Green IT Pointers from Fujitsu

Fujitsu America has begun offering consulting services to help its customers promote green IT and cut their IT energy costs. While aimed at F500 types, the same tips apply to SMBs.Kartik Ravel, Fujitsu America's green IT practices manager, explained that many of their customers are hitting their limits far sooner than anticipated in terms of data center power consumption, temperature, and even floor space. Yet, demand keeps going up.

This is driving server consolidation, which can range from three-to-one, to ten-to-one, through virtualization, Additionally, analyzing the data center's micro-climate will often uncover inefficient cooling that results in higher energy costs. Managers should examine airflow patterns and server placement, Ravel said. Fujitsu literature says that a company with 180 servers could save more than $120,000 annually by consolidating six-to-one to 30 virtualized servers, and optimizing air flow and server placement.

Outside the server room, enterprises can often save anywhere from $10 to $60 per year per PC through optimized power settings (i.e., shutting off when not in use.) Fujitsu literature says that a company with 5,000 PCs could save more than $100,000 per year in energy costs just by implementing appropriate power-management policies.

"We also encourage users to monitor their own usage and optimize their settings," Ravel said. "Behavioral change is key-it is paramount that users become empowered and engaged in order to truly drive out costs while supporting sustainability."

Other common areas for savings include power management for multi-function (printer/copier/scanner/fax) devices, plus phones and videoconferencing devices, Ravel said. Simple configuration changes can cause them to shut down at night, which amounts to significant savings when hundreds of devices are involved.

Other common areas of waste are consumables, plus asset disposal. Setting policies (such as making double-sided printing the default) and educating the users can usually reduce waste in paper and ink, according to Fujitsu's literature.

As for IT assets, rather than disposing of them in a landfill, organizations can benefit from recycling select IT assets, or repurposing them. Asset management also means buying only what you need, especially when it comes to printers, copiers, and multi-function devices, Ravel said.

The new Fujitsu America services are called QuickStart (with a starting price of $25,000) and Green IT Delivery Solutions (with no fixed price). They are touted as delivering actionable plans for reducing enterprise IT energy cost by 20 percent.