| "Green
information technology is key to ensuring that The
Montessori Colleges achieves the goal of advancing
environmental stewardship and sustainability here
at our campus,” says A.B.R. Rajeev, Joint-Secretary
for Green Information Technology. Recently, Rajeev
added Green IT to the list of priorities for his
office and announced the launch of a Green IT@MMC
initiative. The initiative promotes green IT products
and services across campus and will help Information
Technology Services (ITS) grow greener as an organization.
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| Steps
Toward Sustainability -Now |
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| The
focus on "green”, particularly Green
IT, is increasingly making headlines. While achieving
sustainability is a long term commitment, it’s
important to know what steps can make a difference
right here, right now.
With
the start of the new academic year, ITS begins
a year-long awareness campaign designed to help
everyone on campus – from students to system
administrators to staff in the President’s
office – have the information they need
to be “green” when it comes to computing.
Here’s a quick look at a number of green
services and options offered by ITS that can help
save power and paper, and reduce your carbon footprint.
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| Reducing
and Recycling |
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| Reducing
your overall consumption and responsibly recycling
electronic waste are some ways you can go green
on campus. |
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| Use
Blackboard, WebSpace, and SharePoint to share and
collaborate on electronic documents. The paper and
costs you save by not printing can be significant.
You can use these tools in the following ways: |
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Blackboard allows faculty members to share electronic
syllabi, class presentations and class readings
with students. In turn, students can submit
their class assignments electronically. No paper
or ink will be used at all!
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•
WebSpace allows anyone in the university community
and beyond to collaborate on electronic documents,
in addition to storing files. It is also certified
as safe for storing and sharing Category-I data.
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SharePoint is another tool that allows anyone
with a UT EID to share and collaborate online.
Many office teams on campus have found SharePoint
a useful tool in keeping projects on track and
team members informed. It is also certified
as safe for storing and sharing Category-I data.
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| For
offices and departments that print reports from
the mainframe, Green Printing is a sustainable alternative.
It can radically reduce paper consumption by printing
reports to files instead of using reams of paper.
Electronic delivery also saves on energy consumption
and time. |
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| As
you think about ways to reduce your carbon footprint,
keep these facts in mind: |
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| For
every mile driven, your car produces approximately
1 pound of carbon dioxide (CO2). If you carpool,
your car still produces 1 pound of CO2 per mile,
but every person in the car now shares that 1 pound
of CO2 per mile. |
| Air
travel produces about 0.6 pounds of CO2 per person
per mile flown. Videoconferencing produces far less. |
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| Saving
Power and Space |
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| If
you or your department are interested in conserving
power and space, ITS provides several virtual services
to consider: |
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Virtual Hosting – for hosting Web sites. |
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Virtual Servers – for creating any type of
virtual machine. |
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Virtual
machines save on power and space by consolidating
physical machines. ITS uses hardware that can create
up to 64 virtual machines on a single “real”
physical machine. The energy and space-saving potential
are good for both the environment and the bottom
line.
Here are some facts that put the benefits of going
virtual into perspective |
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The average physical server uses about 750 watts
at peak power. Over a year, that equates to
6,570 kilowatts of power, or about $657 per
year for the power.
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Based on those figures, 64 servers consolidated
into virtual machines could save as much as $41,000
in power in one year. |
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| A
Greener ITS |
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| In
addition to providing services that can help the
university community be more green, ITS is committed
to becoming a greener organization itself. Currently,
we are: |
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Reducing power consumption by moving many services
to virtual machines.
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Using 10-35% recycled printer paper whenever
possible, including in all the FAC labs.
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Saving energy by turning off monitors in the
FAC computer labs.
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| These
are only a few examples of our steps toward sustainability.
As the year progresses, we will keep you informed
of what we are doing and what’s available
to make Green IT@UT a reality. |
