Green technology: hype or must-have?

A question for Earth Day: Has "green" technology been overhyped?

Scientists throughout the world who study global warming have concluded that drastic changes in human energy-consumption are necessary to avert a crisis of biblical proportions. Energy use in IT, like all other technology-intensive industries, thus has been put under a microscope.

Computer hardware and software vendors, sensing a financial bonanza and opportunity to appear virtuous, have flooded the market with so-called green products.

It's enough to make some IT managers dismiss green technology altogether, but even those who are concerned about the environment and their own energy costs have a tough time separating product hype from reality. "There is a lot of hype, and it's hard to discern the difference between things that have been 'green-washed' and things that are really green IT," says Forrester analyst James Staten.

Enterprise architect Samuel Ramos of the Oregon Department of Transportation says he thinks vendors like to "shine up" old products and sell them with a green tag. "It is deceiving," he says.

A vendor might be tempted to take an old product out of the closet, dust it off and claim it's the new green tool for the datacentre, Staten acknowledges. He thinks few vendors are guilty of going that far, however. Instead, he says, they develop one green product and call their entire portfolios green, even if the rest of the product line is inefficient.

IT vendors might be taking a cue from car companies that boast about selling one or two eco-friendly cars while selling millions of gas-guzzling SUVs. Dell, for example, has lots of ads talking about the greenness of their servers and PCs, Staten notes. While Dell's blade servers are very efficient, on the whole the company's "servers are not a whole lot different than other people's," he says.

It's not just Dell. Vendors, such as IBM and HP, are pushing green datacentre-service engagements that tend to push customers to standardising on either IBM or HP equipment, rather than picking the best from multiple vendors, Staten says. Vendors say, "if you want to go green, you have to go with all my products," he says. "I wouldn't point fingers at one. I think everybody's guilty of this." Rather than looking to individual vendors, IT pros should turn to industry organisations like The Green Grid for less-biased information, he adds.

Several Network World readers either downplayed the importance of green technology or cast doubt on the scientific evidence behind global warming last year, when readers were asked to weigh in on the topic of green networking.

"Green products are getting lost in the barrage of information that guys like me receive daily," one IT deputy director wrote. "When we do get to spend some cycles on planning the next datacentre upgrade, green is certainly a consideration...right along with VM and iSCSI and, and, and..."


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Mikael Cho | Published: 04:27 GMT, 25 August 2009

really cool article, check out kuuala.com they sell a creative variety of green products at a great price (they are opening Sept 3)

Alec Bruce, Hitachi Data Systems | Published: 09:36 GMT, 29 April 2008

In my opinion, to say that green IT has been overhyped is somewhat misleading. Green IT has been a board level issue more than 18 months now. There has been increasing collaboration between internal departments - IT, facilities, CSR/environmental and business - meaning that sustainable IT programmes are being mobilized and enforced. Green IT has cemented its presence in the boardroom - especially evident where there are executive level positions established solely for that purpose such as He

Related Green IT news

Supercomputers can combat climate change, says Al Gore

Vital to green renewable energy says Nobel prize winner

Intel refreshes 80 core super chip

Experimental energy efficient processor nearing completion

UK Environment Agency plans green IT programme

Agency outsources technology operations, sets CO2 targets

NASA finds buckets of water after moon bomb

LCROSS probe discovers 'significant amounts' of the wet stuff


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