Turn off the light! How many times have we heard that when we were a child? We should have seen the writing on the wall. Today, we are not taking a single switch or piece of equipment for granted. Even the smallest standby power, vampire power, or phantom loads are being measured. In our homes alone, 10% or our typical energy consumption comes from items turned off and not even being used. Imagine what corporate environments are like around the globe. For instance, in a recent IDC study (The Real Costs to Power and Cool All the World’s External Storage), the number of spinning disks increases every year, at about 50% across an organization, in the next five years the storage industry will ship eight times above what has been shipped in the last eleven years, and 2007 alone we will spend over $1 billion for powering and cooling these disks.
The large costs associated with simply powering and cooling our datacenters is getting drawing large concern from corporations. In fact, many organizations are seeking out IT suppliers that offer energy-efficient equipment. It is interesting to not that in a recent IDC Survey on Green IT:
- Over 50% take into consideration the greenness of their supplier
- About 80% of executives consider it increasingly important for suppliers offer green equipment
- The most important business driver, for the adoption of green IT, is to reduce operational costs
With the strong desire to reduce operating expenses and the push for a greener IT environment, it is becoming more and more understandable why green IT equipment is becoming the standard and encouraged. Take a look at U.S. federal agencies that purchase over $68 billion in IT equipment annually and are being encouraged, through the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC), to:
- Purchase greener electronic products
- Reduce impacts of electronic products during use
- Manage obsolete electronics in an environmentally safe way
In order to meet FEC obligations, federal agencies are using the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) as the standard and rating system to make purchasing IT equipment that meet or exceed environmental criteria. In fact, there was an Executive Order that mandates the use of EPEAT (Section 2(h). Many organizations are following suit and will only consider equipment that provides some energy efficiencies. OEMs that are unable to meet this growing demand for green IT products and services will quickly find their solution is limited and will not be considered.
The embedded systems organizations that serve OEMs, are quickly stepping up to the plate to provide and meet energy efficiencies needs. Bell Micro, for instance, is one such distributor that is working with market leading HP equipment to supply OEMs brand-value, quality, and energy efficiencies to provide advanced competitive solutions. With proven EPEAT Gold and Energy Star efficiency ratings, as can be identified by searching green technologies at softchoice.com, HP consistently builds energy-efficient and innovative technology — enabling Bell Micro to help OEMs build a solution that differentiates, promotes efficiencies, and adds credibility.