At the recent Computer Associates (CA) Expo 2008 – 360° Vision, CA presented several seminars relevant to the current climate in the IT industry, including a joint presentation with VMware on the virtues of adopting green business practices.

CA held the event on 15 February 2008 at Sydney’s Darling Harbour to educate partners in some of the key topics affecting the Australian channel. The Greening of IT was one of the final seminars of the day, hosted by Alan Monument, senior consultant at CA and Paul Harapin, vice president of VMware A/NZ.

The speakers discussed the concept of Green IT and related issues such as energy consumption of data centres and the role virtualisation has to play in reducing the carbon footprint of IT.

“VMware and CA are collaborating to develop integrated solutions that are helping organisations enhance the value virtualisation brings to the business,” said Monument.

According to Monument, the absence of comprehensive data detailing the environmental impact of IT is inextricably linked to the fact that 80 percent of businesses have never conducted an energy audit. Monument indicates the need for a chief energy officer within every business to collect the necessary information and subsequently implement green policy.

He also discussed the similarities between the current green movement and the quality certified movement of the 90’s.

“In the near future our organisations will probably be allocated an energy efficiency rating to demonstrate exactly how green we actually are,” said Monument.

Monument ended his presentation on a positive note, stating that the outlook for the environment is good if organisations remain enthusiastic and continue to innovate in this field.

“Luckily it’s not all gloom and doom. Most of the research out there indicates that software is the answer,” said Monument. “IT can be part of the solution.”

He then handed over to Paul Harapin who explained that the costly energy consumption problem faced by most businesses stems from the data centre. He also claimed that green issues are moving up the agenda of C-level executives.

“The density of the data centre and the power it is drawing is increasing, electrical consumption and green is becoming a serious issue at board level,” said Harapin. “We spend more money on the air conditioning of this infrastructure than powering it.”

According to Harapin, businesses can utilise VMware technology to drive down carbon emissions.

“It [virtualisation] changes the dynamic of how we run a data centre,” he said.

CA in conjunction with Landcare will be planting a tree for every attendee of the expo.