Green IT is going to be the buzzword for 2009. As environmental concerns around disposal of all kinds of electronic goods reaches fever pitch, companies and individuals will be motivated to adopt earth saving IT practices. In fact, Green Computing, or the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently will gain currency, its primary objective being reduction of the use of hazardous materials (most gadgets contain lead, cadmium, mercury and other environmentally harmful components), maximize energy efficiency during the product's lifetime, and promote recyclability or biodegradability of defunct products and factory waste.
Elements of green computing may comprise items such as end-user satisfaction, management restructuring, regulatory compliance, disposal of electronic waste, telecommuting, virtualization of server resources and so on. With virtualization, a system administrator could combine several physical systems into virtual machines on one single, powerful system, thereby reducing power and cooling consumption. While teleconferencing and telepresence technologies will result in increased worker satisfaction, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will increase profit margins as a result of lower overhead costs for office space, heat, lighting etc. Also a shift to LCD displays, light-emitting diodes in place of fluorescent bulbs will result in lower power use. Of course, when disposing everything from LCDs to mobile phones it will help to do in an eco-friendly way like disposing off old phones in electronic-bins that many stores now offer.
CAclubindia
