Editor's Blog: The Greening of IT

There seems to be a real movement now towards greener IT, by which here I mean tech that uses less energy.

This occurred to me when I was at Docklands earlier this week, and returning from Paris yesterday, after meeting with the CEO of Seagate Technology whose hard drives are in all manner of hardware, it really hit home.

On Monday, the organisation we were visiting in Canary Wharf, given that we were turning up with a camera crew, checked beforehand to make sure we wouldn't use a lot of electricity. That vibrant business area might look future-proofed but something as simple as how the energy is used needs checking.

I'll be writing more about my meeting with Seagate CEO Bill Watkins later this week - a man I'd never met before, who turned out to be an opinionated livewire (thankfully, after doing the old Eurostar day trip) - but he detailed how something as simple as a large customer, I'm guessing someone like an ISP or search engine provider, switching to storage drives 50 per cent larger made inroads into the old 'lecy bill.

I know, he would say that but it's interesting against a backdrop of storage requirements growing at about 60 per cent year-on-year, a figure he should be able to trot out, if anyone can.

Next to these two instances, I recall an announcement in recent days from IBM on tackling "power and cooling challenges" in data centres, and I have an invite in my inbox to 'Hitachi's Power Hungry IT Roundtable', to discuss "energy saving (sic) storage technologies". (I can't go, before I get that follow-up call.)

Now I know there is a group of people who are probably a little dismayed I haven't mentioned their names yet. Yes, some of you will know that over at Sun Microsystems they have been banging this drum for much longer, with execs such as Richard Barrington leading the charge.

Indeed, the most recent Sun-commissioned research on data centres is here. And look - they even have a VP of eco-responsibility!

I won't have been the first to realise that much of Sun's approach to computing, including an inclination for stripped-down, smaller-footprint client devices, dovetails with a philosophy of using less power.

So good luck to Sun - and indeed their rivals. One of our senior editors yesterday attended an event featuring David Bellamy (yes, him - I know, I don't know where he's been for the last 15 years either). Apart from further convincing me we're reaching some kind of green tipping point, Bellamy told those in earshot: "The one thing they could do is have a gadget on every computer that turns it off when they go [home] because that would save enough energy to power Birmingham."

Why Birmingham? Is the UK's second city like a bigger version of Canary Wharf? (Clearly just in an energy-consuming sense, I mean.) Why not Brum, I guess.

It's time we all acted on the issue of the energy IT needs to breathe, from PCs and personal tech, to server rooms and giant data centres.