Green Computing ñ the opportunity from threat

By David Galton-Fenzi, group sales director at Zycko

There is little doubt that mankind is causing the phenomenon known as climate change, which is causing sea levels to rise, polar ice-caps to melt and temperatures to rise.

However, whilst some may be quick to point their fingers towards Londonís ëChelsea Tractorsí or our constant reliance on fossil fuels as prevailing causes, one should also remember that there is another human process conducted by billions of people everyday that is also undoubtedly effecting our environment.

The global IT industry is worth billions each year and that ultimately translates into the use of vast gigawatts of electricity to power PCs, servers, data centres, storage devices, etc.

Inevitably the worldís increasing consumption of IT has resulted in government legislation designed to tackle the environmental impact of businesses upgrading their IT infrastructures, for example, as data storage requirements increase and as users seek to take advantage of improvements in data storage technologies.

The WEEE opportunity

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, which came into force in January, has now taken a firm grip on the IT industry. Despite the directiveís staged rollout, those resellers willing to think outside of the box have already realised that there are a wealth of opportunities to be made from the directive, such as through recycling services, training and hardware replacements or upgrades.

Any Google search for ìWEEE VARî quickly reveals the multitude of resellers now offering services based around the WEEE directive, with the majority offering simple collection and environmentally-friendly disposal of end-of-life IT hardware, such as data storage devices.

However, the more astute resellers have also realised that by providing businesses with a service that collects and disposes of defunct IT hardware, they are also creating an opportunity for themselves to then sell the required WEEE-compliant hardware in replacement.

For resellers that lack the internal structure to design, create and market a WEEE compliancy service themselves, some distributors have already begun marketing their own services that resellers can then offer as a white label service.

Some vendors have already recognised this opportunity and developed asset management services that enable resellers to take to market bundled services that provide for multiple forms of data and hardware destruction.

Owing to the various categories, specifications and requirements of the WEEE directive, many businesses simply view it as too complicated to deal with and resist compliancy until the last moment or until they are hit with a fine. In fact, a poll on the issue of environmentally-friendly IT has discovered that fewer than four in 10 IT managers are currently aware of the WEEE directiveís implications and its requirements.

By working with an established and knowledgeable partner, resellers can invest in training time to develop their employeesí understanding and knowledge of the WEEE directive. This enables them to market themselves as a training centre for the WEEE directive, helping businesses to understand and become compliant with the directive.

Greener and more environmentally aware computing has now become so integrated into the industry that it is also prompting vendors to develop specially diversified hardware lines.

Thinking outside the WEEE directive

The Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) directive is closely related to the WEEE directive. RoHS bans the placing onto the EU market of any new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than described levels of specific chemicals, such as lead, cadmium and mercury.

Unsurprisingly, vendors in the storage arena have already begun marketing their products as RoHS compliant to appeal to the more environmentally aware business.

For the switched on reseller, a RoHS compliant data storage solution is also an excellent replacement opportunity for existing non-WEEE storage systems.

However, the WEEE directive and the increasing use of IT are not the sole factors causing mountains of old hard drives and monitors to stack up on landfill sites around the country.

The software climate

For some businesses and consumers alike, the desire to ditch old kit (whether or not the disposal process complies with an environmental directive) comes down to the basic desire to have the very latest of whatever is available on the market.

The best example of such a peak in IT hardware disposal could, according to some vendors, become a more common feature of the industry landscape within the coming months. Microsoft Vista has the potential to fuel a surge in the number of PCís thrown out as users increasingly seek larger capacity hard drives, faster processors, larger monitors and better graphics cards to satisfactorily run the operating system.

While some PC manufacturers and assemblers, such as Dell, have claimed it is still too early to tell if the level of Vista adoptions will be enough to drive a noticeable surge in IT recycling volumes, the company has said it recorded an increase of 16.3m in equipment collected from customers to 39m between 2004 and 2005.

Carbon footprints

However, while it still remains in doubt if Microsoft Vista will fuel an increased dumping of IT hardware, businesses should still take into serious consideration their carbon footprint when seeking, for example, to expand IT resources, such as the data centre.

According to research by the BroadGroup, data centre costs will have more than doubled by 2010 ñ but only 45 per cent more floor space will be available. As businesses look to run increasingly power-hungry applications on their servers, the requirement for additional electricity is skyrocketing.

The race for discovery of additional ways to power IT resources and data centres has led vendors into a fierce research and development battle, in order to resist simply turning up the juice.

Many businesses have wisely learnt to turn to their resellers as a source of expert advice on the issue. VARs can provide a range of solutions through which to more effectively power manage hardware, without compromising vital business assets, such as data integrity, security or availability.

For example, vendor USystems has developed a cabinet liquid cooling technology that uses water (as opposed to electricity-hungry fans) to cool down hardware within a rack. It has also been proven that this method of cooling is around 3,500 times more effective at cooling air by volume.

Such technologies can be combined with remote data centre management technologies, which in the coming years may mean data centres will not need to be a human cohabitated environment, therefore only requiring limited air-conditioning and lighting.

The channel is fast reaping the benefits of software vendorsí development of applications that help IT administrators to manage their power consumption, which of course presents resellers with the opportunity to sell power management as a service.

By ëskilling-upí on environmental directives affecting the IT industry, market leading environmentally friendly technologies and related services, resellers can evolve themselves to become expert providers capable of advising customers on the best ways to reduce IT costs, improve productivity and do their bit to help IT become a greener industry.

Zycko is exhibiting at Storage Expo 2007 the UK's largest and most important event dedicated to data storage. Now in its 7th year, the show features a comprehensive FREE education programme and over 100 exhibitors at the National Hall, Olympia, London from 17 - 18 October 2007 www.storage-expo.com