Green Guide to your Office - Cisco · 10 12 14 WebEx Green Guide to your Office. WebEx Green Guide...

Communications Data

Hardware

Green Guide to your Office

Employees

Mobile Devices

Sponsored by WebEx Communications

http://www.webex.co.uk

Contents

Foreword - Steve Howard, CEO, The Climate Group

WebEx on Communications

The impact of business travel and green communication solutions.

Quocirca on Employees

How green business practices can improve productivity and the bottom line.

Vodafone on Mobile Devices

Green mobile business practices.

Fujitsu-Siemens on Hardware

IT hardware and energy consumption.

Cisco on Storage and Data Centres

Environmentally friendly data management policies.

Conclusion

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WebEx Green Guide to your Office

3WebEx Green Guide to your Office

Green Guide Foreword

T he debate on climate change has moved on. The statistics speak for themselves and discussions are now centred on mitigation and adaptation. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change had a clear message – we must act now, or pay later.

The business community has the potential to make a massive contribution to combating climate change. There’s a wide range of options, from employee-level energy saving and recycling schemes to technologi-cal solutions provided by IT. The IT sector in particular is known for rapid change and developing innova-tive solutions – both enticing prospects when dealing with the scale of our challenge in moving towards a low-carbon economy.

Some businesses are already taking the initiative to become both technologically and environmental-ly progressive, reaping huge benefits both fiscally and environmentally. The benefits to the company from cost savings, higher productivity, improved staff satisfaction and increased environmental credentials are augmented by the planetary benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

As this guide demonstrates, ideas such as online collaboration, green data centres, mobile working and energy-efficient hardware can all be implemented within a business and make a contribution to reducing its carbon footprint. With substantial savings in energy bills, employee time and travel costs, the business case for these improved efficiencies is also clear.

The guide is for both managers and employees as collective and concerted action is required. The infor-mation provided can be embedded into management systems and championed by employees. Busi-ness as usual is not an option for today’s online economy. The virtual world provides us with the real and substantial opportunity to drive business faster and further than ever before and care for the real world at the same time.

Steve Howard CEO, The Climate Group

WebEx Green Guide to your Office 3

http://www.theclimategroup.org


UK employees believe that over a third of face-to-face meetings they attend are un-necessary and even counter-productive

Sales pitches, training sessions, or meetings with partners or remote colleagues traditionally require staff to leave the office and travel to another. Sometimes the destination is only a short taxi ride away; some-times it is a few hours on a train. On other occasions the meeting is in another country entirely. The problem with meetings is the cost of travel to the environment. Emissions from car, train and plane journeys quickly add up, in most cases making a huge contribution to a company’s overall carbon foot-print - for example, just one person flying from New York to London and back again creates 1.87 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Meetings are vital for business in a huge number of ways - from establishing rapport and forging new partnerships to saving time, motivating staff and discuss-ing new ideas. But we need to be careful that the cost to the planet of attending these meetings doesn’t outweigh the benefit they can give.

Meeting overload We have all experienced travelling to a meeting merely to stare blankly at a presentation that could easily have been sent and discussed via email, or to take part in a discussion that could have been conduct-ed more efficiently by telephone. This is reflected in the results from a survey WebEx commissioned in May 2007, which revealed UK employ-ees believe that over a third of face-to-face meetings they attend are unnecessary and even counter-productive.

So what can be done to avoid unnecessary business travel and reduce its negative impacts on the environment? Nowadays, modern technol-ogy provides a variety of tools to collaborate virtually via the internet. Broadband connections and advanced internet technology mean that more and more meetings can take place over the internet and achieve the same results, only without travel expenses or excess carbon emis-sions. Modern web conferences also allow an unprecedented level of collaboration. VoIP or traditional conference lines allow all attendees to speak to each other, while webcams provide visual contact. All applications on a PC can be shared, meaning that you can give a presentation, display a video file, or even give others control over your desktop.

Virtual collaboration Imagine for example a businessman who travels around the country meeting with colleagues, partners or new customers. He might spend an hour in each meeting, but need two hours to travel between each. By moving these meetings to the online environment, he could conceivably double or even triple his productivity. Combining this with the benefit to the environment, the argument for web-based communications is strong. The possibilities presented by these technologies are numerous (see ‘The Possibilities’). By considering which meetings can be held online rather than face-to-face, your business could take a huge step in reducing its carbon emissions, especially when overseas travel is required.

You’ll also find a number of other benefits to your business and its employees. Firstly, your travel budget will be slashed, with the funds made available to invest in other areas of the business. Secondly, there are advan-tages for employees. Business travel is no longer necessarily seen as a glamorous perk of the job – in most cases it wastes valuable time while travelling to and from destinations and in extreme cases can alienate people from their family lives. The same survey mentioned earlier showed that one-in-five UK-based international business travellers want to reduce the number of trips they take, with over a quarter of them citing environmental concerns as the main reason, alongside an improved work-life balance. By reducing the

Enabling green communicationsThe average UK employee attends over 91 meetings every year, but over a third are considered unnecessary, according to recent research. WebEx Vice-President of EMEA, Bert van der Zwan, considers the environmental cost of business travel and the greener alternatives technology can provide.


How much CO can be saved with online collaboration technology?

• Onepersonflyingfrom London to New Yorkfora teammeetingcreates1.87 tonnesofcarbondioxide • Twopeopletravellingfrom London to Madridfora sales presentation create 0.85tonnesofcarbon dioxide

• 12participantsflyingfrom LondontoTokyofora trainingsessioncreate 38.54tonnesofcarbon dioxide

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amount of trips that employees take, you will find they get a lot more done in less time, while improving their home lives and reducing the impact of travel on the environment.

It is important to remember that web-based collaboration is not in a position to take over from all face-to-face communications. There will always be situations where meeting in person is essential for the success of the project or partnership. What we can do now, to benefit both ourselves and the planet, is understand there are a huge number of unnecessary business trips being taken every day, and take steps to reduce them.

For more information and to calculate your carbon emissions from business travel, please visit: www.webex.co.uk/gogreen

Tips to reduce business travel

•Reviewyourcompany’s businesstravelpolicy. Makesureemployeesjus-tifyanytripbeforemak- inganybookings •Investinonlinecollabora- tiontechnologyandgive employees the tools to maximiseitspotential – webcams, internet access etc

• Makeonlinecollabora- tionpartofthecompany culture–runtraining sessionstoensureemplo- yees understand its benefitsandsettargets foritsuse

•Toreducetheenviron- mentalimpactofemplo- yeesgettingtowork,investigatehome-working andcar-poolingschemes

Customer support Remote IT support can take place over the internet, with engineers resolving technical problems in offices all over the country without leaving their desks.

TrainingA training programme scheduled to cover employees in several remote branches can take place in one session, with the ability to split the audience into groups, set tasks and ask questions.

Host sales and marketing Detailed and interactive product demonstrations can be held online to pre-qualify sales leads, allowing prospective customers to take remote control of the application.

Online meetings Hold productive meetings with colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners: for example, rather than summon 20 regional managers to head office for a sales meeting, you can host them all remotely in a web conference.

The Possibilities

BecauseofthenatureofGaelQuality’sproducts,itisimpera-tivethatprospectsseethesoftwareinactiontofullyappreci-ateitsbenefits.However,MartinBowman,SalesDirector,foundthatrepeatedsalestripsandface-to-facemeetingstodemon-stratetheproductswereaffectinghissalestargetsandexistingclientrelationships.“Oursalesexecutiveswerespendingaround10dayspermonthontheroadvisitingexistingcustomersornewprospects,oftenholdingnomorethantwomeetingsperday,”explainsBowman.“Iurgentlyneededanalternativetoallowthemtomeetwithmorepeopleinlesstime.”

Sinceimplementingonlinemeetingsforproductdemonstra-tionsandcustomereventsin2003,muchhaschanged.“Withinanhourofanenquirywecanbeinavirtualmeetingwitha

Gael Quality is a Scottish company that provides software to facilitate both personal and organisational improvement, specialising in compliance management.


Case Study

customerorprospecttounderstandtheirchallengesandhow our products could address their needs,” Bowman explains.“Weholdaround120onlinemeetingsamonth,withsomeofourteamperformingfivesalesmeetingsaday!Theincreaseinproductivityandabilitytoreachprospectivecustomershasbeenfantastic.”

Inaddition,thereductionintravelhashelpedGaelQual-itytonotonlyreduceitsowncarbonfootprint,butthoseofitscustomersaswell.“Bringingmeetingsonlinemeanswe’vemadehugesavingswhilstreducingcarbonemis-sions,”saysBowman.“Infact,forourlatestwebevent,weareduetohaveover300attendeesfromasfarawayastheUS,AustraliaandtheUnitedArabEmiratesandnobodyneedstoleavetheirdesks.”

http://www.webex.co.uk/uk/go-green/green.html


The key is to look at how dis-crete small changes made in-dividually across an organisa-tion can make a big difference when viewed overall from the top

Greener employees make a healthier bottom line

Many businesses have already introduced simple low-cost measures to make their use of resources a little kinder to the environment, although this has often been without enormous conviction. Now the empha-sis has shifted to investing in broader-reaching changes for greater environmental impact, admittedly still frequently with a marketing spin, and with an eye to not adversely affecting the bottom line. However, if applied appropriately, environmentally friendly programmes should provide positive business benefits, not only saving costs, but also improving productivity. Companies should look to take this a step further and measure the effectiveness of these programmes, feeding back through management and compensation plans.

There are three areas where employees and businesses can make changes that benefit both the environ-ment and the bottom line:

•Reduce–beingfrugal,especiallywithunproductivepowerconsumptionandexpensiveresources

•Recycle–separatingrecyclablematerialfromrubbishgoingtolandfill,butalsoconsideringwhatcanbeusefully redeployed elsewhere in an organisation

•Replace–doingsomethingdifferentlyandmakingbehaviouralchangesthataremorecost,timeand environmentally efficient.

Each require both individuals and the organisation to change the way things are done, and this will involve some up-front investment, either of time or budget. Some attempts to change behaviours can seem gimmicky but many have broader benefits. The key is to look at how discrete small changes made individu-ally across an organisation can make a big difference when viewed overall from the top.

Behavioural change In an increasingly environmentally aware age the finger is frequently being pointed at IT energy consumption and the subsequent impact of carbon footprint. Not only do faster and more powerful computers consume more energy during use, but now there are more of them, they are left switched on for longer, or at best are kept semi-dormant on standby. They also run hotter, and consequently need more cooling. Clearly manu-facturers could do much more, but probably only if businesses and consumers are willing to pay more to offset, or more appropriately reduce or replace, the energy consumption across the entire lifetime of a computer.

While IT resource usage still needs addressing, the green emphasis has moved on to carbon footprint, with transportation and travel seen as major contributors to the problem, but used well, IT can alleviate some of the effects with a silicon, rather than carbon, offset. Here the actions and behaviours of individuals are more clearly visible, therefore potentially easier to influence, change and measure. This is particularly true when there are also tangible personal benefits to the individuals themselves – such as control of their own time and work/life balance – and financial benefits to the organisation through productivity gains and cost savings.

Similar behavioural changes need to be made at the top, to realise that investment in the right sort of IT solutions can pay environmental as well as commercial dividends. For senior management, this greener approach should be factored into the decision-making processes when assessing technology needs and benefits, exploiting both environmental and financial return on IT investment. It seems only natural to then make the next move to set and reward green objectives to encourage everyone to do the right thing. A change in behaviours right across the organisation, while a challenge, can be rewarding for all – individual, business and the environment.

Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst at Quocirca, explains how businesses can implement greener business practices whilst simultaneously improving productivity and the bottom line.


http://www.quocirca.com


Paper Consumption Office paper consumption has increased at around 20 per cent per year and now accounts for over half of a typical office’s total waste. Use less by encourag-ing print previewing, printing small, using both sides, and think before you print. Use cheaper low-grade or recycled paper for general use, and keep high-ink, high-quality paper output to a minimum. Use software to ques-tion print decisions - “Do you really want to print this 20-page document twice in full colour?”

Power Management Deploy power management everywhere – not only on laptops – and ensure that monitors and other unused equipment are shut down or turned off when not in use. Do not forget printers.

Hazardous Materials Pay close attention to waste – ensure that technology products from batteries to mainframes are disposed of correctly and look for opportunities to redeploy or reuse internally rather than removal.

Heating Only heat the office with IT if you really have to. Move systems that are likely to give out heat into machine rooms where they can be cooled more efficiently and where they won’t increase office cooling needs. If starting from scratch, design buildings with IT heating and cooling in mind from the outset.

Print Management Rationalise print management. Centralise to higher output print-ers to reduce numbers, noise and consumables. Use multifunc-tion devices to scan and email instead of paper copy and regular snail mail.

Product Life Cycle Architect IT for extended system life and a consolidated and shared infrastructure – encour-age internal reuse, cascading, component replacement, thin client and virtualised servers and deliver as much as possible as services on the network. Howev-er, with much older hardware, check to see if recent technol-ogy is dramatically more efficient e.g. flat TFT monitors use half the power of traditional cathode ray tubes.

Servers Consolidate, centralise and deliv-er IT as a utility service. Move servers into data centres and serve over the network – this can also reduce Wireless Area Networking (WAN) by keeping heavy-duty network traffic local to data centres. Use thin client computing to consolidate desk-top power into the data centre – this reduces office heating, and makes the desktop environment more controllable.

Digitalise Paperwork Send bits instead of atoms. Digitise, transport and return to analogue after transportation if required. This means scan-ning documents and eliminating paperwork using online form fill-ing and switching to pdf docu-ments instead of shipping printed manuals, catalogues or papers.

Think Remote Think remote - remote access instead of commuting, remote collaboration instead of meetings – and allow employees to make their contributions where it is the most efficient use of their time and company resources.

Suppliers Be selective regarding suppliers – examine their green creden-tials, don’t be fooled by carbon offsets or ‘guilt-shifting’, look for those taking a direct and active approach to their environmental responsibilities.

Certification Look at implementing a formal standard, such as ISO 14001 (a set of environmental manage-ment standards) to set clear policies for employees, and to demonstrate commitment. Be aware of the limited scope of these approaches, and as they become more widespread they will drop in value so always look to do more, and have it exter-nally measured and quantified. Feed measurement back into the personal measurement and management of employees – at all levels.

Reduce


Recycle Replace

Take-Away Tips


Mobile devices – the green challenge

Mobile phones have had a dramatic impact on the way we commu-nicate, both from a business and a personal point of view. There are significant advantages over the fixed-line alternative, particularly in devel-oping markets; the technology is cheaper and easier to install, provid-ing access to communications to a growing number of people who were previously excluded. In developed countries, mobile devices allow us to communicate remotely from any location, work more flexibly and improve productivity. Furthermore the industry is comparatively clean, with an estimated worldwide carbon footprint of a mere 0.1 per cent of total emissions.

That said, despite its relatively small environmental impact, there is great potential for businesses, employees and individuals alike to help make the industry greener. Recycling & Reuse There are a number of ways in which businesses can reduce the envi-ronmental impact of their mobile activities. Perhaps the most obvious is mobile recycling. Consumers in affluent countries typically replace their mobiles every 18 months, with the latest models often taking the place of old phones still in perfect working order. These phones can be refur-bished for sale at low cost to consumers in developing and other coun-tries. This has particular impact in developing markets where mobile networks provide access to communication in areas where there is little or no infrastructure and a fixed line alternative does not exist. Damaged handset parts are separated and used in other products, ensuring that they don’t end up in landfill sites.

However, persuading people to participate in such schemes can be a challenge - for example, many pass their handsets onto other family members, and others feel that a “spare handset” might be useful. To combat this, operators may offer incentives to encourage customers to return their handsets - this includes giving back a small amount of cash or donations to charity. In the UK for example, we donate £8-10 to char-ity for each handset returned and have recently teamed up with charity Global Cool to raise the profile of climate change in general. Employ-ers can take similar tactics and offer their own incentives to encourage employees to hand in unwanted mobile devices.

Some countries, including the UK, now encourage customers not to change their phone so frequently, and SIM only tariffs and airtime incen-tives are now available. It’s a sobering thought to consider that if every-one in the UK delayed upgrading their phone by a year the energy saved would be equivalent to taking 213,000 cars off the road.

Energy Undoubtedly there are also issues around mobile phone chargers, however manufacturers have made considerable progress to reduce standby consumption. For example the leading handset manufacturers have met or indeed exceeded the target of 0.3 Watts set by the EU Commission in 2005. In addition, all recently produced phones contain intelligent charge control functions and now automatically stop charging when the battery is full. The key point is that with an EC minimum standard charger more energy will be used by simply having the plug switched on than actually charging, so businesses should remind employees to switch off or unplug all chargers when they don’t need to use them, contributing to reducing the electricity bill as well as benefiting the environment.

Joaquim Croca, senior executive in Vodafone’s Corporate Social Responsibilty team, examines the steps employees and management can take to minimise the environmental impact of mobile devices.

Mobile services helping businesses reduce their carbon footprint

Greenmobilepracticesextendbeyondthephoneitself.

Invoice managerThisisanefficientway forbusinessestoreceiveandprocesstheirinvoices.Opera-tors can collate all individual invoices per phone user and send out to the customer asoneelectronicinvoice.Corporate customers can thenpaydirectlythroughane-system.Thisminimisespaperusageandmaximisesefficiency.

Enabling flexible working practicesAmobileofficeisnowareality.Operatorsenableemployees to securely access technologysuchasSiebel,Oracle,Remedy,salesforce.comandSAPfromtheirBlackBerry,PocketPCorSymbiandevice,cuttingdown on unnecessary travel andfurthercarbon emissions.


If everyone in the UK delayed upgrading their phone by a year the energy saved would be equivalent to taking 213,000 cars off the road


Efficiency Using mobile technology more efficiently and recycling handsets is only one part of the picture. Mobile technology itself can help businesses to reduce their impact on climate change. The most logical area to look at is transport. Globally, transport accounts for about 20 per cent of carbon emissions, the second-high-est contributing factor following electricity generation. IT, incorporating mobile technology, can reduce the need for travel and transportation of goods by overcoming distance problems and offering flexible work-ing practices. At Vodafone we are developing transport information systems combining mobile telecommunications and informatics, which can help reduce transport emissions by improving traffic flows and transport efficiency. Mobile companies can also help to explore ways in which mobile technology can assist in reducing commuting costs.

The truth is mobile phone companies do have a carbon footprint and we are doing our best to minimise this. However we are also doing our best to identify innovative ways to ensure our technology is put to good use.

Mobile networksEnergyuseassociatedwiththeoperationofourmobilenetworksaccountsformorethan80percentofthecarbondioxideemissionsfromourtotalenergyuse.Thereforeeffortstomakethenetworkgreenerareessential.

Forexample,workingwithsupplierswearereducingtheenergyimpactintwokeyareas–poweramplifiersandradio-heads.Newenergy-efficientmodelshavebeen implemented in over 650sitessofar,withmoretofollow.Throughtheseactivities we have achieved a25percentincreaseinenergyefficiencyinnewnetworkequipmentsince2006.


Implementarecyclingprogrammeforthecompany’smobile devices

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Ensure employees unplugallphone chargerswhennot in use

Do you need to replace devices so often?Understandthe benefits a new phonecanofferbeforeyoupurchase

Use mobile technologytoreducebusiness travel where appropriate

Use mobile technologytoallowflexibleworking practicesfor employees

Encourageemploy-eestotakepartbyofferingcash incentives or charity donations

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Top tips for a green mobile office


It goes without saying that desktop computers and IT hardware in general are an essential part of our everyday working lives. But their efficient use is crucial if companies are to take a green approach to IT. Wasted electricity from fossil fuel sources generates needless, damag-ing carbon dioxide emissions that pollute the atmosphere and contribute to environmental problems such as smog, acid rain and global warming. Even energy from renewable sources can impact the environment - from large-scale water consumption for cooling purposes to disruption of wildlife habitats. With these issues in mind, the need to make the most of all of the energy a company uses becomes clear.

Getting IT right What many organisations still fail to realise however, is that by using the right desktop computers, they can save money and help the environ-ment without having to lift a finger. Traditionally, when companies are looking to purchase new equipment, cost is a major factor. If faced with monetary constraints, for one reason or another, companies often look for the “cheapest” IT deal they can find. The cheapest deal often, unfor-tunately, may not work out as well in the long term and is unlikely to be the most environmentally friendly choice. Why not? Simply because the cost of running the PC is never considered. Cutting costs and saving energy Electricity prices have risen over the last year and are set to rise again, with the industry average currently at 4.66p / kWh of energy consumed. This may seem like a small amount, but if you take into account how long computers are on for and how many are used within a company, the costs soon start to add up. If you aren’t thinking about the following factors you should be: •HowmanydesktopPCscurrentlyoperateinyourcompany? •Whatisthepowerconsumptionofeachone? •Aretheyswitchedoffovernight,leftonstandbyorleftrunning? The amount of money and carbon emissions you could save through using more energy-efficient equipment and practices could be substantial. Ensuring employees switch their machines off overnight, and there-fore reduce wasted energy, can be made simpler with innovative new desk view manageability software, which can control all networked machines centrally. Linked together with a manageability server, a network administrator can ensure all desktop computers on a network are running the right power schemes to ensure maximum cost savings. With the ability to administer changes to client PCs from one single location, the potential exists to enable your IT department to be as proactive, opposed to reactive, within the business, and make huge cost savings. Helping the environment by saving energy is about much more than discussing costs though. Look at how employees use and upgrade their equipment, pay attention to environmental standards such as Energy Star and ensure recycling schemes are in place for any potentially hazardous waste materials. As technolo-gy develops we will undoubtedly see further advancements in environmentally friendly desktop computers, but action is required now. With a little effort, everybody can contribute to the green cause immediately.

The green desktop: conserve energy and your budgetDave Scott, Head of Communications at Fujitsu-Siemens looks at how making small changes to IT procurement and operational policy can make a big difference to a company’s energy consumption.

• Acompanyhouses1000 desktopPCsand100017” TFTmonitors,allofwhich arenon-energyefficient. PCsandscreensarenot switchedoffovernight •Atypicalsmallformfactor desktopuses70kWhidle modeanda17”TFTuses 65kWh •Itwouldcostthecompany approximately£54,400 torunthenon-energy efficientequipment annuallywithoutswitch- ingtheirITequipmentoff overnight

•FujitsuSiemensComput ers’ESPRIMOE5600small formfactorconsumes 56kWhinidlemodeanda A17-1TFTuses40kWh

•IftheyweretouseFujitsu SiemensComputers’ESP RIMOE5600andaA17-1 17”TFTMonitorand switchedequipmentoff overnight,itwouldcost approximately£8,500* *basedonanaverage80full24hour days an employee would spend at their computer a year

Energy & cost savings


What many organisations still fail to realise however, is that by using the right desktop computers, they can save money and help the environment without having to lift a finger

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com



Take-Away TipsAdjust your power management settings By adjusting power management settings in the operating system, you can adapt a computer’s power usage to suit your working rhythm. It is also very important that monitors deactivate when not in use, particularly since people tend to switch off their computer in the evening, but not the display, leaving it to idly guzzle power all night. Indeed, the greatest amount of energy can be conserved by avoiding unproduc-tive operation. Studies in Canada revealed that comput-ers are only used for about 12 per cent of the time they are running. This is often because they remain switched on overnight or during the weekend, even when not in use.

Upgrade only what is needed Another common phenomenon is the use of desktops that are far more powerful than necessary to perform simple office applications. Many applications in the office environ-ment would benefit more from additional memory than high-performance processors. In such cases, older machines with more “frugal” processors could be upgraded and remain in service. After all, the faster the processor, the greater the power dissipation and thus electricity consump-tion.

If you are buying a new PC - check the label If you are going to buy a new PC then think green and check the label to see what standards it conforms to. The European Commission offers detailed information about the Energy Star eco-label as well as the power consump-tion of modern office computers at www.eu-energystar.org. The website features an energy calculator for PCs, moni-tors and imaging equipment in companies and public sector operations, as well as for consumers. It enables a detailed comparative calculation to be made of power consumption and overall costs by allowing for numerous factors. These include purchase price, depreciation periods, and everyday usage scenarios, including specifying power requirements and if an uninterruptible power supply is used. Even the air conditioning system’s effects on electricity requirements are taken into account.

Recycle Under the European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic (WEEE) Directive, all manufacturers of electrical equipment are responsible for its environmentally friendly disposal, and the infrastructure required for collection. This allows old equipment to be reused and recycled where possible, with any potentially hazardous components properly disposed of. Be sure to check with the manufacturers of each piece of equipment before simply throwing it away.

http://www.eu-energystar.org


Power efficient data centres and storagePhil Andrews, Head of Data Centre Operations, Cisco Europe, explains how virtualisation can make a real difference to the overall power efficiency of storage, the entire data centre and the branch office network.

Data centres are among the most power-hungry and energy-wasteful of all IT components. Originally formed from the integration of different silos, they can often have as much as three times more storage and six to eight times more servers than are actually needed. Besides damaging the environment, this creates challeng-es in terms of cost, power, agility and resilience. Thankfully though, taking an architecture approach to data centre design can largely eliminate all of these problems. Energy efficiency Data centre servers usually operate at only about 15 per cent efficiency. And for every Watt used by the server, another two go on air conditioning while one more Watt is used up in lighting, power conversion and network components. These numbers may not sound like a great cause for concern. But multiply them by a thousand servers—not even a large data centre by today’s standards—and you would be looking at a total power consumption of around 2.5 Megawatts. This level of inefficiency is so great that it is not just an environmental issue – according to Gartner half of today’s data centres will have insufficient power and cooling capacity to meet the demands of high-density equipment as early as 2008. It is possible however, and indeed easy, to take a tactical approach to reducing data centre power consumption and carbon emissions: leave the facility essentially as it is, and trade up to more efficient serv-ers, storage, racking layouts, cooling and power systems, and so on. Such an approach would lead to cosmetic improvements, but planned equipment efficiency gains on their own will not be enough to curtail the overall growth in data centre power demands. Furthermore, basing your carbon reduction approach on the power ratings of your devices alone is not real-ly an intelligent strategy, since a device which consumes twice as much energy might actually perform four times as much work, and thus be more efficient. A much more effective way to solve the problem is to take an architectural approach which looks at the total-ity of your data centre resources and tries to use them in the most efficient way. Virtualisation Virtualisation can help reduce network appliances and increase utilisation of storage and servers, essentially having a major impact on all equip-ment. Virtualisation works at the server level by allowing multiple applications and operating systems to share servers that were previously only used for single applications, freeing up underused server capacity so that it is available for use with as many applications as needed. This means the utilisation of individual servers can be raised to 70 per cent or more, which could equate to a reduction of up to 75 per cent of the servers in the data centre, freeing up space, power and cooling resources. Within the network, virtualisation can help to reduce the ‘appliance load’ associated with each server; in other words, the number of firewalls, load balancers and other devices attached to it, which in a traditional appli-ance-based approach can represent an additional 700 Watts to one kilowatt of incremental power per server group.

This load is much greater (typically double) in redundant configurations, but in either case the load can be greatly reduced by using the concept of ‘virtual appliances’ on the network, simply building the capability


According to Gartner half of today’s data centres will have insufficient power and cooling capacity to meet the demands of high-density equipment as early as 2008

Annual operating costs for the average data centre

30% efficient storage systems

Powering underutilised appliances

Powering 15% efficient servers

Total

€6.5 millionCooling and uniterruptible power supplies

€875,000

€875,000

€1.75 million

€10 million

http://www.cisco.com



of virtual firewalls, virtual load balancing, intrusion detection and other virtual appliance blades onto network switches. In this way, 100 load balancers could be contained on a single blade instead of using 100 rack-mounted appliances.

Finally, virtualisation can be used across Storage Area Network (SAN) fabrics to improve the utilisation of storage devices. Previously, SANs were attached to individual application groups. A number of servers would have been attached to each individual SAN and the SAN would connect these specific servers to the disks in that SAN. The challenge would be when one SAN was fully loaded and another had underused disks. The SANs could not simply be shared and were effectively ‘hard-wired’. Now the same can be achieved with fewer SAN switches, equipped with virtual SAN capability and inter-virtual SAN routing, enabling any server to be allocated to any disk and allowing virtual SANs to be set up as software configuration exercises, in the same way as LANs have now progressed to virtual LANs. This will lead to an increase in the utili-sation of disks of around 70 to 80 per cent. Fewer disks are needed and hence there is less of a requirement for space, power and cooling. The fact that virtual SAN capability leads to a more flexible architec-ture means a single virtualised system can take the place of many, many more first-generation SAN switch devices, reducing switches, improving disk utilisation and cutting the total power required by up to a factor of three. Furthermore, thanks to innovations such as Wide Area Application Services, virtualisation can be extended to include distant branches, consolidating under-utilised branch office equipment into a super-efficient virtualised data centre.

Adopting an architectural approach involves some up-front invest-ment in data centre technology, of course, but the magnitude of savings generated is such that the payback time for the investment is usually of the order of about six months.

Perhaps most importantly, though, going down the architectural route when looking at data centre efficiency will not just significantly reduce the power requirements of the centre itself, but also of the entire enterprise branch office network.

Once you have the data centre virtualised and under control, you can then consolidate the branch office technology where it makes sense, continuing the power and cost reduction through consolidation and virtualisation.

The benefits of architecture-based virtualisation• Increasedserverefficiency fromaround15percent toapproximately70per cent

• Upto85percentinnet- workapplianceenergy requirements

•70percentutilisation ofstorageresources,from traditionally 30 per cent or less

•Removetheneedfor power-sappingredundant configurations-virtualisa- tionmakesitpossible to maintain business continuitywhilerunning twolivestoragecentres, ratherthanhavingto haveabackupcentre alwaysrunningidle

•Significantlyreducethe powerrequirementsnot onlyofthecentre,but also the entire enterprise branchofficenetwork

AccordingtoGartner,by2008,50percentoftoday’sdatacentreswillhaveinsufficientpowerandcoolingcapacitytomeetthedemandsofhigh-densityequipment.Thefollowingyear,saystheanalyst,energycostswillemergeasthesecond-highestoperatingcost(afterlabour)in70percentofdatacentresworldwide.

Already,theoperatingcostsforanaveragedatacentrecanruntoaround€10millionayear.

Data centre inefficiency - the analyst’s view

Ifcurrentdatacentreenergyconsumptiontrendscontinue,Gartnerpredictsthatasmuchas50percentoflargeorganisationswillfaceanannualpowerbillhigherthantheiryearlyserverbudget.

ForresterResearchalsocalculatedthatarelative-lysmalldatacentrewithonly2,500serversusesenoughelectricityinonemonthtopower420,000homesforayear.


Conclusion

The need to adopt environmentally friendly practices has never been greater. Businesses collectively make a major contribution to the UK’s carbon footprint and therefore have great potential to be at the forefront of this green movement. As the guide has shown, within individual businesses small changes taken over time can make a big difference, but it’s equally important to consider the long-term decisions which contribute to your company’s carbon emissions. All measures taken need to be sustained to make a real impact, but in either case the key is to get started.

Success depends on everyone within an organisation making the effort - so while some tips present imme-diate starting points for employees, others will require ongoing input and support from management. All the recommendations, whether they can be implemented in five minutes or five months, are summarised below to help you reduce your company’s impact on the environment. Take time to consider which options can work for you and your business, and what changes you might have to make.

I hope you have found this guide of interest and a useful resource when planning to adopt environmental ideas. The threat of climate change continues to hang over us, but by adapting our habits we can all make positive steps to reduce the contribution of the business community. By doing so we will also encourage businesses and suppliers to research and invest in new green technologies which will work further towards our goal.

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Bert van der Zwan, Vice-President, WebEx EMEA

Short Term Collaboration Online meetings can be used to replace business trips – for gener-al meetings, sales calls, marketing events or training Travel to work Encourage car-pooling, home working and remote access schemes Paper consumption Think before you print, and take steps to digitalise paperwork

Long Term

Upgrade only what is needed Check that any new equipment such as phones or computers is necessary and suitable for the task at hand Check the label Check new products for envi-ronmental standards before purchase Print management Invest in higher output, multifunc-tion devices to reduce numbers, noise, consumables and energy use

Power management Adjust your computer’s power management settings to suit how you work, and make sure all equipment is switched off when not in use Recycle & reuse Electronic equipment needs to be disposed of carefully, but first check if it can be reused Mobile phones Start a company mobile phone recycling scheme, and encourage employees to unplug chargers when not in use

IT cooling Review the layout of your office to maximise the efficiency of heating and cooling IT

Storage & data centres If you need to use a data centre, check its green credentials. Those using architecture-based virtuali-sation techniques are most energy-efficient

WebEx Green Guide to your Office


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