Green Coding – Best practices to ensure reduced costs, carbon footprint and energy usage

What is meant by ‘Green Coding’?

Having efficient systems and well written code is a must, as there will be many benefits delivered. Application systems that have data entry screens or reports used by its customers/employees will be written using a coding language.

Whether it’s the IT Development or IT Support team, both will regularly need to look at the code.  The impact of having poorly written code for the systems will cause many problems for the organisation in the long-term.  The systems developed must always be supportable, especially when the Developer/IT Support employee is not in, has left, is no longer working on that project, etc. 

The code always remains the intellectual property of the organisation. It must be documented well, structured and easy to maintain. 

• How many systems do you have which require knowing the VAT percentage? This does change.
• How are calculations made? For example, calculating the energy usage?
• How many business processes require knowing when holidays/bank holidays are?
• How are names stored (first name, surname)? The surname and marital status can change.

I’ve decided to keep the questioning short in this blog post.

Hopefully, the diagram below will illustrate some best coding practices, to ensure there is ‘Greener Coding’.

 

OTHER USEFUL LINKS	DESCRIPTION
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/business-at-risk-from-mountains-of-unstructured-data/	Previous Blog Post on ‘Business at risk from mountains of unstructured data’ – written 19/08/2011
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/whether-you-store-files-locally-on-the-server-or-up-in-the-cloud-it-is-important-to-structure-well/	Previous Blog Post on ‘The importance of structuring’ – written 19/07/2010
http://www.givingtimeandsolutions.com	Green IT Whitepaper

DATE: 22/09/2011 06:00pm

Tripta Prashar

http://givingtimeandsolutions.com

How Virtualization can help customers meet their business needs faster and save costs and reduce carbon footprint

Other than cloud computing, I keep hearing about zumba dancing and virtualization/virtualisation (the latter, which when spoken uses quite a few facial muscles!). I’ll stick to the American spelling in this blog post.

What do they all have in common? Latest buzz words!

Although zumba dancing (dance aerobic, similar to Bollywood dancing! ) has a link with energy, my point is they’re all the latest craze, trends, what’s being talked about, what people are following….if you know what I mean.

Anyway, in Green IT, cloud computing and virtualization are being described as the ‘future of IT’. They offer many financial and environmental benefits, and once again, have proven to do so.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, virtualization isn’t really anything new. It’s something which was being used at a company I worked at quite a few years ago. They always kept up to date (and still do) with the latest technologies.

With virtualization, you have server virtualization, desktop virtualization, network virtualization and more. To describe it simply, you’re basically connecting to another machine. You may use Microsoft Terminal Services, Virtual Private Network (VPN), to access/use the software, applications, data, run database scripts, etc, which are basically not stored on your own PC. You would log on locally onto your own PC to use the software which has been installed on it, such as Microsoft Office.

As your business grows, the need for services increases. As the needs for services increases, new application systems may be required, more storage, more operating systems, etc.

The IT department must always implement cost-effective solutions to ensure the needs of the customer/business are continuously being met. The business may also grow because companies have merged. I recently received a letter to inform me that I wouldn’t be able to access a website for a day due to the merge of two companies. My assumption is they have migrated all their systems, data, developed new websites, to one central location (perhaps). They will therefore have to ensure the migration to the live/production system has worked ok and has been thoroughly tested again, before their customers can access it. That’s one day of down time (unavailability).

 • Do you know where the application systems you use are kept?

• Do you know where your emails are being kept?

 • Do you know where your databases are and how many you have?

• Do you know how much storage is being used?

• As a tester or user of an application system, do you know if you have separate servers set up (in the ideal world!) for unit testing, system testing and the live (production) environments for each of these?

• Do you know how you’re connecting on to the intranet or internet?

• How many Data Centers (staying consistent with the American spelling) do you have?

• Is your data stored on or off site? It may be outsourced.

• Do you have any servers under your desk or located in different offices?

• Do you have blade or rack servers?

• How much space is being occupied with the servers?

• Are servers being left on 24/7?

 • Do you have Oracle servers, SQL servers, etc?

• How many operating systems/versions do you have(Windows/Linux/Ubuntu/Solaris)?

• Are you using open-source software?

• How much is being spent on buying new hardware servers and how often?

• How much time is being spent by IT staff maintaining the servers?

• What impact does it have on the business when servers have to be taken down when an update or fix is required?

• How long are servers down for (downtime)?

• What business critical systems are held on which servers?

• Are there any systems no longer being used by the users/customers/employees/staff?

• Are your servers being accessed globally?

• Do you have documentation on who has access to what servers/applications?

• Do you have physical and/or virtual servers?

 • How much power/heating/cooling is being consumed?

• How much are you spending on hardware, software, licenses, etc.

• How long does it take to deploy new servers?

• Are all your servers from the same vendor/supplier?

• What support do your suppliers provide and also, not support?

• How do you back up your information/data?

• Does the technology support multiple processors and clustering?

Again, endless questions….

THE BENEFITS OF VIRTUALIZATION

• Improved productivity
• Reduced processing time
• Simplified standard IT environment
• Enhanced security protection
• Decreased vulnerability threats
• High availability
• Zero outages
• Saved costs
• Enhanced end-user experience
• Improved time to market
• Cut carbon emissions
• Reduced energy consumption
• Decreased IT footprint
• Improved service levels
• Free up Data Center space
• Improve agility
• Improve efficiency
• Can add processing power when needed
• Lower capital costs and operational costs
• Less disposal (WEEE)
• Less network infrastructure required

VIRTUALIZATION – PROVEN SUCCESSES

There are many companies who have had their costs saved and carbon footprint reduced through virtualization.

OTHER USEFUL LINKS	DESCRIPTION
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/cloud-computing-simply-explained-a-green-it-initiative/	Previous Blog Post on ‘Cloud Computing – simply explained’ – written 23/11/2010
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/business-at-risk-from-mountains-of-unstructured-data/	Previous Blog Post on ‘Business at risk from mountains of unstructured data’ – written 19/08/2011
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/whether-you-store-files-locally-on-the-server-or-up-in-the-cloud-it-is-important-to-structure-well/	Previous Blog Post on ‘The importance of structuring’ – written 19/07/2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center	Fantastic information which explains what a Data Center is, virtualization, simplified pictures and more!
http://www.givingtimeandsolutions.com	Green IT Articles – Data Centres, Server Consolidation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_server	Blade Servers explained
http://www.nyu.edu/its/pubs/connect/fall06/pdfs/samaan_blade.pdf	Benefits of virtualization and blade servers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_virtualization	Logical Diagram (picture) used in this blog post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source	Open Source software explained

DATE: 20/09/2011 01:00pm

Tripta Prashar

http://givingtimeandsolutions.com

 

Green IT Printing Initiatives – Save Energy and Save Paper by using Managed Print Services

Save Energy –> Save Paper –> Save Costs

If your organisation has separate printers, photocopiers, scanners and faxes, you may want to consider Managed Print Services. There are a number of suppliers who provide this service, and the financial and environmental reduction benefits have been proven!

To have an understanding of your current businesses processes and IT print infrastructure is initially required.

• Do you know how much you’re spending on paper, toners/cartridges, licenses, maintenance/support, IT energy usage (the bills), etc?
• Do you have different models/makes for printers, photocopiers, scanners and faxes?
• What is your printing policy?
• Do employees know about the printing policies?
• How do you recycle?
• Which departments/employees require their own personal printer?
• Is information secure if a printer is shared across different departments/team?
• Do you continue to keep what you have or are you just wasting costs this way?
• Are departments paying separately?
• Who actually knows the overall IT printing costs?
• Do you have to really print, fax, photocopy and scan documents?
• Are there any legal requirements to do so?
• How many support calls for IT are logged to do with print/photocopier/fax/scanner faults?
• Would it be better for the IT department to focus on their other main responsibilities within the organisation? To support the IT systems used by the business and its customers?
• How reliable are your suppliers?
• What impact does it have on your business when none of the devices work?
• How much time is spent on training staff to fix these devices, use them, etc?
• How long does it take to ‘walk to the printer’?!?    Think of the exercise and health/safety!

 I could go on and on with my questions!

 At a recent event I attended, Severn Trent mentioned they have a paperless office and no air-conditioning. I’m intrigued! As mentioned in a previous blog post, there are needs to print – lengthy legal standard contracts from professional solicitors which require a signature (for full/part employees, subcontractors, etc), non-disclosure-agreements (NDA), marketing material, customer documents, receipts, letters, questionnaires, etc.

Just like some mobile phone contracts, with Managed Print Services, you are paying a monthly fee. The costs may also be for page volumes, print cartridges and repair/maintenance. To have your printing services managed centrally will reduce your waste in more ways than one, as it’s a more controlled structured process.  Having remote support has many advantages, such as automatically monitoring you current supply usage and any performance issues for you (in advance). By paying and monitoring monthly, you will have much better reporting, incident reports, fix response times and more. 

Giving Time and Solutions Ltd is an independent company, which means the solutions given are vendor-neutral. I have selected a few suppliers who have proven to reduce the IT print costs and improve the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for large, globally and UK based companies. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) for each supplier will differ, but overall, your IT printing costs will be a lot more transparent…..which is a good thing!

MFP/MFD (Multifunction printer/devices)  have replaced legacy IT equipment, as they allow you to print, copy and scan-to-email, and have many other technical features. Having to  enter a pin to collect print-outs has also proven to reduce the paper waste on documents which have been sent to print, but have not actually been printed.

 he challenge will (as with most changes) will be managing the behavioural changes. Employees may no longer have their own printer, reduce  their printing/copying, and they may see it as a more ‘controlled’ process. If you don’t know what each department/team is doing, how will you know how best to reduce your costs and waste? However, in time, the benefits will be seen, and employees will see an improvement to efficiency, quality and productivity.  These benefits will need communicating to all staff on a regular basis, so that the difference is being recognised.

OTHER USEFUL LINKS	DESCRIPTION
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/green-printing-option-vegetable-based-inks-reduces-the-impact-on-the-environment/	Previous Blog Post on Vegetable-based inks – written 18/04/2011
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/to-print-or-not-to-print-reduce-costs-and-carbon-emissions/	Previous Blog Post on ‘to print or not to print’ – – written 05/08/2010
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/printing-tips-explaining-the-why-on-how-to-print-efficiently-and-be-more-greener/	Previous Blog Post on explaining’ when’ to print – written 20/08/2010

DATE: 14/09/2011 09:00pm

Tripta Prashar

http://givingtimeandsolutions.com

 

Reducing IT Waste in the Education Sector and Managing Behavioral Changes

Save Energy ->  Save Money  -> Reduce Carbon Footprint

In a previous blog post, I wrote about IT power management.  I wanted to show how IT energy management software (from different suppliers) has actually proven to deliver several financial and environmental benefits across a number of business sectors.  When the IT equipment is not being used, the power must to be reduced!

HEALTH and EDUCATION – both VERY IMPORTANT! Focusing on the education sector in this blog post, this sector includes schools, colleges and universities.  The lecturers, teachers, students, other employee departments (such as HR, facilities, catering, payroll, reception staff, librarians, etc) all tend to use IT equipment on-site and also, log into systems when off-site as well.

In Nov 2009, another IT energy management supplier who I personally met gave me a demonstration of their product in detail.  Once I’d learned about the functionality, features and benefits, somehow I became their saleswoman for a while on the day! Anyway, their IT energy management product is a purely workstation-based solution. This means there are no extra costs to purchase a new server, and that itself will save money!

THE BENEFITS – — RETURN ON INVESTMENT PROVEN!

A number of schools, colleges and universities have proven to save considerable money through IT energy management.

Although IT energy management software will significantly eliminate IT waste, I always say that changes in behavior also needs to be addressed.  When a person wants to live a healthy lifestyle, the two areas looked at are nutrition/diet and exercise.  There’s no point in doing exercise if the food you’re eating is not healthy. There’s no point in eating healthy food, if you do not combine it with exercise. Gradual steps are taken which soon increase and become habit! I can go on and on about nutrition and exercise, how needs are different, how people are different, how certain food groups suits the individual, etc ! Anyway (stay focused Tripta!), similarly, once a PC has automatically been switched off, or lights as well for that matter,   there is nothing to stop someone from switching it back on again.  This is an observation which I’ve seen myself several times! Habits need to be changed as well and people need to, again as I always say, understand the ‘WHY’. The detailed Giving Time and Solutions Green IT Model on People-Process-Technology Model used since June 2009, explains this quite well.   MANAGING BEHAVIOURAL CHANGES need to be addressed, again another topic that I cover.  Results will be seen eventually.…. POSITIVE RESULTS!

OTHER USEFUL LINKS	DESCRIPTION
http://triptaprashar.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/reducing-carbon-dioxide-emissions-and-saving-costs-through-it-power-management/	Previous Blog Post on IT Power Management – written 13/11/2010
http://www.givingtimeandsolutions.com/	Giving Time and Solutions – Green IT

DATE: 11/09/2011 01:15pm

Tripta Prashar

http://givingtimeandsolutions.com