Some interesting news items in the world of Green IT caught my eye this week.
First, University College Hospital Galway won the Irish “Green IT Initiative of the Year” award for its multifaceted usage of storage technologies to reduce power, space and cooling at its facility. Using a combination of virtualization, thin provisioning and other advances, the teaching hospital has reduced its power usage by 90%. We can only imagine what might happen if they also introduced next-generation storage optimization into the mix.
Here in the U.S., the federal stimulus package includes $50 million in grants for energy-efficient IT technologies. Explains Josie Garthwaite over at Earth2Tech:
“The Department of Energy will distribute the funds as part of a larger $256 million grant program for industrial efficiency. Combined heat and power, district energy and waste energy recovery projects will get $156 million, and advanced materials development will get the remaining $50 million.”
Finally, on the EMC Green blog, “Energy Matters,” Dick Sullivan has an interesting post on Cloud Computing. He writes:
“A private cloud extends the virtues of virtualization. Abstract the IT capabilities from the physical infrastructure, make IT a service that can be easily scaled and flexed. In the process buy fewer resources utilize them more fully and service production spikes with federated resources.”
Exciting times for those in the IT world that are seeking to reduce energy usage. Let’s hope we see more of it as the support for these initiatives grows around the world.
