Increased advancement in Information technology has enabled many sectors of the economy to adapt information technology in their day-to-day operations. Subsequently, many corporate have many clients as well as servers that they use in running their businesses. These computers consume a lot of electricity while operating as well as cooling.
For instance, between 2000 and 2007, the number of servers in corporate data centers increased from 5.6 million to 12 million in United States. The high increase in the number of servers in data centers resulted to an increase in power consumption from $ 1.3 billion to $ 2.7 billion in United States.
Globally, the increase in the cost of electricity as a result of the increase of the number of servers in data centers rose from $3.2 billion to $ 7.2 billion. Excessive power consumption that is associated with data centers uses vast amount of electricity that must be generated through hydroelectric plants or coal-fired power plants.
While hydroelectric generation plants are less stressful on the environment than coal-fired, nevertheless, they do pull resources from more useful purposes. Coal-fired power plants generate huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which some scientists and politicians claim is a major cause of global warming. Social implications of increased power consumption point to global warming (Schneider Group, 2008).
Subsequently, global warming results to heavy down pours that destroys a lot of investments, displacing people as well as killing people and animals (Peterson, 2005). Similarly, the huge amount of money that is used to pay the electricity bills that is consumed while operating as well as cooling the server in data centers greatly hinders new investments that can stimulate the economy very much.
Instead of business using the revenues they receive from their sales to augment their production, they spend majority of it to pay for high electricity bills that are associated with data centers. Moreover, the great heat that is generated from data centers often make equipments to fail which subsequently raises the costs of operation.
The issue of electronic waste has become very controversial since many corporate have not established appropriate methods of disposing their electronic wastes. Many agencies that address environmental issues have raised the concern for establishment of appropriate methods for electronic disposal to address the high raising accumulation of electronic waste and particularly in the developing nations (Wamae, 2003).
This will greatly assist in protecting the environmental from being polluted with radioactive elements that are contained in electronic wastes. Thus, data center power consumption has an adverse effect in business as well as in the social arena as it raises the production costs as well as causing global warming that trigger displacement of people as causing heavy rains that cause a lot of damages to properties (Peterson, 2005).
There are many appropriate solutions to cut the high power consumptions of data centers as discussed in the case study (Jobs, 2009).
Examples of some suitable strategies that corporate have been undertaking to cut down their power consumption of in their data centers include; establishing hydroelectric power generation rather than coal-fired power plants, renewable energy projects, alternative energy, employee telecommuting, thin client computers, software that automatically turns computers off, more efficient chips.
Among all these developments, the solution that is most environmental-friendly is the one that regulates the amount of power consumed by the hardware and software because it controls the problem at its source. Virtualization holds great promise as a way to reduce power requirements. Virtualization is the strategy of reducing the number of servers required to run applications.
For instance, virtualization involves one server doing the work that was initially designated for about four servers. Through this process, the number of hardware that is required in data centers will greatly reduce. This will greatly reduce the high consumptions of electricity in data centers.
Similarly, the adoption of alternative sources of energies such as solar as well as wind energies in data centers is also a good option to regulate pollution of the environment, but virtualization is the best option because it addresses the issue of pollution from its source (Gingichashvili, 2007).
Many business enterprises have been designed to run from electricity that is generated by hydro process. Therefore, to change the data centers from using power supplied by hydro power to alternative sources of energies such as solar energy will entail huge investments that will be very expensive for many corporate.
Similarly, it will cost a lot of money to change hardware as well as software that the current servers are using to more power efficient ones (Jones, 2006 ).
Moreover, it is also very expensive for corporate to replace their the servers they are currently using in their data centers with virtualization since it will require the management to totally alter the operations of their systems which will be quite expensive due to the high costs that are associated with buying the required hardware as well as software.
Nevertheless, even though it may cost a business up-front money to install hardware and software that reduces power requirements, it will save a business a lot of money in the long run by reducing the amount it pays for electricity to run the equipment and cool it at the same time. Businesses that reduce their power needs help the environment and can promote themselves as environment-friendly (Brandrick, 2009).
All firms should make some effort to reduce their power requirements and promote green computing technology. From a business standpoint, it makes sense to reduce costs, both short term and long term. The adoption of the green computing technology is anticipated to be initially very expensive because of the high costs that are required to purchase the hardware and software that are needed to implement the technology.
Similarly, it will be expensive because of the extra costs that will accompany the change process (Jolly, 2007). Conversely, embracing the green computing technology will result to positive business as well as social outcomes. Green computing technology will enable the data centers to consume less power. Consumption of less power by the data centers will help corporate to greatly reduce their costs of electricity bills.
Similarly, less power consumption will help to reduce the rate at which hardware fails in data centers which subsequently will reduce the current high electronic wastes.The money that will be saved as a result of adoption of more efficient methods of operating the data centers can be used by corporate to increase their productions.
This is because efficient power consumptions in data centers will help firms have enough money to expand their operations to new regions through Financial Direct investments, franchise or acquisition. Moreover, adoption of green computing technology will help to cut down the greenhouse gases emissions as well as electronic wastes.
Reduced emissions of the greenhouse gases will help to minimize the effects of global warming (Mufson, 2010). Thus, the society will be saved from the prevalent adverse effects of global warming such as depletion of ozone layer that exposes people to sun’s radiations that cause cancer. Similarly, it will help in avoiding unnecessary displacements that occur as a result of floods due to heavy down pours (Baker, 2003).
Reference List
Baker, J. (2003). The Effects of Global Warming. London: Cambridge University Press.
Brandrick, C. (2009). Green Computing: the good and the bad. The Washington Post. Web.
Gingichashvili, S. (2007). Green computing. Web.
Jobs, S. (2009).A greener apple. Web.
Jolly, A. (2007). The Basics of Power Saving with Virtualization. Web.
Jones, E. (2006). Epa announces new computer efficiency requirements. Washington, DC. Web.
Mufson, S. (2010). Gulf of mexico oil spill creates environmental and political dilemmas. The Washington Post. Web.
Peterson, J. (2005). Green Computing. New York: Prentice Hall.
Schneider Group. (2008). Go green, save green. Web.
Wamae, W. (2003). Alternative Forms of Energies. New York: Prentice Hall.