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Vista and Win7 energy saving
The green credentials of power saving settings shouldn't be underestimated.
Windows XP had the ability to do all sorts of power-saving things, but they were not enabled by default, which meant that most Windows XP computers ended up not utilising them. Wndows XP also would tend to be hamstrung by the demands of some badly written 3rd-party software that would block some of the power-saving features from activating.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 both have much more sophisticated power-saving measures, and Microsoft changed the defaults to mean that they were ENABLED on new PC's. 3rd-party applications were also prevented from blocking the system from dropping into power-saving mode.
Microsoft wrote a white paper on the subject of how much power (and money, and CO2) can be saved when a significant number of PC's in an office are properly configured to 'sleep' when not in use, and be able to 'wake' up if an IT department needs to push out some updates in the middle of the night.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/powermgmt/VistaEnergyConserv.mspx (PDF Download)
An example it gives..
A typical Pentium 4 PC with a 17" LCD monitor draws about 102.6 watts of power (think about a 100 watt light bulb).
That same PC and display in a sleep state draws only 5.6 watts, or 97 fewer watts. If you figure that a PC could be used for active work for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks per year, that is 2,600 operating hours. With 8,760 hours in a year (365*24), there are actually 6,160 potential idle hours per year (and in big enterprises - those PCs really ARE left on all night).
Since sleep mode uses 97 fewer watts than full power mode, the total savings is 597 kWh per year -- and by the way, the impact is obviously even greater (760 kWh) if you use a CRT monitor since they draw more power than LCDs.
The paper uses an estimate of $0.0931 per kWh from the US Department of Energy, so for a home user with one PC, the savings amounts to $55.63/year (more if the PC is used less than 10 hours a day). While that is great saving for a home user, think about an enterprise with 10,000 desktops where the potential cost savings would be $556,300/year -- and we haven’t even tried to estimate the reduced Air Conditioning costs from the reduced heat output.
You can argue the specific figures, but there are large savings to be had, regardless. There are just over a Billion PC's in the world, and if they all utilised power-saving features, you're talking about vast benefits.
Delivering Environmentally Sustainable IT
With the government trying to cut the UK’s carbon emissions by 34% by 2020, there is a realisation that every business needs to consider its carbon footprint.
By utilising virtualisation technology across the data centre companies can now dramatically reduce power consumption by reducing the number of physical machines and associated air conditioning.
In addition, the latest thin client devices that are used in a virtual desktop environment require at most 30% of the power of the PCs they replace – and that includes the proportion of server power they require. They are highly recyclable and have a far longer lifespan, reducing the lifetime acquisition and disposal costs.
But greener IT is not just about reassessing the IT infrastructure to drive down the carbon impact; it is about working practices. For example, would home or remote working reduce employee travel significantly? Can video conferencing cut down travel to meetings? And can hot-desking significantly reduce the desktop infrastructure?
Critically, with the right approach, sustainable business is not just about meeting targets and being seen to be green but actually adopting efficient, well managed processes that deliver quantifiable benefit to the bottom line.
Chris de Silva
Managing Director
NEC Philips Unified Solutions