Pull up a PUE
PUE is a measure of power usage effectiveness, determined by dividing the total power coming into your facility - for example, your office, or a data centre - by your IT equipment power.
PUEs were devised by the Green Grid Consortium, a global organisation dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centres and business computing. Typical PUEs range from a rating of 1.3 (77 percent of the total power supplied to the data centre is used to power data processing equipment) to a poor ratio of 3.0 (33 percent of total power actually reaches the IT equipment). The lower your PUE, the better.
Power over Ethernet
Power over Ethernet (PoE) is an ingenious technology that allows you to power office devices using your Ethernet cable without any interruption to the data traffic travelling along the same copper wires.
A single PoE switch can power your IP phones, your wireless access points, your video surveillance cameras and your smart card readers, while simultaneously relaying live video to a monitor or server. PoE switches allow you to configure and manage your business's electricity consumption, by enabling smart configuration and management of your voice and data traffic.
Intelligent PoE switches can tell when a computer on the network is shut down and can respond accordingly by powering down into standby mode and reducing power used for that port - all of which leads to considerable energy savings for your business.
Meanwhile, it's worth upgrading inefficient older-generation switches to newer models. Network equipment provider 3Com estimates that switching from its 3Com Switch 4924 to 3Com Switch 4200G in a typical enterprise LAN could equate to savings of around 77,890 kilowatt hours - enough to light 62 houses for a year.
3Com recommends that companies choose a networking vendor that provides energy-efficiency improvements at the chip, memory and power supply unit levels. According to the company, each new generation of processor technology reduces the power consumption of networking devices more dramatically than PCs or servers, meaning that choosing green processors can have a significant impact on your company's budget.
Storage consolidation
Storage consolidation is a way of centralising data storage among multiple devices. While originally designed to facilitate data back-up and archiving across networks, storage consolidation also creates more energy-efficient, streamlined IT storage infrastructure.
With more and more online storage methods now available for SMEs (see our How To feature elsewhere in this issue), it's never been easier to streamline your storage network.
Power off
Desktop and laptop computers come with energy-efficiency functions. These functions can power off your monitor, CPU and/or hard drive when they are not in use, saving you money.
Don't forget to power off your computers, printers and monitors at the end of the day. If you don't use PoE, at the very least make sure that your monitors, printers, and other accessories are on a power strip/surge protector. When this equipment is not in use, turn off the switch on the power strip to prevent them from drawing power. And if you don't use a power strip, unplug your equipment when it's not in use.
VoIP and videoconferencing
Efficient networking isn't just about technology. Business process changes - like substituting expensive foreign trips with videoconferencing - can have a significant impact on the cost of doing business.
A recent IDC survey showed that only 15 percent of meetings are teleconferences, indicating a huge opportunity to reduce travel costs via videoconferencing technologies.
Voice over IP (VoIP) offers a cheaper - and potentially more energy-efficient - way of communicating compared to using standard telephone lines. VoIP, or internet telephony, enables networks to carry voice traffic over a broadband connection. 3Com, a member of the Green Grid Consortium, recently recommended that companies switch to VoIP to take advantage of the cost savings offered by teleconferencing.
So, if your business involves a lot of travel, consider implementing a videoconferencing solution to save time, streamline business processes, cut costs, and reduce your carbon footprint. And ensure that your company's network bandwidth is able to handle the demands of videoconferencing.
In part two we'll look at how cloud computing can help make your IT infrastructure more efficient, and in part three we'll examine the case for virtualisation.