Government Technology - November 2007 - (Page 39)

“A few years ago, nobody cared much about how much energy they were using. They were trying to optimize other things. Now the cost of energy has gone up, and political awareness of the impact on the environment has gone up.” Brad Westpfahl, director of government industry programs, IBM Green Sleep It doesn’t take a technologist to grasp that governments could reduce energy consumption by reducing the amount of time they run large ﬂeets of desktop PCs. The problem is how do you do that during the workday? California may have found the answer. The state’s Windows Vista conversion will allow PCs to go into a state of “hybrid sleep” whenever workers leave their desks, according to Gary ArsteinKerslake, IT ofﬁcer for the California Environmental Protection Agency. An agency desktop would almost entirely power down during hybrid sleep. Power consumption per machine would drop from roughly 90 watts to 3 watts — just enough to maintain memory for unsaved material. Most parts of the computer would stop running. The machine would take roughly 10 seconds to awaken when the worker returned and used the PC’s mouse or keyboard. Arstein-Kerslake said California would likely implement the function by March 2008. But the process won’t work unless Microsoft ﬁnds a way for the machines to go into hybrid sleep when the user walks away without saving his or her work, said Arstein-Kerslake. The state’s current servers don’t know how to allow desktops to power down while leaving unsaved content open. He said Microsoft’s 2008 generation of servers would enable the process, but the current generation of servers would not. Arstein-Kerslake said he expects Microsoft to solve the problem. “I may change when my payroll gets done. I don’t care if it gets done at three in the afternoon or three in the morning, as long as the checks go out the next day,” Westpfahl said. He warned, however, that governments need to thoroughly assess the amount of power they use and the amount they can realistically reduce before implementing such a product. A data center’s layout is another factor in increasing energy efficiency, according to Andrea Di Maio, a vice president at Gartner. “Simulation software can allow you to look at airflows in the data center, highlighting hot spots there. By just repositioning some of the racks, it actually has a tremendous impact,” he said. “The interesting thing about green IT is that when you think about it, you can have a number of quick wins.” Green Future NASCIO’s Robinson predicted green IT will gain prominence in the public sector as energy costs climb. Part of government’s sluggishness on the issue stems from the fact that many agency data centers are renovated state office buildings that weren’t built to be data centers. Many of these buildings aren’t conducive to the rack-mounted servers, blade servers and storage area network arrays that energy-efficient data centers contain. Due to the bureaucracy involved in building their own data centers, many governments may get greener by outsourcing data center operations to energy-efficient contractors, said Robinson. “It’s a capital construction project, and it can take many years to get it approved,” Robinson explained. Governments unable to approve those projects would likely outsource to vendors with green data centers. Many state and local governments remain quiet about their green IT research for now, according to James Costa, vice president of government industry for IBM. He said many don’t want to publicize their efforts without completing their needs assessments. “If you’re talking 12 months from now, you’ll see that three or four state governments have major efforts in this area they’ve actually had results from,” Costa said. Di Maio said energy-efficient data centers would be an easy first step for green IT in government. Green data centers already have well established designs, and the cost savings are obvious. The next challenge will be implementing green initiatives that don’t necessarily reduce energy bills, but promote green values. An example would be a more environmentally friendly disposal process for computers. Green IT will have different meanings for different government agencies, based on what produces each agency’s “carbon footprint,” said Di Maio. For example, the carbon footprint of an agency mostly composed of employees using computers would come from Reaching 15 by 2015 New York state ofﬁcials and technology leaders recently met in Albany, N.Y., to discuss methods for cutting the state government’s energy consumption. Earlier this year, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced his “15 to 15” plan, which seeks to reduce state electricity consumption 15 percent by 2015. Visit www.govtech.com to watch GTtv’s report on the event. electricity consumption. Energy-efficient data centers and computers would be the focus of green activities for those agencies. On the other hand, the overall carbon footprint of an agency focused on managing fleets of trucks comes from internal combustion engines. So rather than reducing data center energy consumption, that agency might deploy software that helps the agency use vehicles more efficiently. Financial motivations are a start, Di Maio added, but only a cultural change will make government IT truly green. 39 http://www.govtech.com http://www.govtech.com

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Government Technology - November 2007 Contents Point of View Way Back Machine The Last Mile GT Spectrum Big Picture Building Better Government Up Close Inspector Gadget By the Numbers Money Talking No Greenwashing Pinching Pennies Bay Bridge Bustle Two Cents Products Signal: Noise

Government Technology - November 2007

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