Is Green IT on your Mind?

OK, yes we all care about the environment, some more than others.
But really, are you going out of your way or spending more budget to make your data center greener?

My answer is yes and no!

If you are asking whether we would select servers that will use less powers and require less cooling, the answer is YES if everything else including price is equal.

If you are wondering whether we will spend more money to buy servers that will require less cooling .. most likely the answer is NO.

I am saying we are not going of our way specifically for the sake of the environment .. sad but true!

I know that some organizations are clearly adopting more environmentally friendly polices across the board, not just in IT.

If that is the case, then the entire organization assigns targets, measures progress and consciously makes sacrifices or compromises in order to become greener.

A CIO in such an organization will be required to and measures on his progress towards greener IT .. in this case it makes sense for the CIO to do the 'green' thing even if it costs a bit extra.

Otherwise, if you want to go green on your own you will be risking your career!

If it is not an organizational priority for the enterprise, it would be hard to make it a priority in IT.

By that I mean, we want to be as environmentally friendly as possible but we can't use that as an excuse to buy more expensive servers just because they help us be greener.

The answer is a big NO.
I am not proud of it but really, this is not a stated priority from my company and so not a stated priority in IT.
We have too much to worry about anyway, our best people are still leaving to the gulf countries, it is hard to find good people, budgets are tight and the business wants so much done but won't participate in projects.
It is already hard as it is, green is not on the menu right now.

We must try to act much more responsibly towards the environment, the world our children will inherit. We must find room for savings somewhere in order to be able to pay a little extra for greener hardware/data center.
Can't wait for an enterprise wide green initiative why don't we lead such an initiative ourselves?