It seems like every organization is looking for ways to cut costs these days.  With the economy in decline, and the future uncertain, it is more important than ever for companies to find ways to decrease costs and increase profits.  At the same time, it is important for companies to stay competitive and invest in their futures.  Going green will help organizations to achieve both of these objectives at once. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Report to Congress on Server Data Center Energy Efficiency published in 2007, data centers are increasingly consuming the nation’s electricity.  As of 2006, electricity consumed by data centers was estimated to be about 61 billion kilowatt-hours, or 1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption.  It has more than doubled since 2000, costing businesses about $4.5 billion.  If data centers continue to consume energy on the current trajectory, CO2 emissions associated with the electricity use of servers and data centers will be up by 77 to 78.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. 

By consolidating your servers, you can save money and energy.  Servers take up a large portion of a data center’s real estate.  If your servers are not operating at their maximum capacity, then that is money and energy that is just being wasted.  Servers have far more computing power than most applications need, so instead of having a dedicated server for each application, it is logical to consolidate multiple applications onto single servers.

Many companies have discovered the ROI of consolidating servers, according to a White Paper from Compuware Vantage, Essentials for successful server consolidation.  American Management Association International, a development and training company in New York, consolidated their servers down from 75 to 10.  They project a $7.5 million savings through a 30 percent reduction in IT staff and lower server operating costs.  Overseas, British Telecom, the largest telecommunications supplier in the U.K., consolidated 3000 servers.  Before they consolidated their servers, they were using 0.7 percent of all the power generated in Britain.  After consolidation, they saved two megawatts of power, or $2.4 million in annual energy costs.

As more companies realize the benefits of Green IT, it is going to become increasingly important for companies to adopt green measures just to remain competitive in the marketplace.  If an organization is reducing its costs and energy use, it will have more money for things like employee retention and infrastructure maintenance.  At the annual conference of the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO), leaders of state government technology said their biggest reasons for going green were high energy costs and the ongoing budget crises.  A poll conducted at the conference found that 46 percent of the CIOs are using consolidation as their top green strategy for 2009. 

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