Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line [Paperback]

Toby Velte (Author), Anthony Velte (Author), Robert Elsenpeter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2008

Reduce the environmental and budgetary impact of your IT infrastructure

This groundbreaking work offers a complete roadmap for integrating environmentally sound techniques and technologies into your Information Systems architecture. Green IT explains how to adopt a business-driven green initiative and provides a detailed implementation plan. You will find strategies for reducing power needs, procuring energy from alternative sources, utilizing virtualization technologies, and managing sustainable development. Case studies highlighting successful green IT projects at major organizations are included. Keep your IT department and your organization in the green--both environmentally and financially--with help from this comprehensive guide.

• Work within current global initiatives and standards for e-waste
• Minimize power usage and use alternative cooling methods in your datacenter
• Transition your office into a paperless environment
• Equip your organization with green hardware, including EPEAT-, RoHS-, and ENERGY STAR-certified machines
• Implement efficient datacenter design in terms of energy consumption, cooling, server configuration, consolidation, cabling, redundancy, and more
• Virtualize servers and storage using the latest technologies from VMware, Microsoft, Compellent, Incipient, and others
• Measure existing datacenter efficiency using current metrics, and track progress with Business Intelligence tools
• Establish a green supply chain
• Explore the Software as a Service (SaaS) model
• Manage ongoing compliance and sustainable growth

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Green IT is a social imperative that meets the needs of business. This book guides organizations in applying environmentally sound practices to business and technology decisions--helping them reduce their consumption of resources, energy dependencies, and costs. These issues are real and the time to act is now." --Adam Warby, CEO, Avanade

About the Author

Toby J. Velte, Ph.D., is an internationally bestselling author of business technology articles and books. He is cofounder of Velte Publishing, Inc.

Anthony T. Velte, CISSP, CISA, is cofounder of Velte Publishing Inc., and a bestselling author of a variety of technology books, including Cisco: A Beginners Guide and Microsoft Windows Vista Administration.

Robert Elsenpeter is an award-winning journalist and author of a dozen technology books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (September 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071599231
• ISBN-13: 978-0071599238
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #982,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on Green IT, solid foundation and some surprises along the way., October 19, 2008

By 

Jacques the Rock (Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line (Paperback)

Green IT, I find the name evoking an image of the jolly green giant gone tech savvy as I find my home in southern Minnesota. However, this is a serious book covering a very *HOT* topic. The whole world is thinking green or at least they are starting to think green more and more. We hear doomsday predictions of coastal flooding due to the polar ice melts with seas rising 200 feet. We hear of super storms, which may be brewing which when compared to our current devastating hurricanes are just mere little siblings of these monsters and we wonder how much of it is true.

This book isn't all about the end of our planet as we know it, though the authors due make side comments to the subject, some in jest and some maybe more serious. What this book does, is it gets to the nitty gritty of why IT (Information Technologies) should care about the "green" movement. Make no mistake, I do believe we are in for some serious issues in the near global future in regards to our planet's ecosystem, however what Green IT does is it separates the predictions of horror from the more quantifiable facts. The book looks at what every IT professional WILL have to deal with, and that's power or lack of it due to the ever increasing demand, e-waste and it's plague on our planet, going paperless, TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and a menagerie of other related topics, all centered around and akin to the "green" movement.

As an IT professional myself, I find this book to be a MUST read. The content is excellent and well organized. The authors show a real understanding of the challenges facing the IT world and provide excellent examples and justifications throughout the book. As an IT professional, some of the material was definitely already in my arsenal, but yet I found a significant amount of new information and some eye opening realizations along the way. I would definitely recommend this book to other IT professionals.

On a personal level, upon reading this book, I even found things which I could do on a personal level and I am now planning to do at home. The authors make good suggestions and while not all of the material presented applies to the everyday homeowner, there are definitely things that do which make this book transcend beyond the IT world. Additionally, the authors have developed a companion website, which provides links to information found in the book which I found to be an excellent extension of the book material.

Overall, I recommend this book and have found it both interesting and useful.

-Jacques the Rock

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative Book, October 3, 2008

By 

IT Guy - See all my reviews

This review is from: Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line (Paperback)

Green IT is described as a book for those in Business Information Systems
roles, which is why I bought it in the first place. However, the book covers a lot more areas than just IT-related greening. I imagine that this book would be of interest to almost anyone interested in understanding influences and actions around the current crop of green issues. The book covered such a wide range of topics, and is written so thoughtfully, I found myself really enjoying "the read". It's a real eye opener to learn about what is happening in the world, and nice to read about what is being done about it (the section on e-waste comes to mind). I'm not a big "reviewer" but I can tell you that I really enjoyed this book (and the website they put up for all of the links is a really nice touch).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Filtering the Greenwashing in IT, October 2, 2008

By 

David Ohara "greenm3" (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line (Paperback)

This is one of the first book's on Green IT, giving you an overview of the different areas you need to look into to put a Green IT program in place. The information in this book will help you filter the greenwash hype from the reality of what will work as a succesful green program needs to align with business goals.

IBM's green commercials are short stories of what is going on in the enterpris. Executives are waking up to the benefits of going green are financial as well as good for the environment.

The Green topic is dynamic and to keep you up to date there is a web site that goes along with the book [...], providing links to web content.

I've given a few copies of this book to friends who are interested in the Green IT topic, and they all have gained new insight. It can be ironic that a Green IT book is printed, but it is printed on 100% recycled paper, and can save travel time for people who were considering attending Green IT events.

There are multiple vendors out there selling Green IT technologies, and what is going to help you most is understanding how the pieces fit together in an overall strategy.

Take a simple step get a P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor and Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer to see your own power consumption from your own home equipment and the heat generated. And, use this book to help you prioritize.