You've got mail... but is it necessary?

The world is close to destruction and it is the IT manager’s fault. Carbon emissions are rising and icebergs are melting all because of the technology organisation’s use of power-hungry resources.

Analyst Gartner estimates the IT industry produces two per cent of global carbon emissions, with ageing data centres heavily responsible.

Commonly suggested solutions to the problem include consolidation and virtualisation ­ – doing more with less. Other solutions include implementing energy-efficient server, cooling and power systems.

Such initiatives are all well and good. But new technology projects cost money, and in a downturn the finance director is unlikely to sanction big initiatives.

So, here’s an idea: encourage your users to stop sending and saving information.

Information is meant to be the lifeblood of the organisation, the knowledge through which businesses can gain a competitive advantage.

The problem is, of course, that most of us are drowning in information, as users store increasing amounts of content.

Once again, the answer is meant to be provided by IT, often in the shape of integrated software tools.

Sounds tempting ­ – but new technology requires new investment, and that annoying barrier otherwise known as the credit crunch looms large once again.

If money is too tight to mention at your gaff, round on your users. Instead of just encouraging employees to stop printing emails, stop them sending and receiving pointless correspondence in the first place.

I was recently away for a week and received close to a thousand emails. Not being able to respond ­ – or more crucially, to delete ­ – the ever-growing mail mountain created a new set of automated responses telling me my email quota had been reached.

All the unstructured email content had to be stored in resource-hungry servers.

And you can multiply my experiences by the millions of workers receiving pointless emails everyday. The sum of all this maths is total information inefficiency.

Rolling out environmentally-sensitive hardware is crucial. But reducing users’ demands for information should be the first step towards green computing.

What do you think? Read Mark Samuels’ blog at: http://knowledge.computing.co.uk

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