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IT companies are quick to highlight the environmental impact of paper use, but what about the consequences of their own actions, specifcally the amount and type of energy used to power the datacentres on which the internet and cloud computing rely?

Following its success in highlighting IT companies’ progress in recycling and phasing out the use of harmful chemicals ( The Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics ), Greenpeace has turned its attention to IT companies’ energy choices.

Its new report, How Dirty is Your Data? , reveals the rapidly growing environmental footprint of the online world and the continued failure of leading cloud computing companies to

disclose the source and amount of energy used. Gary Cook, Greenpeace IT Policy Analyst, said: “The IT industry’s failure to disclose basic information on its rapidly growing energy footprint has hidden a continued reliance on 19th century dirty coal power to power its 21st century infrastructure.We think consumers want to know that when they upload a video or change their Facebook status they are not contributing to toxic coal ash, global warming or future Fukishimas.”

According to Greenpeace, datacentres currently consume 1.5-2% of all global electricity and are growing at a rate of 12% per annum.

Greenpeace is calling on companies like

Facebook, which has a 53.2% dependency on coal-powered electricity, to follow the example of Yahoo! and Google and purchase clean energy and site datacentres near sources of renewable energy.

Cook said: “Green IT should not be a choice between energy effciency and clean electricity: companies need to give equal attention to both for green datacentres. As Yahoo! and Google are demonstrating, forward thinking companies can help lead us towards energy security and safety by stating a preference for renewable power and supporting strong policies that move us to a low carbon economy.”

Thin clients in a virtual desktop environment have the potential to be up to 63% less harmful to the environment than a standard PC deployment, according to a new study by the Fraunhofer Institute.

The German research organisation measured the lifecycle global warming potential (GWP) of IGEL thin clients used with virtualisation software at a Dutch healthcare organisation and in its own offces and found that over the entire lifecycle the GWP was between 30% and 63% that of the PC workstation control scenario, depending on the

type of user involved.

The study also showed that most of the climate-relevant advantages of thin client/VDI solutions are accounted for by savings during their operational phase. Depending on the application scenario and user type, 61% to 77% of the greenhouse gases emitted throughout the lifecycle are from operation, followed by 17% to 28% during production.

A full copy of the report can be found at:

Almost half (48%) of UK small and medium-sized businesses have already put some of their IT infrastructure or applications into the cloud, according to a pan-European survey of 1,616 IT decision-makers by virtualisation specialist VMWare.

Storage is the most common element of the IT infrastructure to be moved to the cloud, cited by 56% of all respondents (UK and European). Computing resources (33%) and desktop computing (27%) had the lowest cloud adoption.

In terms of applications, email and offce programs are those most commonly moved to the cloud (cited by 61% and 45% of cloud-enabled organizations respectively). The research found a clear link between cloud computing and virtualisation, with

virtualised businesses having twice as much of their IT infrastructure in the cloud as non-virtualised enterprises.

More than eight out of 10 (82%) SMBs with some applications and/or infrastructure in the cloud have virtualised; and more than half (55%) of those in the cloud agree that virtualisation made deployment in the cloud easier.

The perceived benefts of cloud computing and virtualisation are broadly the same, with 37% of European organisations citing reduced IT hardware costs and reduced IT maintenance costs as benefts of virtualisation, and 34% citing reduced IT hardware costs and 35% reduced maintenance costs as advantages of cloud computing

Datacentre power consumption could be reduced by up to 2% if they were cleaned properly, according to a new study from datacentre cleaning specialist 8 Solutions. Research conducted by power measurement specialist IMH Technologies and independently verifed by The University of Southampton’s Research Institute found that untreated contamination of electronic circuit boards is costing the datacentre industry millions of pounds each year. As particulate matter accumulates on circuit boards it acts as a thermal insulating layer and raises temperatures so that cooling fans have to work harder to keep the equipment below its operating temperature limit. Cooling effciency will also be lost if heat sinks, or if intake and outlet vents or the fans themselves become clogged with contamination. Simon Cox, Professor of Computational Methods at The University of Southampton, said: “For a data centre housing just 800 racks, averaging 1500kw per rack, the power saving [measured in the study] would equate to 201,000 kWH/ year, which based on an energy cost of 10p/ kWH, would save £20,100, as well as saving 86,430 kg of CO2.”

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