, covers the ability to develop, deploy and calculate true ROI for Green initiatives; knowledge of cost-cutting power management and IT virtualization techniques; understanding of environmentally sound waste disposal; and an awareness of global organizations mandating standards and regulations. Businesses these days are still very much in that painful "do more with less" mode, and I won't predict when that will end - if ever. Green IT fits right in, helping businesses do more work while using less equipment and energy. Who wouldn't want to turn their business at least a little green? -- Don Willmott New Year, New Commitment to Green IT Jobs
I'd just about given up banging the drum for Green IT once and for all this year when I had a fascinating conversation with an acquaintance of mine who is about to bet his life savings - plus millions of dollars from investors - on a new solar energy business, the scope of which is breathtaking. Because it's in pre-launch mode I can't really describe it, but what I couldn't help but notice was that all my friend kept talking about was money, money and more money - not the environment, the planet, or carbon levels. That's what got me thinking, and that's why I've written about it twice before, here and here. Green IT is not a crunchy Marxist plot. It's a bottom-line money saver than can make heroes out of IT departments that successfully institute its basic principles. This is a very hot (pun intended) sector today. Just watch as the job listings for data center design and network management start to include words like "power management skills" and "sustainable strategies." The truth is, being a Green IT guru doesn't have to be terribly challenging. The basics for any green upgrade, which are laid out in this white paper, are pretty simple: Get a computer room cooling efficiency health check, seal the computer room envelope and the raised floor, improve the above-the-floor airflow management, refresh your servers when you can, virtualize them, and turn up the heat in the server room. I Google runs its server farms at a rather warm 80 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than I would have guessed. If you really want to make some waves in Green IT, try suggesting that departments and employees are held to account not just for the space they take up but also for the power they consume. Think of it as an internal carbon tax. Imagine how many department heads would be running around the office telling people to turn off their lights if they knew their bottom line was being affected. The other big Green IT career trend, of course, is in cloud computing implementations. I flipped through this white paper by Accenture on behalf of Microsoft, and learned that companies can save anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their energy use and emissions by moving IT operations to cloud computing infrastructures. (Microsoft suggests you consult them, of course.) If you were the person who showed up at the CFO's office to report that you had just cut energy costs by that much, you'd probably be in line for at least a promotion. It's interesting to note that many big tech companies practice what they preach when it comes to Green IT, and we can all learn from them. Greenpeace maintains a Cool IT Leaderboard that's almost always topped by networking giant Cisco, which is "making IT climate solutions an increasingly core part of its busines's strategy. (The company offers some Green IT coaching here.) It's followed by Ericsson, Fujitsu, Google, and IBM. You'll also find a burgeoning market for Green IT certifications that help re-orient IT careers in this new direction. CompTIA's Strata - Green IT certificate, for example, covers the ability to develop, deploy and calculate true ROI for Green initiatives; knowledge of cost-cutting power management and IT virtualization techniques; understanding of environmentally sound waste disposal; and an awareness of global organizations mandating standards and regulations. Businesses these days are still very much in that painful "do more with less" mode, and I won't predict when that will end - if ever. Green IT fits right in, helping businesses do more work while using less equipment and energy. Who wouldn't want to turn their business at least a little green? -- Don Willmott
That's what got me thinking, and that's why I've written about it twice before, here and here. Green IT is not a crunchy Marxist plot. It's a bottom-line money saver than can make heroes out of IT departments that successfully institute its basic principles. This is a very hot (pun intended) sector today. Just watch as the job listings for data center design and network management start to include words like "power management skills" and "sustainable strategies." The truth is, being a Green IT guru doesn't have to be terribly challenging. The basics for any green upgrade, which are laid out in this white paper, are pretty simple: Get a computer room cooling efficiency health check, seal the computer room envelope and the raised floor, improve the above-the-floor airflow management, refresh your servers when you can, virtualize them, and turn up the heat in the server room. I Google runs its server farms at a rather warm 80 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than I would have guessed. If you really want to make some waves in Green IT, try suggesting that departments and employees are held to account not just for the space they take up but also for the power they consume. Think of it as an internal carbon tax. Imagine how many department heads would be running around the office telling people to turn off their lights if they knew their bottom line was being affected. The other big Green IT career trend, of course, is in cloud computing implementations. I flipped through this white paper by Accenture on behalf of Microsoft, and learned that companies can save anywhere from 30 to 90 percent of their energy use and emissions by moving IT operations to cloud computing infrastructures. (Microsoft suggests you consult them, of course.) If you were the person who showed up at the CFO's office to report that you had just cut energy costs by that much, you'd probably be in line for at least a promotion. It's interesting to note that many big tech companies practice what they preach when it comes to Green IT, and we can all learn from them. Greenpeace maintains a Cool IT Leaderboard that's almost always topped by networking giant Cisco, which is "making IT climate solutions an increasingly core part of its busines's strategy. (The company offers some Green IT coaching here.) It's followed by Ericsson, Fujitsu, Google, and IBM. You'll also find a burgeoning market for Green IT certifications that help re-orient IT careers in this new direction. CompTIA's Strata - Green IT certificate, for example, covers the ability to develop, deploy and calculate true ROI for Green initiatives; knowledge of cost-cutting power management and IT virtualization techniques; understanding of environmentally sound waste disposal; and an awareness of global organizations mandating standards and regulations. Businesses these days are still very much in that painful "do more with less" mode, and I won't predict when that will end - if ever. Green IT fits right in, helping businesses do more work while using less equipment and energy. Who wouldn't want to turn their business at least a little green? -- Don Willmott