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As an IT company we have become increasingly aware of how IT has such a high impact on the environment. It has been noted that IT is second to the airline industry on its carbon footprint.
Unfortunately being ‘green’ has long been associated with additional costs and inconvenience, but this is not the case anymore in IT with the recent developments in IT systems. With IT having such a large carbon footprint it becomes necessary to invest in 'greener' systems, but with times calling for companies to tighten their budgets, we have shown how we can help you become greener while saving you money. Below are a few areas that we cover when doing installations.
Virtualisation
With today’s vast improvements in technology it has now been possible to virtualise equipment from desktops all the way to servers. Virtualisation allows you to split resources of a system (CPU, RAM, Hard drive space etc.) into several virtual machines.
With the average server, you would look to spend around £200+ per/annum on electrical bills. This figure will not waver when the workload on the server changes: so if you were to have a server whose workload was running at 0.1% and it was to increase to run at 100% (maximum capacity)it would require the same amount of power.
As one physical server will always have the same power requirements, by virtualising you are reducing the need of purchasing additional equipment such as a UPS (Battery Backup) etc.
When a physical server is purchased there are many environmental costs, such as delivery of the product, difficulty of disposing of the materials at the end of the server’s lifespan and high energy costs throughout its use. So rather than buying two or three servers, as most IT support firms have recommended to their clients in the past, today’s current technology allows you to combine most of your IT infrastructure into one machine.
Thin clients/ Recycling systems
Thin clients are essentially basic workstations/PC’s which are usually very low powered and they utilise the power of the chosen server to run the usual programs that you would run on your local PC. Thin clients act as a visual gateway to the server.
This idea is great as it allows for you to fully utilise your server’s power as well as reducing the costs of buying new workstations every few years. The power usage of a thin client is minimal compared to current workstations, and as they are continually improved upon the power usage is reduced. As thin clients are basic systems there is very little that can go wrong with them.
We are however looking at recycling old workstations which may be no good at running a company’s current application range. As the thin clients are basic old workstations, they can usually be converted into thin clients, saving you from having to purchase new systems and pay for the disposal of the old system.
Switching Off
Something which is usually not noted is the ability to switch systems off automatically after a certain period of time. This will save you money on the electricity as well as helping the environment. This is something which can be configured centrally on your main server and can easily be pushed out to all your systems on the network!
Energy Efficient Systems
A lot of manufacturers such as Dell have now developed systems that are designed to use less power. This may have a larger initial cost compared to standard systems; however, as there is a reduced use of power the electric bill is also reduced.
Remote Support
As a company enviz IT is keen to push its remote IT support. A lot of people are concerned that if things are done remotely the service is less personal but this is not the case with us. We make it key that you know the team that deal with your IT well, as if they where your own. We ensure our IT is approachable and efficient by providing your company with a friendly and ‘non-geeky’ team of IT technicians. We do stress that 90% of the questions/issues are dealt with remotely; this can in most cases include installations and upgrades and not just IT problems.
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