Green catching on in the IT department

It might not be easy being green… but IT departments appear to be giving it the old college try. Attendees at this week's Computerworld Infrastructure Management World (IMW) conference indicate that the trend may be as much about good business as it is about good citizenship. Energy costs require IT to take a good, hard look at green technologies, says Jed Scaramella, an analyst with IDC. Ten years ago, 17 cents out of every dollar spent on a new server went to power and cooling. Today, that's up to 48 cents, and if things don't change, that number will eventually grow to 78 cents.

Even big players in corporate America are pursuing green strategies. Home mortgage giant, Fannie Mae, built the first data center in the U.S. to be certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). According to Brian Cobb, senior vice president for enterprise systems management and IT at Fannie Mae, the Urbana, Maryland data center recycles water, accommodates bicycles and electric vehicles, and has an air-quality system that removes harmful chemicals. Separately, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, is planning to invest $10 million to speed up the production of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

For all the details on green computing:
- read the article in ComputerWorld 

To learn more about green tech in the enterprise:
- check out the green section at DailyTechRag