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The Greening of IT
182 How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment

research, they can also provide a rich proving ground for green IT innova-
tions and best practices. Energy efficiency for High Performance
Computing (HPC) is an especially important area where research univer-
sities will provide valuable lessons learned.
■ IT companies such as Sun, Google, and IBM can provide valuable case
studies because they use their own data centers to serve as models for
their customers. All the large IT vendors and IT providers, such as
Google, are providing data center innovations such as modular (data cen-
ter in a box) designs.
■ An iterative approach to data center energy efficiency, including pilots of
energy-saving techniques, is usually the best approach. The common
sense approach of first going after the energy-efficiency areas with quick
payback should be one of your best practices. The Columbia University
plan should provide valuable input for IT energy-efficiency projects for
all organizations.

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