Green IT solutions guide for the midmarket

SearchCIO-Midmarket.com Staff

Green IT is no longer just about recycling old desktops. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, data centers will require almost twice as much power by 2011 if current trends continue. What is your midmarket company doing to help change course? Use the green IT solutions in this tutorial to learn more.

For free advice and resources on more IT and business topics, visit our list of Midmarket CIO Briefings.

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  Energy efficiency within reach at SMBs
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Going green in the data center is one of today's hottest topics. And while being a good steward of the earth is desirable, the real impetus to green IT is its impact on a company's bottom line when it comes to power consumption. Some estimates indicate that 44% of a data center's operating budget is spent on power. In some cases, that percentage can reach 50%.

Speaking at an event recently, an attendee raised his hand and said, "Please explain what green means to you because, from what I have seen from the other presentations, it means money!" He was right. All technologies have some type of cost impact, but green IT solutions can be achieved without breaking the bank and, in the end, will lead to cost savings.

Find out more in "Energy efficiency within reach at SMBs." Also:

  Virtualization ready to heat up in 2008
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The password into the midmarket data center for 2008 may be virtualization. Not only will the new year see virtualization software vendors continuing to focus on server virtualization, but other key technology initiatives will also have their roots in virtualization, including blade servers designed for the midrange, remote services based on virtual machines, virtual desktops and green IT solutions.

For the data center manager in the midmarket, all of this activity can add up to savings on hardware and utilities, ease of management and, perhaps of most importance, new disaster recovery capabilities.

"Server virtualization has been growing for a couple of years, but I think it's really starting to hit the mainstream,'' said Gary Chen, an analyst at Boston-based research firm Yankee Group Research Inc. "There will be a lot more competition and a lot more product available."

Learn more in "Virtualization ready to heat up in 2008." Also:

  It's not easy being a green Apple
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It's not easy being green. Even for Apple. Climate Counts, a nonprofit group funded by organic food company Stonyfield Farm Inc., has released its annual "scorecards," which examine how companies are working to be more environmentally friendly.

Climate Counts rates companies on a scale of one to 100, based on 22 criteria that examine whether companies are measuring their "climate footprints," reducing their impact on global warming, supporting progressive climate legislation and publicly disclosing their progress in these areas.

Apple Inc. received the lowest score of the electronics companies reviewed.

Find out more in "It's not easy being a green Apple." Also:

  • Apple gets a little greener
    With the iPhone hitting stores, Apple will be raking in the greenbacks. Now the company is getting the thumbs up from Greenpeace.
  • HP sees green in energy efficiency
    Can a company that has spent years contributing to the problem lead the way to energy efficiency in IT areas -- and make a bundle doing it? HP announces its intention to do just that.
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This was first published in November 2007

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