Green Calculators
It's well known that going green saves money as
well as dwindling resources. But how much green, of each kind, is saved?
If
you're not the math type, never fear -- several vendors offer "green calculators"
that will do the hard work for you. While doing some research for a sister
publication, I came across a number of different calculators for finding out how
much green you can save through virtualization, and other common-sense steps.
Novell's PlateSpin, which makes a
number of green technology virtualization products, has a detailed 'go-green'
consolidation-based calculator. Simply input factors like
number of physical servers, average power consumption per server, cost per
kWh, processor utilization before and predicted utilization after
consolidation, etc. The calculator spits out at the other end savings in kWh
and dollars.
Note that these are rough estimates only. Your mileage can, and almost
certainly will, vary, perhaps significantly. But it serves as a good benchmark.
Other large virtualization
vendors have similar green calculators, including VMware, which is more basic than PlateSpin's.
Avaya has an interesting take on
going green. It offers a calculator to tote up the environmental savings by
turning commuters into telecommuters. It claims that working from home three
days per week saves about 200 gallons of gas per year.
IT
consultancy 1E has an “Energy Savings
Calculator” that computes the greening of
your business from the simple act of turning off computers not in use. It even
translates the savings into reduced carbon emissions and trees.
The Uptime Institute bills itself
as a vendor-neutral organization concerned with increasing efficiency in
enterprise settings. It publishes a "True TCO Calculator," which acts as a guide for
building a high-density, high-performance, green datacenter. This would be of
more value to companies starting from scratch, rather than those making
changes to an existing datacenter.
Many computers already have
power-saving measures built in, but not activated, in the form of Energy
Star-approved computers. The Website GreenerComputing has an Excel
spreadsheet available to calculate how much greener each computer could be
if the power-saving features were activated.
On a personal level, Google has started
the "U.K. Carbon Footprint Project." Going through its calculator gives you an idea of how much pollution you
and your household contribute to Great Britian. Then, you can input your
location and statistics, and compare your usage vs. others who have done the
same. Different-colored balloons separate the good from the bad -- from the
ugly. Very cool.
Posted by Keith Ward on 02/18/2009 at 12:48 PM