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What bothers me on this new "going green" faze is that to do so, you must spend a lot of money to make it so. If we did do what is recommended by this article, does ANYONE actually believe the energy savings will surpass the initial costs (labor and eletronics)? The servers and/or hardware will have long passed their useful life before that happens. This is also not taking into consideration that most companies are either unwilling or fiscally unable to supply the funds necessary to "go green".

http://www.compellent.com/~/media/com/Files/White_Papers/WP_Green-Advantage_1107.ashx?ref=HPDD_CML1107

saves lots of power and cooling costs, but only Compellent does this right now. You will hear a lot more about this in the future as more vendors develop it.
Gordon McKemie
Ohio Valley Storage Consultants
gordon@OVSC.biz

I think part of the idea of this article is to consider the greener alternatives when the time comes to upgrade/replace hardware at the end of its life cycle.

For instance, when it's time to replace a few (or a lot of) servers, it won't be any more expensive to buy one powerful server and virtualize all the server roles on that one physical machine than it would be to buy a bunch of physical servers each running their own processes. At that point, it would most likely be cheaper, both in the setup and ongoing costs to only have the one physical server.

There's a reason the article doesn't say that "going green" is an overnight process. It takes a lot of money, but it also takes a lot of money to follow an upgrade path that doesn't reduce environmental impact, so it's one more option to evaluate at the regular upgrade cycles.

I agree with you in replacing computers when the time comes. My point is since the new generation of servers and desktops use less energy and with greater computing power, why bring the subject up to begin with other than to encourage/guilt people to replace their hardware now. Eventually, this will take place in the natural process of events over time anyway.

If you doubt that this the case of this forum then I'd suggest taking a good look at the coverage the mass media is providing on the subject on "going green" and draw your own conclusions.

All i'm trying to say is, we as a nation need to use some common sense rather than jumping in on the bandwagon without careful consideration. Otherwise, it's what I call just being "reactionary" to what's new in the world of hype.

When one talks about "going green," I think a lot of us think (1) it costs more, and (2) it doesn't really do too much to save the environment.

If a company really wanted to go green, one would try and eek out another year of service per CPU perhaps, saving the landfill of the older computers for a while. We have a computer replacement policy of 3 years - something that seemed appropriate 10 years ago. Now, I just had one of my computers replaced - it was three years old - and still very servicable. Actually, I got to keep the old machine and turned it into a server - it was a Dell workstation. It would have been more green friendly to let me keep my old computer an extra year or two.

Most computers, after their useful life, are full of poisons and chemicals not really good for the water tables. I understand about saving energy - but that is only part of the equation. Oh, and letting me keep my old computer would have made economic sense as well.

At home, I have a couple of Apple computers that are five and six years old - both still usable. All being equal, I think the Macs seem to last better - but I can't do my work in the office on a Mac. Well, not easily.

Going green in most cases is not an expensive initiative. In fact, in many cases it has lower initial cost and a lower long term cost.

Microsoft provides free virtualization application. Basic VMWare is free.

On a different front, at our office we wrote a macro that allows users to print duplex using an easy button rather drilling through Print options. All done in-house.

Going green has more perceptive bottlenecks than actual.

It always makes sense to not waste resources, both for a business and personally. Thats just good policy and common sense.

But if you think you are helping to "save the planet", thats just silly.

to sell products based on current fads. Look at compact florescent bulbs, technically toxic waste (mercury) but they are part of the "green" push.

Many environmental awareness companies no longer support/recommend the CFL's anymore. It was teh light bulb manufacturers that put teh big push on them, not environmentalists.

in SOME cases, when disposed of at a proper recycliing center, they are worthwhile. In most cases they don't offer enough light and can get overly hot. They also can't stand cold temperatures well. In an ideal environment, with idea recycling, they are a fair solution. But in most cases, an LED light will be better.

There is no denying the electrical savings, the longevity... but the proper disposal is the issue.

Personally I use my computer monitor at home... I tend to forget to turn on the overhead.
"Dark? Its Dark? Really? Wait... who said that, I can't see you."

To further the idea of "green computing", I came across a "green" internet service provider, Green ISP. I found them at http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/broadband-news/2008/06/10/green-isp-fills-the-gap-for-eco-broadband/.

Have you ever looked into the cost vs benefits of the solar panels the "Green ISP" is touting?
Generally speaking, if you covered the entire surface of a typical house roof, you'd generate enough energy to power 3 blow dryers. Don'rt even think what the inital cost is, or heaven forbid, consider whether you'd ever recover the costs from the savings gained from employing this method.

I'm not saying to ignore the enviroment, but can we please use a little of our brain power and simple math to see it what you're about to do is actually cost effective rather than focusing on the politically correctness of the idea? We did go to college, right?

There's a little more to the financial argument than short term costs, and problems will be caused in the long run by people not thinking ahead. As time goes on power generated through traditional means (fossil fuel) is inevitably going to become more expensive as those resources become more rare, which obviously means running costs are going to go up as well.

Just because a greener solution is more expensive at the moment doesn't mean it isn't worth looking into now. Without people showing interest and trying to implement these things in the present then there will be no incentive for companies to develop more cost effective methods of environmentally friendly power, and so everyone will be left between a rock and a hard place when traditional power becomes prohibitively expensive in the future.

I think you should do a little more research into solar panels. I was evaluating solar panels and, for where I live, the payoff was about 20 years. I live in an area that gets a lot of rain. In a sunnier region that payoff would be cut in half. Also this evaluation was over 5 years ago and solar panels have dropped in price and produce more power since then. Good quality Solar panels are guaranteed for 25 years. I am waiting for the solar panels that use optics to intensify the light on each solar cell to evaluate the cost again. They are supposed to provide about twice the power per cell.

Bill

informative and really good