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Introduction

Who Should Read This Book
This book was written with a broad audience in mind. If you are part of a business,
university, government entity, nonprofit agency, or other organization that uses almost
any sort of information system, you’ll find the information in this book valuable.
Among other things, this book explains what measures you can take to lessen your IT
department’s environmental impact. Although you might not think your computers and
servers humming away while doing their jobs would really have much of an impact, the
reality is that they do. The other reality is that going green responsibly and sensibly is a lot
harder than it sounds. It can be a daunting endeavor to sift through all the standards and
regulations, technologies, and processes that dot the “green landscape.”
If you are a business leader, you can find a lot of good information about the green
landscape and learn more about what others are doing—and where they are successful.
Drilling further down, you can see how your IT department may be having a negative
impact on the environment and how you can make changes that are not only ecologically
responsible, but will also save your company money.
If you are an IT manager, you will also get a lot out of this book. For example, this book
includes a section that discusses “green” alternatives when it comes time to replace equipment.
However, the decision is rarely all in the hands of the IT manager. You might suggest
the company purchase servers with efficient power supplies, but as others in the company look
at the price tag of those servers (compared to servers with inefficient power supplies), your
suggested purchase might get vetoed in favor of the “less expensive” servers. That is why this
book is good for the others in the organization who need to understand why these new devices
cost more—and why the company will actually save money in the long run.
In short, this book is for the decision makers and anyone else in the organization who is
interested in Green IT options—or anyone who needs convincing to pursue green technologies.

What This Book Covers

It’s no surprise that the environment is a hot topic these days. Although our overall impact is
arguable, it turns out we are damaging our planet in many ways. Sure, we’ve been bombarded
with messages about going green. Sure, a lot of times those messages are just like white noise
after a while, but it’s hard not to acknowledge there is a problem when fossil fuel energy costs

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