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Right, so everyone’s yammering on about “green IT” these days, like it’s a revelation, some grand new notion just hatched from a particularly clever goose. Poppycock. We’ve been mucking about with this for a good long while, same old story, different set of buzzwords. You want to talk about saving a bob or two, or maybe saving the planet for that matter, then you get down to brass tacks. It’s about what you chuck out, what you power up, and how much juice it all sucks down. Simple as that, really. Or not so simple, depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?
Remember a decade back, everyone was just thrilled to get the thing working, let alone worry about its carbon footprint. Now, all of a sudden, if your data centre ain’t running on sunbeams and good intentions, you’re practically a pariah. Funny old world. I mean, my old mum always said, “Waste not, want not,” and turns out, the same applies to your blinking servers. Who’d have thought?
The Big Gulpers: Data Centres and Their Appetite
Look, the real heavy lifting, or rather, the heavy gulping of electricity, it happens in these giant sheds full of blinking lights. Data centres. They’re like digital black holes, just hoovering up power. You drive past one, looks like a warehouse, but inside, it’s a roaring beast, always on, always needing to be cooled. Fans whirring, chillers humming. You’d think they were trying to freeze the North Pole in there.
Used to be, you just plugged ’em in wherever the land was cheap and the power grid was sturdy. Now, the questions start. Is green IT just about saving money? Well, for some bean counters, absolutely. The power bill, right? That’s a monster line item. You shave a bit off that, suddenly “green” looks mighty appealing. But it’s more than that, or it should be. Regulations are coming, like a slow tide but they’re definitely coming. Fines. Reputation. Your shareholders start looking sideways if you’re known as the company that boils the ocean to send an email. You can’t just ignore that.
Equinix
Take a look at folks like Equinix. They’ve been on this road for a while, building these massive places, but they’re pushing to get to net-zero, using more renewable energy. Same goes for Digital Realty. They’re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, bless ’em. They’re doing it because it’s good business. Customers ask about it, governments demand it, and frankly, the price of power ain’t getting any cheaper, is it? They’ve put money into the ground, literally, to build things smarter. It’s not some fluffy PR exercise when you’re talking about gigawatts.
Old Kit, New Headaches
And what about all the old gear? Computers, monitors, servers – they don’t just vanish into thin air, do they? They pile up in some back room, then get flogged off, or worse, shipped off to some developing nation to be picked apart by hand, often by kids, getting poison all over them. Makes you sick, that does. What about old gear? A question that keeps me up some nights. It’s a mess, an absolute dog’s breakfast of electronics just lying around.
Dell
You see companies like Dell trying to get a handle on it. They have these take-back programs, recycle a fair bit of their old stuff, use recycled plastics in their new machines. Even HP‘s doing a bit. It’s a start. Is it enough? Nah, probably not. But it’s a sight better than just binning the lot. The whole idea of “planned obsolescence” – making things to break so you buy new ones – that’s gotta stop. Or slow down, at least. It’s madness, pure and simple. Everything’s going faster than a greyhound on steroids, and we can’t keep up.
The Cloud Conundrum: Green or Greener?
Then there’s the cloud. Everyone and their dog’s moving to the cloud. “It’s efficient!” they scream. “It’s green!” they insist. Does the cloud actually help or hurt? Good question, that. On one hand, you’re not running your own rickety server in a dusty closet, sucking down power like a Dyson. You’re sharing massive, optimized data centres, theoretically. Less wasted capacity. So, in that sense, yeah, it can be greener.
Microsoft Azure
Think about Microsoft Azure, for instance. Or Google Cloud. And AWS, naturally. These outfits have billions to throw at making their operations hyper-efficient. They can afford to buy renewable energy, put in fancy cooling systems, and build facilities in places where the outside air is cold enough to chill a lager. Your average small business can’t do that. So in aggregate, probably a win.
But here’s the kicker, the bit they don’t shout about from the rooftops: your data still has to go somewhere. It’s still running on something. And the sheer scale of the cloud? It’s astronomical. The more we rely on it for everything from streaming cat videos to brain surgery, the more power it needs. So it’s not a magic bullet, never was. It’s just shifting the problem, hopefully to more efficient hands. It’s like saying you’re saving water by showering at the gym instead of home. Good for your water bill, but the water’s still getting used, isn’t it? Just somewhere else.
Software: The Unseen Player
It ain’t just about the hardware and the big sheds, mind. The software you run, that makes a difference too. Clunky, inefficient code can chew through cycles and power like nobody’s business. A well-designed application, one that isn’t constantly phoning home or running unnecessary processes, that’s got its own green credentials. You wouldn’t think it, would you? But it’s true. Every wasted CPU cycle is a bit of energy, a bit of heat, a bit of wear and tear.
ServiceNow
Some smart folks are building tools to actually track this stuff. ServiceNow, for example, they’ve got these modules that help companies map their carbon footprint, including what their IT systems are kicking out. Same for Salesforce with their Net Zero Cloud. It’s all about measurement. You can’t fix what you can’t see, right? It’s not just for the tree-huggers; it’s for anyone who wants to know where their money’s going and where their emissions are coming from. This whole “tex9.net green it” thing, it’s got layers. It ain’t just about putting a solar panel on your server.
Consultants and the Green Pound
And naturally, wherever there’s a problem, there are consultants. Swarms of them. Some good, some… well, you know. They’ll tell you all about your “sustainability roadmap” and your “ESG metrics.” Used to be you just worried about profit. Now it’s profit, people, and planet. Makes for a longer board meeting, that’s for sure.
Accenture
Companies like Accenture and Capgemini have entire divisions dedicated to this. They’ll come in, poke around your systems, tell you where you’re bleeding energy, and how to plug the leaks. They’ll help you figure out what your scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are. Sounds like something out of a spy novel, doesn’t it? But it’s real. And costly, sometimes. But then, not doing it can be even costlier down the line. It’s not just a nice-to-have anymore. It’s becoming a must-have for plenty of businesses, especially the big ones. Is it mostly for big companies? For now, maybe, because they’ve got the deep pockets and the public spotlight. But it’s trickling down, believe you me. Everyone’s going to be talking about their carbon budget for their IT soon enough.
The Real Motives: Greenwashing or Genuine?
Let’s be honest. Some of this “green IT” push, it’s just window dressing. “Greenwashing,” they call it. Slap a leaf on your marketing material, make a grand statement, and carry on as usual. Happens all the time. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Are they really doing it because they give a monkey’s about the planet, or because their shareholders are breathing down their neck, or because the government just threatened them with a hefty fine? Probably a mix of all three, if we’re being straight. It’s rarely pure altruism when there’s a bottom line involved.
What’s the biggest power drain in IT? Still the data centres, hands down. All those servers, all that cooling. It’s like running a thousand fridges non-stop. Some of the older ones, they were an absolute disaster, just bleeding power everywhere. You could feel the heat radiating off them like a bonfire. Now, there’s more focus on Power Usage Effectiveness, PUE, getting that number closer to 1.0, which means less wasted energy. It’s progress, but still a ways to go.
The whole “tex9.net green it” movement, it’s not going away. This isn’t some flash in the pan. The power prices, the regulations, the sheer amount of digital junk we’re creating – it’s all forcing a reckoning. You can whine about it, you can ignore it, but you can’t escape it. It’s like the tide, just keeps coming in. And if you’re caught flat-footed, you’re gonna get soaked. Or worse.
