Green IT does not come free of cost

Green is glamorous. But how much of the present adoption has moved from
the look-good value to a more strategic posture?

It is, in fact, both the cases. Especially in the IT spectrum of India, the
absolute dollar value may not be that significant but it can bring enormous
marketing muscle. At the same time, there are also CIOs who are taking and
reaping green IT at the strategic level.

Can you share some lessons that you got from creating the well-appreciated
Santa Clara and Bangalore data centers?

It has been only a positive experience. We have seen improvements in metrics
in savings, energy, performance, as well as decrease in management overheads
with an increase in agility.

Is green IT still at the cusp of economics vs ecology?

More of our customers are getting aware, and they are of the view that they
can reap value in a fair span of time. Awareness exists but so does some
reluctance because of upfront investment costs. Green IT does not come free of
cost. Green investments are easier when someone is building up from scratch
rather than doing it while transitioning.

With pieces like Niagra processor, chip-multi-threading technology, SPARC,
etc, what is your view on the ecosystem efficiency beyond the data center
dimension of green IT?

It is a pretty wide subject. Theres more to itbe it chips, servers, or
software. We are present there but not very widely. Then you have racks,
networking aspects, brick-and-mortar aspects that complete the whole picture. In
India itself, about a year back, we launched an alliance for best-of-the-breed
components around green IT.

How is Sun innovating toward Green IT?

Sun has taken an eco-initiative and right from basic fabric, design, to
architecture of products we are incorporating Green based on metrics like
reduced power consumption, reduced cooling requirements, and less space
requirements. The product launches through the last two years have delivered
plenty of metrics, be it the Black Box or Niagra. The Bangalore data center is a
proof of the pudding.

Pratima Harigunani

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in