SINGAPORE, 10 MARCH 2009 - The concept of green IT, while intrinsically palatable and useful, faces an uphill task in that it has been difficult to define, quantify, and benchmark such efforts.
“There is currently no fixed definition of what green IT entails,” said Richard Tan, programme director, IT Services, Institute of System Science, National University of Singapore. “There must be a more consistent and coordinated approach in the development of Green IT standards across the business computing ecosystem for Singapore.”
This current inconsistency in standards and benchmarks has diminished the value of green IT efforts, and has led many CIOs in Asia to rank the returns from green IT lowest of all the initiatives from the IT department, according to the MIS IT Nation survey 2009.
“What’s included in green IT is really the difficult part and what benefits the business gets from it is even harder when the CIO can’t work out what they’re actually buying and why they’re buying it,” said Martin Gilliland, vice president—IT, Asia Pacific, Frost & Sullivan.
The good news is that the benefits are being crystalised, benchmarks are being built, and the message is being spread.
“Reducing the size of the data centre, reducing the cooling costs of the data centre, blade servers, smaller footprint, virtualisation—there are so many technologies that could have a green stamp on them if they’re used the right way,” said Gilliland.
Setting standards
While there are many green standards currently in the market like The Green Grid, which focuses on data centre efficiency, more is being done to ensure that these standards are useful and useable.
“We have to come up with standards, customised, and localised to help organisations streamline data centres and other IT setups,” said Tan.
In this regard, the Singapore government, under the auspices of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, and SPRING Singapore, has set up the Green IT Standards Committee (GITTC), with its mission to establish Singapore at the forefront of providing sustainable IT services and solutions by providing a consistent and coordinated approach in the development of green IT standards across the business computing ecosystem for Singapore.
“This will be done by developing the relevant green IT standards for Singapore, creating local awareness of green IT, and encouraging green IT standards,” said Tan.
Working groups will be organised to identify specific domain areas—the first of which is for data centres—research, and then define appropriate standards.
“The working group for Data Centre standards has commenced their work, and GITTC continues to research on other areas including office automation,” said Tan.
According to Tan, there will be studies done to ensure that meaningful and useful standards are developed, rather than just green window dressing.
“The approach to green IT standards development will be proactive, demand driven and balanced from a holistic perspective,” said Tan.
