How Green is the IT on your Campus? Can Vista help?
You don't need me to tell you that across the UK universities are being encourage to make their Campus more green and to reduce the rather large carbon footprint each Campus has. Paradoxically, as each campus is looking to reduce its CO2 emissions many of its investments in IT are potentially undermining these attempts. Consider the amount of electricity consumed through High Performance Computing for a minute. If a 200 node grid is not being fully utilised to support a research endeavour then its burning fuel unnecessarily (unless it's switched off of course). Similarly, and perhaps more visibly, if a PC is not being fully utilised then it too is causing more Greenhouse gasses to be pushed into the atmosphere but look round most campus sites and you will see hundreds if not thousands of PCs and their monitors left switched on during inactive periods in the day and all through the night and vacations.
Why don't people simply switch their PC off when it's not in use? Well there is more than one answer to this but the usual one is "time". Of course, no one likes waiting while their PC goes through the boot sequence either at the beginning of the morning, after a meeting or lunch break which is why Microsoft has for many years had the concept of Standby and Hibernate. Both of these states can dramatically reduce the electricity supply to your PC without the need for a re-boot. They have been around, from memory, since Windows 95 and for laptop users have meant the difference between an active or flat battery but desktop PC users seem to have been slower to take advantage of these two states.
With the introduction of Vista, Microsoft has taken steps to improve the quality of the less-power states of a PC and has replaced the terms of Standy and Hibernate with Sleep and by default it is switched on. This will no doubt surprise some folk when after leaving their PC for a lunch break they return to find it apparently switched off. Don't call the helpdesk or go looking for power problems your PC has just gone to sleep and can be fairly quickly roused from its slumber to perform as normal.
What are the benefits of and organisation migrating from Windows XP to Windows Vista in terms of carbon footprint? According to the results of an independent survey an organisation with just 200 PCs can expect the following:
- Reduction in the Carbon Dioxide output by around 45 tonnes a year
- Savings on energy bills of around £46 GBP per desktop PC per year
So, to me, that looks like through deploying Vista a university can reduce the amount of CO2 they create and also potentially save a money at the same time.
The advanced power management features of Windows Vista are particularly important to Microsoft customer Brockenhurst College, a Beacon College and one of the most successful in the UK. Situated in the heart of the New Forest National Park, environmental issues have fast become a key priority and Brockenhurst College wants to adopt a more proactive stance in reducing its carbon emissions.
"We currently have an installed base of 1,200 PCs, 25 servers and supporting air-conditioning units and fully understand the impact these have on power consumption. Interestingly, a lot of our energy usage and running costs stem from when the college is shut rather than open, which is where Windows Vista is going to be hugely beneficial," said Robin Gadd, head of information services, Brockenhurst College. "Out of the box, Windows Vista has much better power management capabilities compared to Windows XP and migrating to the new operating system is no doubt going to support us on our quest to be more environmentally friendly."
Microsoft has prepared some information about how this can help your operations here:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/mar07/03-21vistapowermgmt.mspx
Take a look at the Related Links section on the page for more information on how to apply these benefits.
