Want a NOOK? Explore Now
How IT Can Drive Immense Business Value by “Going Green”
Chances are your enterprise IT organization has a significant carbon footprint. In an era of unpredictable energy costs, reducing energy usage throughout your data centers and IT infrastructure represents a powerful cost-cutting opportunity. Now, a top green IT expert shows business and IT leaders how to drive powerful business value by improving IT’s environmental performance.
Drawing on leading-edge experience, John Lamb helps you realistically assess the business case for green IT, set priorities, and overcome the internal and external challenges to making it work. He offers proven solutions for issues ranging from organizational obstacles to executive motivation and discusses crucial issues ranging from utility rate incentives to metrics. Along the way, you’ll discover energy-saving opportunities—from virtualization and consolidation to cloud and grid computing—and solutions that will improve business flexibility as they reduce environmental impact.
Lamb presents case studies, checklists, and more—all the practical guidance you need to drive maximum bottom-line value from your green IT initiative.
Preface xxiii
Acknowledgments xxix
About the Author xxxiii
Chapter 1: The Importance of Green IT 1
Chapter 2: The Basics of Green IT 15
Chapter 3: Collaboration Is Key for Green IT 39
Chapter 4: The Government’s Role–Regulation and EPA Activity 55
Chapter 5: The Magic of “Incentive”–The Role of Electric Utilities 69
Chapter 6: A Most-Significant Step–“Virtualizing” Your IT Systems 85
Chapter 7: The Need for Standard IT Energy-Use Metrics 109
Chapter 8: What About Chillers, Cooling Tower Fans, and All That Cooling Equipment Usually Ignored by IT? 129
Chapter 9: Green IT Case Studies for Energy Utilities 147
Chapter 10: Green IT Case Studies for Universities and a Large Company 157
Chapter 11: Worldwide Green IT Case Studies 183
Chapter 12: The Future of Green IT for Corporations 205
Appendix A: Green IT Checklist and Recommendations 215
Appendix B: Green IT and Cloud Computing 237
Appendix C: Comparison of Different Power-Generation Methods 251
Appendix D: Worldwide Electricity Costs for IT with Projections 281
Glossary 289
Bibliography 301
Index 305
Preface xxiii
Acknowledgments xxix
About the Author xxxiii
Chapter 1: The Importance of Green IT 1
Chapter 2: The Basics of Green IT 15
Chapter 3: Collaboration Is Key for Green IT 39
Chapter 4: The Government’s Role—Regulation and EPA Activity 55
Chapter 5: The Magic of “Incentive”—The Role of Electric Utilities 69
Chapter 6: A Most-Significant Step—“Virtualizing” Your IT Systems 85
Chapter 7: The Need for Standard IT Energy-Use Metrics 109
Chapter 8: What About Chillers, Cooling Tower Fans, and All That Cooling Equipment Usually Ignored by IT? 129
Chapter 9: Green IT Case Studies for Energy Utilities 147
Chapter 10: Green IT Case Studies for Universities and a Large Company 157
Chapter 11: Worldwide Green IT Case Studies 183
Chapter 12: The Future of Green IT for Corporations 205
Appendix A: Green IT Checklist and Recommendations 215
Appendix B: Green IT and Cloud Computing 237
Appendix C: Comparison of Different Power-Generation Methods 251
Appendix D: Worldwide Electricity Costs for IT with Projections 281
Glossary 289
Bibliography 301
Index 305
As conventional energy sources dry up, the cost of electricity increases. Expanding energy usage is wreaking havoc on the environment, so businesses must find ways to become more energy efficient. Organizations of any size that spend heavily to power and cool their information technology (IT) operations can save money and help the planet by going green in IT. John Lamb, an IT architect, explains how to get that done in this informative, comprehensive and eminently practical book. He offers many helpful case studies of a wide variety of companies and nonprofits that have successfully made the transition to green IT. He presents a strong business case for environmentally sound IT, describes best practices and touches on some primary technical issues. getAbstract suggests Lamb's thoughtful guide to CEOs, chief information officers and other IT professionals. Executives of all kinds will be able to understand this book, though Lamb includes enough technical data to provide extra utility to IT experts who want to make their operations less costly and more sustainable.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Robert_White
Posted July 17, 2009
Great book with real world case studies to reinforce the importance of the "Greening of IT".
It was easy to compare the thinking of current IT infrastructure to where IT infrastructure needs to go as there were plenty of tables or web links to illustrate the efficiencies gained using a greener approach. The main drawback to using external links is that they may not be available by the time the book is published. A website with updates would be a good idea - the free online edition is only a 45 day trial.
Some of the newer technologies made it into the book, but I did not see some of the others - for example Flywheel UPS (although flywheels have been around a long time). Fuel Cell backup power did rate a mention as an emerging technology.
Some more discussion on Computer Room efficiencies and the maximum limits of under floor cooling to handle the newer high density racks based on air flow limits would have been a good addition. This is certainly not a negative because there is only so much that you can cover in a general book.
A few illustrations were a little too small or did not have enough contrast for easy viewing in a black and white publication (example Fig. 11.3, and 11.4 which is a thermal camera image and better suited to color), but did not detract from the material being presented. I am assuming the choice of black and white was driven by the desire for a Kindle version, as well as the extra printing costs needed for color.
As mentioned a lot of external links to extra information were provided, and overall a great snapshot of the current thinking related to the Greening of IT. Naturally with the author being an IBM person there was good coverage of IBM technologies - but there was more than enough coverage of non-IBM solutions so this was not a problem. I recommend this book for both the technical and non-technical reader as the material worked at both levels.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.IT-Professional-Chicago
Posted June 28, 2009
This easy to read & understand book is an eye opener for IT Professional and Organizations. After reading this I clearly understand the fact that, whereas Greening of IT gives avenues for saving money & saving the planet, it is also highlighting an important unavoidable situation of Power shortages in big cities in US and also the growing power shortages in developing countries where the majority of the IT growth is. Greening there is absolute necessity for survival & improved bottom line numbers.
Better we adopt; save money & save the planet as well. Great Book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Lindon
Posted June 25, 2009
This book provides information about the practical business benefits of going Green. The author has struck a very good balance between giving detailed information that a business can implement, and making the writing style approachable to normal people interested in the topic of how to build a Green America.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in finding out about all this "go-green stuff" and how it can impact your family, business, and world. You will quickly find that going green is really common sense. After reading the author's handling of this subject, you wonder why would you continue to do business and life the same old way.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.CleaCoulter
Posted April 3, 2012
Dr. John Lamb has a Ph.D. in engineering science, which is quite apparent in
reading his book, “The Greening of IT.” This book provides a welcome relief from the
many books that center around virtualization as the panacea for energy utilization. While
“The Greening of IT” does have virtualization as one of the steps required for lowering
energy utilization, it takes an engineering approach. He says, “This book provides details
on the importance of implementing green IT….and especially the case studies for
‘lessons learned’ and the best practice approaches for implementing green IT.”
Throughout the book are sprinkled engineering explanations such as the
difference between volts, watt, amps, KWHs and voltage levels. As another example, Dr.
Lamb’s explanation of “Data Center Cooling Basics” clarifies HVAC systems, the
cooling equipment, and new technology (such as stored cooling, thermal storage systems,
and phase change materials.
Dr. Lamb uses IBM’s 5-step program for datacenter efficiency: diagnose,
manage and measure, use energy-efficient cooling, virtualize, and build new or upgrade
facilities when feasible.
Then there are two sections which I have not found in other books: (1) tuning
your applications to require less CPU and (2) Greening your laptop. Tuning applications
often does not happen as we virtualize applications and consolidate them rather than
looking inside the application to use less CPU. Many applications can be tuned to use
25% less hardware then today, however, requires time as the original application
developer is usually not still employed by the corporation. Greening our laptops is a
good idea as well and is a great step to helping use less energy. Dr. Lamb gives the
instructions in his book for Power Management Features and provides the option of
utilizing a thin client PC for corporations as well.
Dr. Lamb’s section on collaboration is interesting as it discusses the need for IT
vendors to “integrat(e) their hardware, software, and services” to help customers improve
their energy initiatives. Further, there is a good overview of IBM’s energy monitoring
programs as well. The part where Dr. Lamb allows himself to go back to more
engineering-related topics where is really interesting. The chapter on “The Magic of
‘Incentive’ -- The Role of Electric Utilities” and “PG&E Lead Utility Energy Efficiency
Coalition” of the impact of energy companies on the Greening of IT and available
incentive programs. This type of explanation, looking outside the typical datacenter and
to the energy companies, was new to me.
The section on virtualization is made more interesting by the SPEC metrics for
virtual servers. Note that older frame’s utilization is not tied to their power consumption.
Newer, greener frames use more power as the utilization rises.
In all, the 5-step approach for an “Energy Efficient Data Center” – Diagnose,
Build, Virtualize, Manage and Measure, and Cool – provides corporations a look at their
datacenter energy costs and find ways to improve their energy utilization and their
virtualization penetration. The emphasis on measurement throughout the book is very
important as Dr. Lamb provides methodologies for baselining (what to baseline) as well
as energy-measurement tools. The book ends with appendices and checklists to actually
do this work. This is not a theoretical book for anyone dealing with high energy costs, it
is a must-read to put a team in place to Go Green!
MickeyI
Posted February 20, 2011
This is a very well written book, and I really enjoyed reading it. In addition to providing a comprehensive review of challenges which IT organizations face while managing their carbon foot print and energy consumption, this books provides an excellent set of recommendations and detailed guidance on how business and IT leaders can pursue Green IT soutions. A must read...
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Tauqeer
Posted January 30, 2011
An informative and well written book that elaborates, illustrates and emphasizes with right amount of contrast. John has exhibited a real understanding of the challenges and leads to practical solutions while training your mind to reflexively think about the impacts that your technology decisions would have on the environment. Book is well organized and a treat to read distinguishing itself from other books available on the topic.
A must read for Executives and IT Professional to recognize monitory benefits while saving the planet.
Overview
How IT Can Drive Immense Business Value by “Going Green”
Chances are your enterprise...