Greening IT: it's more than virtualization

Although that looks to be a big chunk of the solution.

Information Week (Dec.17/24, 2007 -- I know, I know, I dig into my reading stack without regard to the arrow of time) refers to studies by Jonathan Koomey of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that estimate energy use of servers doubled from 2000 to 2005, reaching parity with all residential TVs, requiring 14 1,000 megawatt powerplants. By 2010, add another 10.

So what's being done? In the same issue, the cover story is Innovators & Influencers, a list which goes beyond the "usual suspects." One of them is Larry Vertal, senior strategist for Advanced Micro Devices, and head of the Green Grid consortium of IT companies, many of them fierce rivals.

Virtualization has only been implemented on 2% of the world's servers. One subtle change that will help drive conservation in the server rooms: charging the electricity they consume to the IT budget! That will concentrate the CIO's attention.