Page 26 -

Preface xxv

The U.S. government is going green. President Bush signed an execu-
tive order in January 2007, mandating government agencies use of green
technology and processes. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/
2007/01/20070124-2.html. If corporations want to sell to the federal
government, they now must have a green plan.
Many technical groups are also now involved in the effort toward
green IT and green data centers. Governments, electric utilities, engi-
neering societies, and all IT vendors are involved. For example, in May
2007, IBM unveiled Project Big Green, a redirection of $1 billion USD
per year across its businesses to increase the energy efficiency of IBM
products and services. The goal is to reduce data center energy consump-
tion and transform customer technology infrastructure into “green” data
centers, with energy savings of more than 40 percent for an average data
center.
Green IT and green data center technology cover a broad spectrum,
from efficient cooling towers and variable speed blowers, to the use of
energy-efficient IT systems such as virtual servers, blade servers, and vir-
tual data storage. These topics are covered both as general areas of con-
ptg
cern and in more detail in later chapters. This book was written to have
a wide appeal to many types of readers (that is, not just a technical
group), as it has been written in a more informal writing style than the
typical technical book. The target audience consists of CEOs, CIOs, VPs
of IT, system architects, and sales and marketing people. Most of this
book is on the level of “Here’s what you can do” and geared to the target
audience. Some of the appendixes and parts of chapters go into addi-
tional technical detail and help respond to “Here’s how you can do it.”
The competition fostered by these global issues has inspired energy-
efficient products and energy-efficient technology services across the
globe (for example, Sun, Dell, HP, Fujitsu-Siemens, APC, Liebert, and
so on). That competition, along with regulation and standards for meas-
uring energy efficiency, will continue to rapidly drive energy efficiency
across the board. We will all benefit.
Green IT is an ideal way for most companies to make a significant
step toward environmental preservation. Because IT equipment is con-
tinually refreshed as a matter of company policy to remain competitive,
the opportunity is there to emphasize energy efficiency for the refreshed
equipment. Replacing the IT equipment with energy-efficient systems
with concepts such as virtual servers, blade servers, and virtual data stor-
age can easily reduce IT power consumption for the replaced equipment