Organizational green computing initiatives: virtualization, e-waste recycling, and office practices

Organizational Green Computing Initiatives

The term 'green computing' refers to the efficient use of resources for reducing bad effects on the environment. Corporations are now seen to be attempting to minimize their energy consumption as well as e-waste's global impact; this will prove beneficial to the environment as well as to organizations. Through adoption of certain design practices, companies can maximize their energy efficiency, lowering energy consumption by as much as 67%. Aside from design of data centers, companies can employ green practices in their offices for saving cost and energy and reducing the adverse effects of their computing technology to the environment. Monitors and personal computers with ENERGY STAR rating are capable of ensuring considerable yearly savings for organizations. As technology becomes outdated, companies need to seek disposal alternatives. Numerous recycling programs exist, which offer the important service of appropriate disposal of obsolete equipment. With green computing approaches coming closer to realization, organizations need to be sure they have organizational-level buy-in. This will further unified participation required for achieving consistent adoption of green computing (Farrokh, 2011).

Initiatives taken by Organizations

Virtualization

This denotes the development of a desktop, server, network, file, operating system, storage or other such virtual resource. In a large number of corporations applying virtualization for reducing power and hardware costs (among others), a majority of servers only utilize 5-155 of organizational capabilities on enrage, whilst expending between 60 and 90% peak power (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2014).

Terminal Server

These create virtualized terminals, making users feel they are working on their personal computers, although they are, in reality, working on a server. Using this technique, the server's whole capacity is utilized and power requirement is decreased for each node (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2014).

E-waste Recycling

The constituents of electronic accessories and computer batteries include mercury, cadmium, lead, beryllium and other poisonous heavy metals, in addition to hazardous chemicals like brominated flame retardants. Big firms have to engage in complicated product recycling processes, owing to the colossal electronic waste generated by them. Such companies can get in touch with the equipment's original manufacturer, to recycle electronic wastes. Exchange policies are offered by some organizations (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2014).

Future Initiatives

OS Support for Green Computing

Numerous power management strategies exist at the level of operating systems. Computers may be regulated to eco/battery saver modes for saving power consumption. Another tactic is disabling unused ports and devices by switching off major power drains (e.g., Bluetooth radios and Wi-Fi, unused optical disk drives, and graphics processors). Apart from hardware, applications and processes also consume considerable power. Thus, unnecessary applications and processes need to be disabled (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2014).

Reuse of Printer Cartridges

Rather than buying new cartridges whenever the old ones run empty, cartridge dump and costs can be reduced by refilling old cartridges (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2014).

Storage

Using storage devices such as SSDs (solid state drives) that use up less power compared to hard disk drives (HDDs) must be promoted. SSDs utilize microchips and do not contain any spinning or moving components. SSDs and HDDs use a common interface, which enables HDD replacement in several applications. HDDs with lesser form factor usually use up less power for every gigabyte than those that are physically larger (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2014).