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At one point you could be forgiven tuning out of the forecasts and marketing that surrounded it, there seemed to be endless noise, endless green-angled products and an awful lot of hype.

At Insight we took a slightly different view on sustainable IT. It’s not just, in our opinion, as simple as buying ‘energy star’ rated products or recycling empty ink cartridges – although these are, of course, worthy initiatives in their own right.

We wanted to present a balanced, unbiased view to assist you in understanding and interpreting which technology can genuinely contribute to sustainability or a green commitment.

We mapped out an Infrastructure and started to explore key areas where sustainable IT could live - where should the focus of IT professionals sit?

So we commissioned independent technology writers to take a deep-dive into each topic we identified… no selling, no advertising, just a rounded viewpoint for Insight’s clients to digest. The end result is this sustainable IT guide, we trust you will find this to be a useful publication.

There is no doubt that sustainable IT will be central to our worlds in the coming months and years, energy is not cheap, in short supply and external pressures from clients, colleagues and governmental bodies for organisations to be ‘greener’ continues to grow.

Any feedback on this guide would be welcomed (you can mail me personally), have we hit the right note? Struck the right balance? Do you agree with the areas we have identified? After all, you are the IT professionals at the coal face, the individuals who will be tasked to deliver.

Finally, we are looking to create a similar guide for security… again we’d love to hear from you on what you would like to see worms, trojans, encryption, mobile devices… where are your pain points today?

Enjoy!

Paul Bolt

Marketing & Partner Management Director

Insight

[email protected]

sustainable it

it’s not easy being green‘Sustainable’ and ‘Green IT’ seem to have been the buzzword de jour for a very long time.

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Despite its reputation for pace and changeability, revolution is a surprisingly rare thing in the software industry these days. Evolution however, remains rather more common. Take outsourced software delivery. The underlying idea behind the model has always been essentially the same: why incur the expense of buying business software when you could simply rent it and cut out all the associated headaches (and your capital expenditure) at the same time? Its many incarnations, on the other hand, have been quite different.

Beginning life in the mid-1980s as “bureau software provision”, the idea would reinvent itself in the late 90s under the guise of the “Application Service Provider” or ASP (a game if optimistic species with typically little or no track record and slow, clunky applications that no-one really wanted).

And now there’s a new and improved edition for the noughties.

This time around it’s travelling under the name of Software as a Service, or, a little less prosaically, SaaS. And there are signs that it could well prove third time lucky.

First of all, the timing looks pretty good.For years we’ve been buying “off-the-peg” shrink-wrapped solutions that we then spend ages installing, and even longer patching and developing. This leads to the inevitable yearly upgrade, which in turn, of course, necessitates the purchase of the faster, more powerful machine you were hoping to put off

for another 12 months. By its very nature, it’s a model that’s laborious, expensive, and prone to problems.Also, several factors have changed drastically since the ASP went the way of the dodo, much of which has helped the outsourced model mature and, again, evolve. The primary catalyst, though, has been the rapid and relentless rise of broadband, which has removed perhaps the last remaining stumbling block for the Software as a Service model. Speed.

The upshot of all this? It seems it really could be time to send for the SaaS.

Indeed, according to Gartner, SaaS is now set to take on the world and, if the interim growth figures are anything to go by, it may well win. In 2005 SaaS accounted for just 5% of total business software sales worldwide. By 2011 Gartner forecasts this figure to rise to 25%. Why? Because conventional licensed software means buying the product, installing it, customising it, hosting it, and maintaining it. With SaaS – where you’re effectively renting – your monthly payment is pretty much where your responsibility ends.

The advantages are manifold.

Data and applications are available to everyone, no matter where they’re located. Development time is reduced; IT staff can concentrate on the application rather than potential hardware and distribution headaches. And because it’s web based and runs via a browser, there are no problems with software slowing down or interfering with other applications on the server or the desktop.

Additionally, you always get the most up-to-date version of the application, and

infrastructure costs are reduced as there’s no need for expensive servers, private networks, or backup facilities.

Even so, there are still only relatively few companies that do “true” SaaS. Many describe their solutions as SaaS, but are effectively just providing standard off-the-shelf packages via the web, or building some web functionality into standard licensed products. That’s not SaaS.

Authentic SaaS would include Google’s applications, Hotmail, Salesforce’s CRM and related packages, NetSuite’s e-commerce

saas - Who Daares Wins?

is “boxeD softWare set to be a thing of the past?Quite possibly, if the burgeoning Software as a Service (SaaS) sector can deliver on its huge potential. And there’s every sign that it can, says Marcus Austin.

Many describe their solutions as SaaS, but are effectively just providing standard off-the-shelf packages via the web, or building some web functionality into standard licensed products.That’s not SaaS.

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and accounting packages, RIM’s BlackBerry service, and remote access products like LogMeIn, Avvenu, and MyWebEx.

Some sectors are seeing greater growth than others, according to Gartner: “... in enterprise content management (ECM) and search, SaaS adoption is in the range of 1% to 2% of total software spending. (But) within e-learning and Web conferencing, SaaS accounts for more than 60% and 70% of total market revenue.”

CRM specialists Salesforce.com is perhaps the world’s biggest, fastest-growing, and best-known SaaS provider. Last year its sales were £250 million and should tip £350 million this year. Worldwide it has nearly 35,300 customers and over 800,000 users in companies including Orange, Staples, and Symantec. Not bad considering it was only founded in 1999. Salesforce’s European President Steve Garnett puts SaaS’s success down to flexibility and the ability to start with full functionality on day one.

“The SaaS model is scalable and ubInsightuitous”, he says. “It doesn’t matter if you have 2 or 20,000 users, or if they’re based in 10 or 100 different locations. They all see the same data, and have access to the same toolset.”

Salesforce claims that the average size of its clients is on the increase, but the most common SaaS adopters in fact tend to be small to medium sized businesses; particularly start-up companies without the capital or the time to buy and build a conventional solution. They need something that can be paid for as they grow, but also that can be used immediately, and tailored while they use it.

“SaaS adoption is highest in applications that support simplified, common business processes or large, distributed virtual workforce teams,” comments Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner.

“Ease of use, rapid deployment, limited upfront investment in capital and staffing, plus a reduction in software management responsibility all make SaaS a desirable alternative to many on-premises solutions, and they will continue to act as drivers of growth.”

A recent IDC survey backs up Gartner’s research. According to the study 5.1% of PC-owning small firms and 15.2% of PC-owning medium-sized firms are planning to move to SaaS solutions within the next 12 months.

Another aspect of SaaS popular among businesses is that it doesn’t entail huge upfront costs,

and that you only have to pay for what you use – so there are no problems with not having the right number of software licences, and no visits from the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) in the middle of the night.

If you start with 30 users and move up to 50 and then go down to 40, you still only pay for 40 users.

Plus, unlike boxed software, the cost remains the same even come upgrade time.

Another advantage is the ability to work with the product from the first second you register as a customer. The full system is up and working in seconds rather having to be installed and distributed with servers having to be tweaked and prepared.

SaaS is not without its drawbacks however.Common criticisms include:

Stability: » How can I guarantee the site will always be up and running?

Control / data: » My data is no longer in your domain. If the SaaS provider goes under won’t my data could go down with it?

Security: » If you can log into the site, can’t other people?

Competitiveness: » If everyone’s using the same package, won’t I lose my competitive edge?

Stability and reliability are key to the take-up of SaaS. Salesforce.com had early issues with the stability of its service, so it launched trust.salesforce.com, which gives users a minute-by-minute view of its servers’ performance, and details any forthcoming work and reasons for any outages or problems.

Not all SaaS companies go this far, but most take security and reliability very seriously, guaranteeing uptime by providing data and applications on multiple servers. So if one goes down, functionality transfers “seamlessly”

to another. In addition, most also mirror their servers around the globe, so if a datacentre is disabled for any reason, another takes over.

Some providers have even been known to bury servers in old nuclear bunkers.Security must also be weighed up against ease of use, however.

SaaS applications tend to rely on good old fashioned usernames and passwords, so they’re accessible from the office, from home or on the road. However this also means that they don’t have the protection of an office firewall.

Most SaaS applications offer secure encrypted connections however, so when the data is travelling over the Internet between you and the provider it’s completely secure.

What they don’t tend to offer though, is education on keeping passwords and usernames safe. Because of this, many SaaS applications allow you to restrict what can be viewed and who can do what with the data, as well as generating automatic email alerts to notify a manager or a higher user when a record is deleted, saved, or viewed.

Overall, in most cases, your data is safe − probably safer than it would be if you were dealing with it yourself − as it is shared between so many servers and is often backed-up on a minute by minute basis.

But what if the company folds?Who owns your data then?

And who might get access to it?

Despite security often approaching military levels, few SaaS providers can give a cast-iron guarantee that their sites will be operational 24x7x365.

Then again, who can?

With this in mind, in addition to providing multiple redundancy and security measures, most suppliers offer pretty stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which give the user a deal more protection and rights than anything you’re liable to see on the back of a boxed product. They commonly include clauses that refund a proportion of your costs in the event of system failure, and that release the source code for the application and the data should the company go down.

As such, maintaining real control and ownership over your data is probably the biggest gamble you’ll take by choosing an SaaS approach as an alternative to a shrink-wrapped product. But it’s a gamble where the odds tend to be stacked very much in your favour.

The last disadvantage is the question of competitiveness; i.e. if you’re running the same software as the next company, then aren’t you sacrificing your competitive edge in some way? The stock answer to this is invariably “It’s not what it is that makes the advantage, it’s what you do with it.”

Every company has Microsoft Office but does that mean that every Powerpoint demo and annual report you produce detracts from your value proposition?

Inevitably the move to a hosted SaaS solution will have an effect on in-house IT headcount; if there’s no expensive hardware and software to maintain and support then potentially there’s no need to maintain and support a hefty IT staff either.

Should this turn into an issue rather than a benefit, one obvious answer is to reassign such staff to more strategic activities focused on improving the company elsewhere, or helping it concentrate on core competencies.

This may yet prove a moot point however. As yet, nobody seems to know if SaaS will actually lead to a reduction in IT staff, and there appears to be little evidence, real or anecdotal, either way.

So does SaaS finally tick all the outsourcing boxes? It certainly looks that way. It’s fast,

it seems to have some real credibility and, as with solutions such as Salesforce, it has the ability to be added to and enhanced by third parties. However there are still a few niggles, and it still isn’t right for everyone.

If you have enough cash then owning software outright remains a good choice. Swapping and changing between SaaS suppliers can be just as hard – if not harder – than changing licensed products, and while developing with SaaS looks set to get significantly easier, it’s never likely to be completely straightforward.

Then again, evolution never was.

SaaS adoption is highest in applications that support simplified, common business processes or large, distributed virtual workforce teams. Ease of use, rapid deployment, limited upfront investment in capital and staffing, plus a reduction in software management responsibility all make SaaS a desirable alternative to many on-premises solutions, and they will continue to act as drivers of growth.Sharon Mertz, Research Director, Gartner.

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Well, it’s finally happened. After decades trying (and innumerable attempts) the IT industry has at last managed to contrive the virtually perfect circular reference; a concept literally so nebulous that it takes the sector’s already breathtaking lack of self-awareness to a whole new level. Cloud Computing. AKA ‘The Cloud’. Honestly, was there ever a fluffier, more self referential, non-specific, non-committal sounding notion? And they wonder why the average person still sees IT as a black art.

Good news though. Because it seems that this time – in a welcome break from tradition – technology has actually managed to coin a phrase that’s less complicated in reality. In fact, praise be, Cloud Computing not only appears to makes sense, but it looks to have genuine long-term prospects and an actual, living breathing business case to recommend it. Indeed Gartner, among others, predicts

that the Operating System market and its associated revenues could well change beyond all recognition thanks to the ‘Cloud’.

OK, so Cloud Computing isn’t just another passing buzz phrase, but what is it exactly? Refreshingly, that’s also less complicated than it might first appear. For Cloud Computing 2008 see Utility Computing circa 2004. Because the Cloud really isn’t a new phenomena so much as a revitalised one – IT divorced from traditional hardware, software, and plumbing installed and delivered as a utility in much the same ways as electricity, water, or gas.

In a cloud computing architecture, or so the theory goes, all the implementation and scalability concerns of the conventional IT deployment are abstracted. This, claim the model’s proponents, enables customers to focus more on core business and – with everything operating in a virtualised fashion – all sorts of economies of scale for both provider and user.

The difference this time around is that there now appear to be the means, the motive, and the opportunity to make the model really fly.

“It is an evolution of sorts”, says Martin Schneider, Director of Product Marketing at SugarCRM. “As broadband Internet connectivity becomes the norm rather than a luxury it is more feasible to connect to powerful processing and application providers outside your firewall than it was even five years ago. So, while the utility model has been in a ‘visionary’ stage since the 1990s, we are now able to harness the power of that vision given a much more stable and powerful broadband infrastructure...”

Interestingly however, says Gerhard Eschelbeck, CTO at Webroot Software and one of the 25 Most Influential CTO’s in 2003, 2004, and 2006 according to InfoWorld, the very buzz that surrounds Cloud Computing may be, well, clouding the issue – detracting from what is actually a key technology paradigm moving forward.

“Irrespective of the buzz, cloud computing is a logical next step... whereby computing resources are provided and leveraged as utilities”, he explains. Unlike traditional utilities however, the Cloud still has a deal of growing up to do.

“Even the definition of cloud computing is still evolving”, says Eschelbeck. “(But) I think the most important aspect is that instead of every organisation building and maintaining its own computing and storage resources, (with Cloud Computing) they’re leveraged as outsourced Internet-based services on an as needed basis.”

It’s early days yet, with just a handful of vendors – Google the most notable among them – currently offering proprietary Cloud platforms. But Eschelbeck sees all this changing as such systems become more and more ubInsightuitous, popular, and interoperable.

Perception and propaganda will likely be further key hurdles. A glut of misinformation exists on the subject and Craig Nunes, VP of marketing at utility / managed storage player 3PAR, urges businesses to beware cheap imitations. A ‘genuine’ Cloud will support a couple of key characteristics, he says.

First: autonomy – built-in automation that eliminates manual planning and management tasks and allows the platform itself to respond intelligently to application needs. If

it requires human interaction to allocate and manage resources, avers Nunes, it’s not a cloud; merely a traditional (distributed computing) datacentre.

The second criterion, he says, is agility. The capacity to respond immediately to spikes in demand and changing workloads. In other words, built-in virtualisation

coupled with clustering technologies to allow for rapid changes in growth or service level requirements.

If it requires weeks, days, or even hours to react to new application or user needs, it’s not a cloud, just a traditional... you get the picture.

Kelly Smith, MD at managed network services provider Centrinet offers similar counsel. “There are several companies jumping on the cloud bandwagon, just as some did with ‘green IT’ last year”, he cautions. As such, education will be vital in helping businesses understand Cloud-based models and in helping them to “de-couple” the deep-seated relationship between their data and their hardware.

Duncan Ellison at Sarian Systems meanwhile, worries that while the Cloud’s benefits are obvious, particularly for small businesses – lower licensing costs; the avoidance of lengthy contracts and proprietary solutions; greater choice – the model “could spell disaster” for those already struggling with online continuity issues.

clouD computing

storm Warning...Many predict great things for Cloud Computing and the long range forecast certainly looks promising. So will it be blue skies and silver linings all the way, or could a storm be gathering asks Gareth Kershaw?

Downtime now means losing applications, data storage, contacts, calenders, and any other key business functions

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“More and more businesses depend on ADSL broadband for Internet, email, and in a growing number of cases, voice”, he says. “Yet even the most robust fixed-line offerings are not fully able to guarantee against failure. And let’s face it – many UK broadband offerings fall well short of this standard in the first place.”

“With cloud computing, you take the consequences of failure to the next level. Downtime now means losing applications, data storage, contacts, calendars, and any other key business functions, leaving staff unable to perform even the most basic tasks.”

It’s a classic case of caveat emptor, says James Blake, Chief Product Evangelist with Mimecast; clearly there will be ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cloud computing solutions, as well as right and wrong applications for it.

“We’re seeing a number of on-premise providers trying to re-purpose their products into ‘cloud’ offerings. (But) these are built from the same collection of historical on-premises solutions, just accessed over the Internet with a reporting and provisioning overlay.”

What you end up with, he says, is an infrastructure with the same integration issues you’d have with a conventional on-

premise solution, only with “the lowest-common-denominator of configurability and functionality...”

In the end, advocates Smith, it’s about asking and answering business questions – “Where can I make my data accessible? Can I avoid paying for unused capacity?” – rather than the more common: “How fast is the CPU?”

This, the business justification for the Cloud, is a reality check echoed in a “final thought” from Schneider: That whilst Cloud Computing is an important development, it is by no means a definitive end.

“Enterprises of all sizes will (continue to) pick and choose which items in their IT stack get moved out of their control, and which remain”, he says. “Choice is an important thing to consider, and the providers offering options for customers will win big in a hybrid world of cloud and premise-based computing environments.”

One way or another, we’ll all be watching the skies over the next few years.

Will the clouD reign? Microsoft believes that a Software plus Services model (as opposed to the SaaS approach) – which brings together the best of both worlds by combining Internet services with client and server software – will be important.

The Live Mesh platform alluded to by Ray Ozzie at Mix08 is the ideal example.

Enabling devices to interact and synchronise with one another and be managed from a single, remote point, Live Mesh allows users to share content, which is synchronised across the ‘mesh’ of each of their friends.

Built with the intention of allowing developers to tackle increasingly complex problems no matter what the device or connection, the Live Mesh API is the same for connected devices and those in the Cloud, with developers provided with an open, extendable data model and a flexible application model.

the longer arm of the laW Bucking the business model, and costs, of the traditional law firm, “Legal SME” NetworkLaw has replaced the customary legal structure of equity partners, associates, and support staff with a new model that allows its staff and consultants to work from any location at any time via an Online Desktop service from Intercept.

“We needed a system that would really empower everyone”, says MD Marcus J O’Leary, “enabling them to work from multiple locations with easy access to exactly the same functionality and performance as available in a traditional working environment...

We wanted to create a professional culture of work as an activity, not just an office location.”

It selected OnlineDesktop from Intercept – a ‘pay-as-you-go’ outsourced model that allows employees to access applications and data remotely but securely over the Web. The only data that passes over the communications link is encrypted mouse clicks, keyboard strokes, and screen updates – making for a secure, fast response; obviously a critical business driver for the legal profession.

NetworkLaw’s next step – a voice solution – will end its current reliance on an office-based answering service.

Choice is an important thing to consider, and the providers offering options for customers will win big in a hybrid world of cloud and premise-based computing environments

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Everyone and his brother seems to be talking about it and every IT manufacturer appears to be leveraging some kind of virtualisation strategy. What’s more, they all seem to be urging us to do the same. Ironic then, that so much mystInsightue and misinformation should still surround the term.

Ironic, but hardly surprising. The problem with the word virtual is that it’s, well, virtual – it’s intangible, not quite real. So businesses can hardly be blamed for seeing the idea as rather fluffy and nebulous; great in principle, but a bit lacking in substance.

So what is it exactly?

Actually, it’s deceptively simple.

In essence, virtualisation is about taking a group of physical IT assets – disk arrays, servers, even networks – and making them appear as if they’re a single, logical entity; or taking a single asset

and making it appear multiple. And while that may not sound terribly exciting, the potential benefits are massive.

Hardware and management cost savings; increased technical agility; greater control through centralised management; reduced downtime and other time savings; even greater staff efficiency and improved customer service.

All the fuss then, could well be justified.

Accordingly, in this, the first in a series of Insight special reports, we find out where the virtual stops and the reality starts.

Virtualisation. I mean, what were its parents thinking?The term is, to say the least, ambiguous. As a result, the word virtualisation has come to mean all things to all people, and is now marginally more over-exposed than Jordan and Peter Andre.

So let’s cut to the chase; explode the myth; get down to brass tacks; whatever.

Wishy-washy moniker notwithstanding, virtualisation is very real and it’s very big. And while no technology will deliver a winning hand for every requirement, all bets are off where its likelihood of mass-market success is concerned. Indeed, look at virtualisation from almost any commercial angle you like, and it’s every inch the real deal. (OK, enough with the card analogies – Ed.)

For definition’s sake, virtualisation can be described as a logical representation of an organisation’s physical resources. However, to truly understand its value, it has to be placed in a business context.

Take server virtualisation.Through it, a business can run different operating systems

in isolation, independent of one another, on the same server.

In itself, that’s hardly awe-inspiring. But consider the business advantages such functionality opens up, and it’s suddenly altogether more compelling. Hardware becomes cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, and cheaper to maintain. Virtualised systems and infrastructures tend to be much easier to manage and support, and that in turn frees up IT headcount to go and do something less boring and/or more strategic.

Virtualisation is even seen as a great white hope in companies’ race to develop green credentials, and in helping address issues such as risk profiling.

Accordingly, the entire ideal is being touted by many in the industry as a real ‘silver bullet’ solution, and the vendor community is forming a less than orderly queue to jump aboard the bandwagon. However, the very fact that virtualisation has broadened to such a degree, and so quickly, is begging as many questions as it answers.

“Virtualisation technology has now matured to a point where it is being deployed by many organisations as the underlying basis for their infrastructures”, comments Andy Hunt, a Senior Director at VMware, perhaps

the biggest name in the current crop of virtualisation players.

“It is forcing organisations to re-think how they deploy IT.”

Virtualisation:

real magic or smoke anD mirrors?

Virtualisation:

coming up trumps...

Technology virtualisation. One of the IT industry’s brightest and most promising young things.

As we’ve already noted in the introduction, in one of the technology industry’s neater little ironies, virtualisation’s single greatest disadvantage in life is probably the burden of its own name.

virtualisation is about taking a group of physical IT assets – disk arrays, servers, even networks – and making them appear as if they’re a single, logical entity

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Virtualisation is even seen as a great white hope in companies’ race to develop green credentials, and in helping address issues such as risk profiling.

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However, he says, some benefits and usage scenarios are known and understood to a greater degree than others.

And however these knowledge gaps may have come about – the suggestion is that it is because the sector and its potential have accelerated so rapidly – it is clear that some reaches of the market are struggling to keep pace, and that many businesses still don’t fully grasp the idea, its benefits, or its potential pitfalls.

Despite this, virtualisation continues to mature apace, with its evolution being fuelled by a move away from its traditional hinterland in Test & Development, and into the production environment, notes Michael Hjalsted, European Server Marketing Director at Unisys; a view shared by Neil Sanderson, Management Product & Solutions Manager at Microsoft.

He believes that virtualisation will not only gain widespread acceptance and adoption, but become a normal, everyday part of business. “Conversations will soon change from being about virtualisation itself to being about IT projects that involve virtualisation”, he says; citing two main “push factors” for this – the importance of agility and flexibility, and the potential for large cost reductions.

Other big IT industry names are throwing similar weight behind virtualisation strategies; a factor likely to accelerate and change the dynamics of the market still further according to Brian Green, Technical Director at Novell.

Green, whose company is working with Microsoft in ensuring its future OS platforms support virtualisation, believes that strategic shifts in the market could become more and more common as the sector enters the mainstream.

“In the past you needed to buy platform virtualisation technologies from a third party, but now these enablers have been included in the Server Operating System. There are already moves in the datacentre from Unix to Linux. The combination of Linux and virtualisation will only accelerate that trend.”

Novell includes OS Virtualisation as part of its Linux offering, and believes that other providers will follow suit, driving virtualisation technologies towards commoditisation.

As such, the need for businesses to prepare and familiarise themselves with the virtualisation lexicon is a very real one.

Green also stresses, however, that it is not enough for organisations to simply gen up on the lingo and think about taking a punt; instead it’s important to look at virtualisation as a vital ingredient in a much larger whole.

“Virtualisation itself is only part of the solution. As you change the management paradigm from physical devices and Operating Systems to virtual devices, you’ll need a completely new management framework.”

In the end the answer lies in properly identifying and understanding how best virtualisation

can help drive the business. Are you trying to improve your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity strategies?

Are you trying to improve your Recovery Point Objective (RPO)? Maybe you’re trying to improve your Recovery Time Objective (RTO)? Virtualisation is an important consideration in all these scenarios.

Microsoft’s Sanderson sounds a final note of caution, warning that just as virtualisation comes in different flavours, so too do organisations, and their readiness to deploy it.

Virtualisation, he says, is neither a single definable approach, nor a panacea. The benefits are most likely to be realised where it is combined with good management approaches and where it integrates smoothly with your existing environment.

Our advice? Look for a partner who’ll help you to play your hand, not force it.

Microsoft’s Sanderson sounds a final note of caution, warning that just as virtualisation comes in different flavours, so too do organisations, and their readiness to deploy it.

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It’s just that, for years it seemed content beetling around in the background and on the fringes, befriending any stray storage techy that might come its way. Of late however, it has become rather more outgoing and ambitious, and decided to spread its wings.

So while storage virtualisation technologies have, historically, been limited mostly to the datacentre, and to mainframe and high-end storage array environments, their horizons have broadened, and now include solutions for the mid-market and even the desktop.

As a result however, they’ve also started having to sell their benefits in a rather more rarified and less forgiving atmosphere.

This in itself is a big ask. While many of today’s storage offerings do promise some degree of virtualisation, in most cases, storage virtualisation itself isn’t yet a simple point solution that can be bought off the shelf.

Just as with any other disruptive technology, the key lies in first defining terms and then understanding your requirement.

Storage virtualisation has many definitions and makes many promises. You could, for instance, describe it as dynamically allocating the most cost effective media for data storage in order to deliver the most appropriate access, back-up, restore, and archiving functionality for the organisation in question.

Put more simply however, it’s about sharing storage resources through a single view.

This means you can move data around different storage assets from different suppliers no matter where they are located physically, and

allocate the storage to applications based purely on the storage policies and needs of the user.

This gives storage virtualisation the scope to deliver huge benefits.

And so do current market dynamics.

The ongoing explosion in storage is conservatively projected by analyst IDC to hit compound annual growth rates of more than 50% over the next two years, and others put the figure at 100% or more.

Right now this growth is being driven predominantly by users who, faced with the need for more capacity, are simply throwing more disk drives at the problem. However, such

storage Virtualisation:

like a rabbit from a hat...In common with most ‘new’ technologies that, at first glance, would seem to have come out of nowhere and become an ‘overnight’ success, storage virtualisation has actually been around a lot longer than most people think.

While many of today’s storage offerings do promise some degree of virtualisation, in most cases, storage virtualisation itself isn’t yet a simple point solution that can be bought off the shelf.

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tactics tend to be expensive; they overlook a number of data and storage management issues; and worse, they largely ignore the fact that existing storage assets are typically under-utilised by between 30 and 50%, according to most industry watchers.

How has this happened? As is so often the case with IT, storage assets have had to grow in direct response to the requirement of the time. This has led to fragmented, under-utilised, inefficient ‘islands’ of storage dotted around the organisation.

The answer to simplifying all these over-complex storage environments that have built up in our businesses over the years? You guessed it. Virtualise them. And there’s no doubting the power of the argument.

Virtualisation promises to drive down storage and management costs, to increase storage utilisation, to accelerate back-up and restore times, and to offer uninterruptible data access (i.e. business continuity).

It’s even being feted as the solution to everything from remote data management to reducing IT-related carbon footprints. However, as with any number of apparently simple solutions before it, the issues involved can, in fact, be pretty complex. Moreover, when it comes to their data storage environments, most users won’t have the luxury of starting with a clean slate.

Most storage assets consist of different disk formats bought from different vendors with different controllers and different management software. At a datacentre level, there will likely be different storage arrays from different vendors too.

In addition, the networked infrastructure will probably encompass direct-attach internal IDE hard drives in old PCs and servers, and ATA and Serial ATA drives in newer systems.

There’ll also be different vendors’ external RAID boxes in different parts of the business, which will most likely house different disk formats, possibly connected over different network protocols. Network attached storage and newer disk formats and networks such as iSCSI and Fibre Channel may also be involved. And if the organisation is big enough, some whopping tape sub-systems too.

The type and the value of the data being stored also have to be considered. Some data will be static and of relatively low-value, so needn’t sit on expensive disks. Other data will be in constant use and demand and will therefore need to be instantly, continuously available.

The storage system must therefore be able to make this and other important distinctions between varying data types.

Does that mean that virtualisation is only an option for big corporates with vast storage estates to manage, and with matching budgets?

Not necessarily. At least not any more. These days almost every new storage product coming to market claims some form of virtualisation functionality. So now is the time to explore your options.

However, with alternatives ranging from storage array and network-hosted solutions through to software-, appliance-, RAID controller- and even server software-based products, it’s not always immediately clear where to start.

Beginning in virtualisation’s spiritual home, the datacentre, the vendor battleground is being contested essentially between the heavyweights Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), EMC, and IBM; although HP and Sun Microsystems also claim to play here.

In effect, each vendor’s solution offers an abstraction, with storage resources viewed logically and separate from their physical components and then managed accordingly.

However, there are big differences in approach, mostly around various “in band“ versus “out of band“ based offerings.

EMC’s Invista product is an example of an “out of band” solution, as is IBM’s SAN Volume Controller. i.e. both sit on the network and control data movement through network switches. HDS’s Tagmastore is “in band” – which means all the data passes directly through the device; usually a storage array.

There are arguments for and against each, most commonly relating to t h e i r

relative performance, reliability, resilience, and ability to manage heterogeneous environments in multiple datacentres.

The lines between these “in band” and “out of band” options are however, becoming increasingly blurred as “intelligent” directors and switches near the market.

Naturally, with more and more major virtualisation deals now coming up for grabs, each vendor’s favourite pastime involves finding flaws in their rivals’ offerings. In fact, they’re all quite vociferous in thrashing one another’s technologies.

Any more objective view however, ought to point out that HDS has won many plaudits for its Tagmastore products as they scale from department through to datacentre level and offer clear migration paths as they scale. It has also been in the market longest.

Then there’s EMC. At the high end there’s its Invista solution. Among its claims are openness, as it can sit on market-leading Brocade, Cisco, and McData switches. EMC Rainfinity is the company’s offering for mid-range to low-end installations. But it has, as yet, no clear scalability path from the low to the high end.

Elsewhere, IBM has its SAN Volume controller, another switch-based product for the enterprise.

Its software controls the movement of data through a SAN and offers all the usual virtualisation benefits.

Moving further into the mid-market, appliance-based products tend to grab most of the attention.

HP’s virtualisation approach is based around partnering with switch OEMs to deliver virtualisation on its StorageWorks storage appliances. Network Appliance is also active in the storage virtualisation appliance.

For its part, Sun Microsystems has a long term partnership with HDS and also offers mainframe level tape virtualisation through its Storagetek range.

For the mid-range its approach is based on partnerships with other OEMs. Tape suppliers including Overland also offer virtualised tape solutions.

At the server software level there are companies such as Datacore, which sells server based software that controls storage assets and manages resources. In short it will control any disk type (SATA, ATA, Fibre channel) across most storage subsystems (EMC, IBM, Sun and more) by sitting on the server and dynamically allocating storage assets to applications.

So what’s right for your business?That depends on your readiness for storage virtualisation, which in turn will depend on the size of your organisation and the scale of its storage infrastructure.

Suffice to say though, that any firm with a sizable, heterogeneous or distributed storage infrastructure should at the very least be examining its storage virtualisation options.

Virtualising even a small part of your storage infrastructure is likely to deliver benefits and fast ROI.

More importantly, it will also open the door to the next generation of data management.

some common Virtualisation terminology In BandVirtualisation in which the device sits in the path of the moving data.

Out of BandVirtualisation that’s usually delivered through an agent on a network switch. Claims not to slow the movement of data.

Tiered StorageSeen as a function of virtualisation.

Moving data to the most cost effective storage medium.

E.g. storing vital data first on expensive, fast disk platforms, moving it to slower disks and eventually archiving it to cheaper tape.

Fabric-based virtualisationA.k.a. switch-based virtualisation built on the argument that by putting the virtualisation layer on the network, different operating systems and data can be managed regardless of where they originate or their final destination.

Array-based virtualisationManages multiple arrays. Focuses on disk utilisation and separating the application from the platform where the data sits.

Software-based virtualisationSits between application and direct-attached storage device (or the network connection to the storage device). Makes virtual storage resources available to the application.

Naturally, with more and more major virtualisation deals now coming up for grabs, each vendor’s favourite pastime involves finding flaws in their rivals’ offerings. In fact, they’re allquite vociferous in thrashing one another‘s technologies.

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What applications do they run?

Are they running at maximum power or sitting idle most of the time?

How much do they cost to maintain? Whose budget does that come out of? What are they contributing to the business? Over the last ten years distributed computing has brought IT much closer to the user, with the trend towards departmental application servers devolving power further in their direction, and driving IT to become more responsive to the needs of the business.

However, there has been a price to pay for this in management and maintenance terms. Because as server infrastructures have grown, so too has the complexity, time, effort, and cost of maintaining them.

As a result, all the questions above – and more – are becoming increasingly business critical.

This, in a nutshell, is the perfect sales pitch for server virtualisation.

Essentially a software layer that lets you treat one physical server as several different machines, server virtualisation is basically about reducing the number of servers the business operates; partitioning the computing power of those that remain to deliver the necessary level of service to each application.

At the top level then, like its cousins, server virtualisation amounts to consolidation; this time reducing the number of datacentres or distributed servers the business has to manage, and saving time and money in the process. But there are other benefits too. Improved system

and application performance; faster application deployment; cheaper, easier software licensing management through simplified tracking… the list goes on. Virtualisation also plays well to the “green” agenda.

Fewer servers means more efficiency, less wastage, and that less power is needed to run and cool them.

It also allows the management of different operating systems and applications from a single point, so resources and processing power can be moved around and focused where they’re needed most. And because

it’s all virtual, there’s no longer any need for your people to physically load and test new applications on individual servers.

Perhaps virtualisation’s greatest benefit however, is that it allows for the maximum utilisation of each physical server and, in light of today’s usage, this is vital.

Analysts agree that, at present, few servers are utilised to much above 15% of their available processor and hard drive capacities.

With virtualisation, it’s claimed that this rises to 70-75%.

Unsurprisingly given such a context, competition and interest is really hotting up in the sector. For now though it is dominated by the classic 800-pound market gorilla. VMware. Its products sell at a premium over its rivals, but many users seem happy to pay this in return for its perceived maturity.

This has seen VMware become almost the de facto standard in server virtualisation over the last few years, with the company having recently floated in the US with a market capitalisation of $1.1 billion.

Other big names are playing catch up as fast, but there are still gaps in their offerings. Microsoft, for example, has yet to announce a launch date for its Viridian virtualisation

suite (and has already put back the date for the beta version) though it is expected to arrive sometime in the second half of 2008.

Elsewhere, Citrix recently announced the purchase of open source virtualisation supplier Xensource for $500m.

So how does server virtualisation work in practice?

If you’ve built up a distributed server infrastructure, you probably have file and print servers for different departments, email servers, web servers, database servers as well

serVer Virtualisation:

consoliDate to accumulate?How many servers do you own? Where are they? What operating systems are they running? Windows? Unix? Linux? A mixture of both? What chip architectures are they based on? X86? Sun Sparc? Risc?

as all of the usual business application servers; all backed up with varying levels of redundancy. Different departments or functions will likely have varying resources and power depending on their function.

(You may even be consolidating already; migrating to a blade server infrastructure perhaps, or moving from Unix and or proprietary operating systems to Intel or AMD-driven Windows servers.)

With a virtualised server infrastructure, instead of a physical server being assigned for each application or department, the servers are ‘split’, enabling them to run several applications simultaneously. From an operating system perspective, rather than using multiple physical servers to run different operating systems, you use the same machine split into a number of virtual servers – each operating as a “single” entity. This can be scaled to complete server infrastructures.

Opt for such an environment, and the first challenge is planning.

It is unlikely that you’ll be able to migrate all your applications at once, so choose carefully which you move, and when.

The finance department is likely to be busy at month- and quarter-end, for example, so you won’t be thanked for adding any disruptions or further pressure. In short, timing is crucial.

Adoption will probably present some cultural challenges too.

Users accustomed to controlling their own IT assets will need convincing that they’re not going to suffer drops in performance or resilience, for instance.

Many organisations opt for regression software here. You identify the application to be moved,

evaluate how it’s performing in the virtualised environment including any performance issues, and then reload the application onto the original physical servers while any problems are addressed.

All in all, where updating your server set up is concerned, there’s really no reason NOT to consider virtualisation these days. It’s powerful, it’s cost effective, and it’s maturing fast.

Also, unlike many technologies, it hasn’t just trickled down from the high-end datacentre environment and appeared by default. It’s emerged fully-formed from the departmental and desktop server space.

And there’s nothing virtual about that.

Fewer servers means more efficiency, less wastage, and that less power is needed to run and cool them.

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If you’ve built up a distributed server infrastructure, you probably have file and print servers for different departments, email servers, web servers, database servers as well as all of the usual business application servers; all backed up with varying levels of redundancy

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Sadly, we don’t have too many moats to dredge, second-home interior designers to retain, helipads to keep tidy, or designer rocking chairs to pay for up here in Insight Towers. Tragic we know, but perhaps it’s because in common with most IT departments – if not members of parliament – we have to be able to justify what we spend, and where.

If only we had some unsuspecting taxpayers to pray upon, or a kindly fees office to lean on for the moral high ground. (OK, enough with the MP expenses scandal thing – Ed.). Mindful of this, it’s easy for us to find some sympathy for the long-suffering IT director being pressurised to cut costs by his paymasters even as they task him with improving performance. After all no one has yet found a workable way to fit a quart into a pint pot.

The last thing he needs or wants to hear is how he should start hugging trees, reduce his department’s carbon footprint, and green up. Or so you might think. Because, far from being the mutually exclusive tug of war that going green and cutting costs might at first appear, says Ian Brooks, UK Head of Innovation and Sustainable Computing at Hewlett Packard, the two concepts actually pull in the same direction.

Indeed, companies that prioritise improving the efficiency of their datacentres will not only cut their energy consumption and their carbon footprints, but make substantial cost savings too – more than 60% on energy costs alone in some cases.

Despite this, says Brooks, according to a recent HP survey, just 10% of firms currently have fully implemented green technology policies while, amazingly, a quarter have no plans to implement such a strategy. Accordingly, he says, a change in mindset is needed. “Companies need to realise that being green and cutting costs aren’t mutually exclusive.

(Quite the opposite in fact). Having working policies in place around green technology creates businesses that are more efficient, more productive, and that control costs more effectively.”

According to Michael Meehan, President and CEO of Carbonetworks, however, this is a message that has of late been stymied both by a lack of proper focus and some less than positive press.

He comments: “Green IT has had a bit of a black eye in the media lately, with claims of greenwashing and style over substance. Green IT has a place in today’s market, but as with most things, it’s all in how you do it. For any carbon or energy reduction project to work, you need to focus on a few key points: it needs to be measurable, manageable, and have clear business value. One or all of

these points are absent in many of today’s Green IT implementations as they are done in isolation.”

First, says Meehan, companies must find out exactly what it is they’re measuring – “It’s often best to make Green IT part of your overall energy / carbon reduction strategy” – to ensure they have the right people and tools for the job.

Then, rather than starting with energy usage, they should begin with their business’s carbon footprint, which will include not only its energy use but other aspects such as employee travel and inefficient manufacturing processes.

Next, try to formulate a clear picture of your inventory, and where, when, why, and how it should be reduced.

The impact can be huge, says Brooks, with the consolidation and virtualisation of HP’s own datacentre reducing server power consumption by more than 60%, from 5 million kWh to 1.8 million kWh in one application alone.

It will soon cost more to power and cool a server over its lifetime than it does to buy the server itself, he says, and addressing these concerns and the physical constraints

enVironmental it

green up to get in the blackGreen may or may not be the new black – but there’s no doubt that more environmentally conscious IT deployments can help put IT budgets back in the black and make a major impact on bottom line while they’re at it.

For any carbon or energy reduction project to work, you need to focus on a few key points: it needs to be measurable, manageable, and have clear business value.

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green is the colourMichael Meehan, President and CEO at Carbonetworks tells Insight how Green IT installs translate into financial benefit.

Opex reductionsTo attach a dollar figure to the benefit of downsizing your datacentre via say, virtualisation, simply subtract the energy savings from the cost of implementation. Similarly, virtual meeting technologies significantly reduce travel costs to deliver another easy cost-benefit calculation.

Leverage carbon marketsCarbon reductions from IT projects are also important; their value being dependent on what reductions have actually taken place: so if your Green IT solution reduces direct emissions, it may qualify for a reduction credit and produce a tradable asset in existing markets. There are tools available to help manage such projects and get them verified.

Carbon reductions can also help businesses sell on their own Green IT solutions. But be sure claimed reductions are accurate – again there are tools out there to help –otherwise the market won’t be kind: as witnessed on current Green IT trends.

Shareholder valueSome reductions – such as cutting employee travel – may not generate tradable carbon assets, but they do contribute to the company’s overall carbon reductions – which have a clear shareholder value; with studies by Innovest and others showing that firms that actively manage and reduce their carbon emissions have consistently higher IRR (sometimes as much as 6-8%) for their shareholders than companies that don’t.

It’s all part and parcel of a reduction strategy that has technology at its heart.

The key is to use Green IT as a part of a larger carbon reduction strategy with clearly defined financial goals. Understand the scope of what you need to do, how you’ll manage it, and then translate it into financial value for your company and your clients.



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of the datacentre can not only make a huge difference to a business’ energy bills, but make it possible to pack more computing power into the datacentre.

Intelligent Power Management solutions (IPMs) can also have a major impact and most can be retrofitted to existing datacentres, says Paul Eo, European regional manager at datacentre infrastructure manufacturers LS Simple – as can intelligent cooling products.

“In addition to the fact that IPMs generally pay for themselves in less than 6 months (giving major ongoing energy cost savings from then on)”, says Eo, “a capital allowance of up to 30% (returned through Corporation Tax relief) is available for the deployment of IPMs via the Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) scheme.” (The ECA, he explains, is a form of accelerated tax relief run by the Carbon Trust to encourage firms to invest in energy saving plant and machinery. Products registered on the Energy Technology List are eligible.)

Greener IT is not just about reassessing, consolidating, and virtualising the technology infrastructure however, argues Chris de Silva, MD of NEC Philips Unified Solutions; it’s about working practices. Businesses can, for instance, green up and drive down costs at the desktop via solutions like Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) – which offers an opportunity to fundamentally transform working practices whilst reducing power costs – more so if combined with Unified Communications (UC).

“From hot-desking strategies that more than halve the number of devices required, to cost effective, secure remote working, organisations now have the opportunity to leverage technology to deliver significant reductions in the carbon footprint and deliver bottom-line value.”

The new thin client devices used in VDI environments use at most 30% of the energy of the PCs they replace, including server power; are at least 90% recyclable and have a far longer lifespan, reducing the lifetime acquisition and disposal costs.

Little wonder so many organisations have VDI on the table for strategic assessment over the next 12-18 months, says de Silva.

The VDI model also has a major impact at a support level – wherein thin clients can be supported remotely, reducing the carbon emissions associated with sending support staff on site – and in enabling remote working where less travel and real estate means a reduction in both carbon emissions and costs to the business.”

yahoo! yippees Datacentre energy anD cost saVingsOvercooling the datacentre can be a necessary evil and is a perennial problem for many IT managers, but Yahoo! has tackled the issue by installing eCool from eCool Solutions, which uses improved air management to cut energy consumption. “A datacentre operates 24/7 and, as any minor outage would create huge consequences for the end clients, we have built considerable redundancy into our facility”, comments Niall McEntegart, European Datacentre Operations Manager at Yahoo! “This includes a spare CRAC unit for every two in operation and keeping the temperature lower than required to allow for variations.”

“When eCool was installed we noticed the difference within an hour. The temperature variations reduced and the cold-aisle temperatures have kept consistent, within 2-3°C. This has enabled us to balance the cooling system, remove two of the eleven chillers and cut cooling energy consumption by 15%.”

This provided payback in direct costs in three months for Yahoo!, with 65kw per hour saving on a 820kw supply equivalent to 298 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year (in a 870 m2 facility) and £35k in power charges.

Resilience has also been improved, with the datacentre manager reporting a significant reduction in hardware failures and in the manpower needed to deal with them.

eCool can be retrofitted to existing datacentres and claims to deliver savings of over 30% when combined with free cooling.

Virtual infrastructure DeliVers real benefits for hillingDon With a building – and power supplies – dating back to the 1970s, historically the London Borough of Hillingdon’s IT department had simply gone out and bought any random technology as it was needed. So by 2007, with data growth doubling year on year, it had little idea of server count. It was known, however, that the building was completely out of power and that adding further hardware the ‘traditional’ way would require digging up roads and laying new electricity cables.

Hillingdon decided to transition its entire hardware IT infrastructure to a virtualised server and storage environment, installing two Storage Area Networks from Compellent and virtual servers from VMware.

According to Roger Bearpark, head of IT at Hillingdon, the efficiency benefits have been “eye-popping”.

“We have reduced our server hardware footprint by 97% and reduced hard disk space requirements by 45%. The reduction in hard drives saves us £6,500 a year in power costs alone because we automatically move inactive data onto less expensive, energy-efficient drives.”

Overall, Hillingdon saves £20,000 annually by reducing power consumption from 34 kWh to 1.1 kWh, keeping well within the limits imposed by its existing power supplier. And because the new, virtual environment is easier to manage, the borough has avoided having to add another person to the IT team, saving a further £50,000 in annual salaries.



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Founded over 100 years ago, Bank Leumi UK is one of London’s leading foreign-owned banks, offering a full range of banking facilities to commercial and private clients. The bank’s IT and Support Manager Stephen Lang says that its desktop management strategy has been an important consideration for many years, with key issues including controlling when desktop PCs are switched on and off, and when it scans for viruses, updates software and cleans up desktops.

“We also wanted to address the issue of power consumption”, he explains, “as the Bank pursues socially responsible policies in a wide range of areas, the environment being one of them.”

To address these challenges, Bank Leumi purchased a series of products from Modus Interactive to manage its software update programme and control power consumption through more efficient session management – including the adoption of Modus’ Universal Management Service (UMS) and Powerwise products.

UMS allows the deployment of operating systems and applications to the desktop. For Bank Leumi this has involved both system refresh and ‘bare metal’ builds; UMS enabling ‘zero touch’ style deployment.

Powerwise is a centralised PC power management solution that allows energy savings without interfering with end-user productivity by allowing management to decide when to hibernate or turn off monitors and PCs and schedule wake-up and shut-down tasks to ensure out of hours security maintenance is not affected.

“The products allow us to do all our system maintenance outside working hours and shut all the PCs down as soon as that work is complete”, says Lang. “For instance, in the evening at 7.30pm, all machines are switched off, re-booted for scans and updates, and then shut down again. They’re switched on again at 6.30am ready for the first staff arriving at work.”

Central managed and controlled, each part of the process is completely automated. If a machine is switched on automatically and not used after a pre-set amount of time, it’s switched off again.

Each management ‘rule’ is configured according to need, including remote management of PCs in Manchester from the London office, with expected energy savings of over £40 per PC per year. (Equating to savings in excess of £6,000 on the bank’s annual electricity bill, plus carbon emission reductions.)

And it’s not only the direct power saving of running the bank’s PCs only when they are needed, say Lang. “If every machine is on all the time, then the air conditioning has to work much harder to keep the building cool, increasing power consumption. But with careful management we’ve managed to reduce our power usage in ways we didn’t immediately consider.”

Indeed, says Lang, with experience, the bank has uncovered a wide range of benefits. “For instance, our support department doesn’t have to ask people to re-boot so often because of the automated management going on overnight. It might be a simple point, but it actually saves everyone involved a considerable amount of time.”

“We have a level of control over our desktops that many other organisations would also benefit from following – to provide a better service for their users and do something extra for the environment.”

Powerwise 2009 costs from £7.50 per PC and claims to be able to save businesses over £30 per year, per PC (approximating to around £15,000 in annual savings and a drop in emissions of up to 75,000Kg of CO2 for a company with 500 PCs.)

enVironmental it

big saVings at bank leumiDesktop efficiency delivers energy dividend for leading bank

So last year, when Natural England – the government’s independent adviser on wildlife and the natural environment – wanted to bring together 2,500 employees for an annual conference it wanted to stay true to its ethos. Accordingly, it tasked event specialist The Live Group plc to manage and implement an event that would slash the carbon footprint of traditional large scale conferences.

To achieve this, seven venues (in Birmingham, London, Leeds, Bristol, Peterborough, Preston and Nottingham) were selected across the UK to host the conference simultaneously.

With delegates encouraged to choose the location closest to them, the sites were linked using video conferencing, web, bespoke audience engagement and delegate management technologies to deliver a single, real time event.

All 2,500 delegates, regardless of their locations, were able to see and hear each other, watch presentations and ask questions to keynote speakers.

“Effective communication and co-ordination… is fundamental to the work we do, but the challenges of bringing people together while realising carbon reductions is very real”, notes Alex Adam, Communications Manager at Natural England.

“Everything during the day felt like a large-scale one-venue conference to maintain the networking buzz that internal conferences deliver, plus reduce the environmental impact of traditional style one-venue events.”

The way we communicate internally and externally via live events is changing, says Toby Lewis, Managing Director of The Live Group plc. Every gram of carbon counts when striving for a footprint reduction and conferences and seminars that reduce travel and the need for overnight stays can make a real impact on CO² emissions.

“Furthermore”, he says, “with pressure on commerce to report on carbon emissions by 2012, attention on the travel footprint of private sector employees will also come under greater scrutiny.”

enVironmental it

conference takes place au naturelleThe government recently passed the Climate Change Bill, the world’s first legally binding targets for a nation to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, while the Greening Government ICT strategy sets out defined ways for government offices to operate more efficiently to reduce carbon emissions at ground level – including using technologies such as tele- and video conferencing and home working to cut energy consumption.

go enViro-frienDly mentalMalcolm Watson, general manager for Remploy e-cycle, the government-backed IT refurbishment specialist, offers his low-cost tips on delivering environmental best practice and bolstering your bottom line:

Share equipment, such as printers and photocopiers. Hot-desk where possible »Future-proof IT equipment by buying wisely and considering likely technical developments in your industry »Bear in mind the efficiency of newer IT equipment: flat screen monitors for example, consume less energy than older CRTs »Buy from accredited, responsible sources »Review logistics chains – bear in mind where products are made as inefficient logistics will add to carbon footprints »Ensure devices aren’t left on overnight with automatic shut-down and stand-by for when users are away from their desks »Maximise the usable life of computing equipment by maintaining it to a high standard. So when it’s time for an upgrade it can »perhaps be redeployed to another part of the business with more modest requirements

Use environmentally aware IT providers and partners »Recycle and Redeploy – ensure kit is refurbished for re-use or properly recycled via a reputable supplier when it reaches end of life »



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“Economic downturn or not, UK businesses of all shapes and sizes are coming under mounting pressure to adopt greener practices; not least across their IT functions which are one of their largest, greediest consumers of power…” The above paragraph represents an ever more common, familiar opening gambit for those holding forth on the subject of “Green IT” these days. Moreover, everyone, pretty much without question, accepts it as a statement of truth. And indeed it is.

But look into these putative “pressures” more closely, and you’re quickly reminded that not all incentives are positive ones.

Internally, green IT is in many ways an increasingly straightforward sell. The long-term bottom-line benefits of going green are more and more well documented (just check out xxxxx xxxx xxxxx on page xx). Technologies that cut heat and power consumption and other overheads make good sense financially as well as environmentally.

But look at the other side of the coin – the external, legislative pressures to ‘green-up’ – and the emphasis would seem to be much more stick than carrot where the IT department is concerned.

What is the Government doing to positively encourage UK firms to adopt green IT? In a nutshell: not a lot. There are no upfront financial rewards for companies looking to purchase green IT equipment. No sweeteners in the form of government loans to make the initial costs any easier to swallow; no subsidies, no tax breaks. Instead, strict, wide-ranging regulation appears to be the preferred option.

Why? No doubt your average IT director (not to say most IT vendors) would argue the point bitterly, but the suggestion appears to be that A) IT doesn’t have a large enough carbon footprint to warrant the alternative and B) that big hard-hitting regulatory fines will jolt more firms into faster, more affirmative action than would buttering them up.

“It’s disappointing”, says Paul Webb, tax partner with tax specialists the Robert James Partnership, particularly following the recent Budget. “Parliament has overlooked a major opportunity to positively impact business’s attitudes and buying behaviour.”

“I think the government has missed a real trick to incentivise businesses and drive home their green credentials”, he comments. “(Instead) there’s still nothing tangible to make SMBs alter their habits and spending patterns.”

What’s more, says Madan Sheina, principal analyst at Ovum, it’s going to get worse before

it gets better. “Going green comes at a cost. The investment usually comes at a premium with a long return on investment (ROI) cycle. And the longer the payback, the further the green investment tends to move down the corporate agenda – and more rapidly too when IT budgets are tight.”

Despite this, he says, (perhaps even because of it) green regulations will become even more stringent – with governments not viewing the recession as a reason to back off from imposing tighter carbon limits, but quite the reverse.

“Hence, green regulations are likely to become more widespread – providing a much stronger incentive as it will be cheaper to comply than to ignore them.” Neither is the UK alone in this apparently ‘negative reinforcement’ based approach.

The clamour for greener business practices is also having an impact on Wall Street for instance. Here, initiatives like the Carbon Disclosure Project – which was created by Goldman Sachs and Citibank among others, to force the large enterprises in which they invest to report their carbon emissions – is driving environmental sustainability (or lack of) to become another dimension of risk management.

Elsewhere across the pond, credit and risk experts Standard & Poor’s has become the latest observer of the financial markets to launch an environmentally-focused index. Called the US Carbon Efficient Index, it measures the performance of large cap US companies with relatively low carbon emissions, while closely tracking the return of firms in the S&P 500.

enVironmental it

no carrots - just eat your greensUnder pressure to adopt greener technologies, organisations looking for encouragement from Government financial incentives and subsidies will find there’s currently a lot more stick than carrot, writes Christine Horton.

There is also a feeling of inevitability about the increasing swathes of green business legislation coming into force across Europe, with mandatory sustainability reporting regulations of various types already in play in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and others. The Japanese are considering the institution of similar laws. For the UK’s part, among the most recently announced legislation was the Carbon Reduction Commitment Act (or CRC).

After its inception in April 2010, all businesses with annual energy bills of more than £1m will be required to report their energy usage and to purchase carbon credits to cover any greenhouse gases they emit. They will then have one year’s grace to reduce their energy consumption after which, in 2011, they will have to pay £12 for every tonne of carbon they produce.

Suggestions are that the cost to the UK’s top 5,000 businesses could total around £660m, ranging from £30,000 to the £mid-millions on any one CRC bill. This money is, however, returnable after three years subject to improvements in energy usage and the company’s position in a CRC ‘league table’; the bottom 10% forfeiting 10% the money returned, the league leaders receiving a 10% bonus.

Some, predictably, have questioned motives behind this and other new legislation, accusing Brown and Co. of lining the Green issue up as a long-term cash cow. They may or may not have a point, but whatever its rationale the UK’s policy makers are, like others, clearly committed to the cause.

Tellingly in this regard, Ed Miliband, UK secretary of state for Energy and Climate

Change, recently told The Observer that we “need to be pushed” when it comes to climate change; pointing to the CRC as an important factor in such a push, and noting that it

“will mean large organisations have a strong incentive to reduce their carbon emissions, and at the same time make real savings on their energy bills.”

These measures – and no doubt others besides – will in all likelihood see businesses leaning on their respective supply chains to bear some of the legislative burden. As such, though it won’t happen overnight, firms from one end of the supply chain to the other will certainly feel some impact.

Accordingly, each will need an auditable environmental story of some kind with regard to issues such as their commitments, measures and evidence of achievement. And yet worryingly, a recent survey by Business in the Community found that two-thirds of Britain’s bosses are unaware that the CRC will soon compel them to account for their companies’ carbon emissions.

A further finding suggested that many see no commercial benefit in cutting carbon emissions and, just as problematically, that 17% admitted to scaling down their carbon reduction strategies in light of the current economic situation.

UK Plc clearly has a great deal to think about on the sustainability front because, like it or not, companies will have to toe the green line sooner rather than later.

According to Ovum though, such concerns could benefit firms by forcing them to better address and manage associated business risks, with regulatory imperatives fostering a

demand for carbon tracking, measurement and reporting technologies.

“If a so-called ‘cap-and-trade’ framework, that lets companies sell unused carbon output, were implemented, it would require (and compel) companies to monitor and report on their emissions in a stricter, more formalised way”, explains Ovum’s Sheina. “Software would be a key instrument in supporting these activities as well as optimising their cap-trade strategies.”

Given IT’s relatively low emission levels next to factors like lighting and heating and the difficulty of framing and implementing such an initiative however, others doubt we will see green-specific financial incentives at this level.

Companies can still claim up to £50,000 in tax deductions when purchasing fixtures and fittings for their premises – including IT equipment. This kit needn’t necessarily be greener, but it could make the initial cost a little easier to shoulder.

Is it right to hit companies with a regulatory stick? To kick them with heavy fines while they’re already down? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it scarcely matters.

For better or worse the government’s attitude seems to be that of De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables: you get further with a kind word and a gun than you do with just a kind word.

...a recent survey by Business in the Community found that two-thirds of Britain’s bosses are unaware that the CRC will soon compel them to account for their companies’ carbon emissions.

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Time was that organisations felt roughly the same way about their old PCs and servers as anyone that hasn’t had a pre-frontal lobotomy feels about former Big Brother contestants – we didn’t know where they ended up after they’d left the building. And we didn’t care. Those were the days, eh?

Slowly and reluctantly though, the realisation dawned that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to just dump such dangerous, toxic products after all. This thought soon took hold and before you could say Kyoto Summit, there were pesky global warming headlines everywhere, everyone suddenly grew a conscience, and the government had got its hands not so much on a cash cow as whole damn herd.

And so, among other legislation, was born the European Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive. Coming into force in July 2007, the directive – at least notionally – made IT hardware manufacturers responsible for making sure ‘end-of-life’ hardware is disposed of in an environmentally friendly way. Laying out guidelines on how kit should be treated and setting specific targets for recovery and recycling, it has forced producers of electrical and electronic equipment to not only collect end-of-life products, but dispose of them properly.

Great, we all thought, that makes all our old kit their problem. But things weren’t, as it turned out, quite that cut and dried, and the last 12 months have seen companies without watertight hardware tracking processes finding – to their cost – that the laws apply very much to them too.

To coin an indelicate phrase, there are essentially two ‘types’ of WEEE: historic and non-historic – the pivotal deciding point between the two being Saturday the 13th August 2005. Non-historic kit – equipment bought new after that date – can be returned to its original manufacturer free of charge. Hardware produced before then (providing it is being replaced with new equivalent kit) can also be returned free of charge, this time to the manufacturer of the new equipment.

There is however, an apparently lesser known third scenario; one of which several businesses have fallen foul since WEEE came into force. Because where a company is binning equipment that was purchased before 13th August 2005 and not replacing it with equivalent kit, the company in question is itself responsible for

the proper disposal of said hardware. A similar responsibility exists for any kit whose producer cannot be traced.

Such subtleties are still passing many businesses by, says David Aitken, Managing Director of equipment recovery, destruction, and disposal specialists GreenWorld Electronics, with a number of firms currently facing prosecution as a result.

Moreover, he warns, the authorities no longer regard ignorance as an acceptable defence.

“You can’t just turn around and say it’s someone else’s job; the prosecution will come against the company who last had responsibility for the hardware.”

“If you claim to have given it to someone who said they had disposed of it correctly the Environment Agency will ask if you checked the relevant certification. If you didn’t (or can’t prove that you did) you can’t be said to have carried out due diligence.”

Of equal concern is that if due diligence is not being observed where WEEE is concerned, chances are that compliance with other crucial legislation, and even basic best practice, are in jeopardy too. Data protection for instance. Where hardware hasn’t been disposed of within stipulated guidelines, there’s always a risk that it (and any residual data on it) could

fall into criminal hands. And that carries with it potentially huge commercial and legal repercussions.

From a criminal damage perspective alone, data on each individual consumer can be worth £10 to a criminal, according to Aitken – £1million for a drive containing 100,000 customer records in other words.

Thankfully though, keeping within the bounds of legality and good practice shouldn’t be too taxing provided businesses stick to a few basic ground rules.

it Disposal

W.e.e.e. all the Way homeA year after the WEEE directive got its ‘green’ light and became law, has the dust yet settled on the legislation, asks Tracey Caldwell, or is business’s understanding of the directive still very much up in the air?

70% of even large corporates haven’t got a clue how to dispose of hardware properly...

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number crunchingOver 180 million PCs – approximately 16% of the world’s installed base – will be replaced this year.

A fifth of these will be dumped into landfill.

(Gartner)

Recycling 9,000,000 tonnes of steel would save enough energy to power 2.8 million households.

(Sims Group)

It takes nearly 3.5L of oil to make just one print cartridge. In less than one year, recycling print cartridges could save more oil than the 11,000,000 gallons spilled by the Exxon Valdez oil tanker.

(Sims Group)



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First, when buying new hardware, be sure to take note of and keep its producer’s registration number so they can be contacted come disposal time. Alternatively, the supplier or retailer with whom you’re working may offer to affect the disposal on your behalf, but make sure they have the proper WEEE registrations.

It’s also worth noting that many suppliers charge for such services.

With existing hardware, check its recycling symbols. If the symbol is a bar underneath a crossed-out wheelie bin then it’s ‘non-historic’ (produced after 13th August 2005) so its disposal is the responsibility of the producer. Historic equipment displays a similar symbol but without the bar. Consumables such as printer cartridges fall outside WEEE regulations but instead are usually subject to Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) rules.

Outsourcing to a specialist disposal company can be a tempting option. But proceed with care, warns Aaron Day, Managing Director of WEEE disposal consultants GSIT Technologies.

“By law, any business disposing of IT hardware is responsible for making sure that the company

or companies it contracts to do the job for it are properly registered waste carriers”, he cautions. “The disposer must also ensure that the hardware in question is accompanied by a waste transfer or hazardous waste consignment note and that it is removed to a suitable facility to be treated and recycled.”

It is essential to obtain and retain proof of the above, says Day. “…And a duty of care note may not be enough; companies have to show, and prove that they have shown, due diligence.” This is not always helped by companies’ existing policies and practices however, says Aitken, who believes that there is “a huge amount of ignorance” as regards what does and doesn’t constitute proper hardware disposal.

“The job (often) gets delegated to a junior and not dealt with correctly”, he explains.

Day concurs. “70% of even large corporates haven’t got a clue how to dispose of hardware properly, and their ignorance of the data protection laws is worse than their ignorance of the (WEEE) Directive.

They don’t understand how to completely destroy data and they often don’t track assets properly either.”

In essence there are three ways of destroying data, but perhaps the most drastic and obvious – physically crushing the drive – is also probably the least effective. Overwriting with random patterns or degaussing, where a huge electromagnetic field destroys the hard disk, are generally considered most effective. The third option is to disintegrate the hard drive, but this needs to be done to a minimum of 13mm otherwise it may still be possible to recover the data.

Other options are now coming to the fore.

Charitable donation is a clever way to combine WEEE compliance with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) efforts, for instance – via organisations such as Remploy e-cycle, a provider of specialist employment services for disabled people that recycles or remarkets old hardware and components.

“Large corporations say that this gives them the opportunity to do top-to-bottom CSR”, says e-cycle compliance manager Cefyn Grafton, i.e.

If a firm chooses to dispose of its equipment via Remploy it is simultaneously helping people with disabilities, helping the environment, and donating useful equipment.

It is even possible to profit from this process, with refurbishment costs varying from £10 per machine and refurbished machines selling for between £70 and £150. Former owners typically receive around 75% of the remarketing revenue from Remploy.

Gartner and others meanwhile, advocate an asset management based approach. Karen Conneely, group commercial manager with Real Asset Management, is among them, and believes endemic poor asset management leads to WEEE issues directly impacting bottom line. WEEE may be touted as a cost for suppliers, she says, but unless organisations get their asset registers in order, it will also create a significant cost for UK business.

One thing is certain; it may be hard to view end-of-life hardware as asset, but leave its disposal to chance and it could quickly become an expensive liability.

get creatiVeHardware disposal tends to be the final phase in a long chain of events that begins with selecting and purchasing a product in the first place, of course. So it’s a good idea to consider disposal from the very start before you buy, suggests Aaron Day, Managing Director of WEEE disposal consultants GSIT Technologies. Perhaps even pick up some ideas from recycling steps being taken by potential hardware suppliers.

Toshiba, for example, is currently recycling its residual toner as a colourant. Steve Hewson is Imaging Systems Marketing Director with the company. He comments: “We don’t have a problem disposing of the plastic and the cartridge (which have a value) but (until recently) the waste toner was going into landfill.

Toner isn’t inherently dangerous, but it was not being recycled. It’s now being used for bitumen and tarmac colourant and can be used for anything where black is needed.”

Such creativity is to be welcomed, says Day, but the greenest hardware disposal option of all is, of course, not to dispose of it at all.

Businesses are already under mounting financial pressure to review their refresh and purchase cycles and WEEE only adds operational pressure to this burden.

It’s an important factor says Hewson, who wonders how many purchasers bother to ask themselves whether they actually need particular products before signing off the PO. He sees it as the industry’s job to follow Toshiba’s suit and “try to help companies realise they don’t need so many machines.”

Hardware disposal tends to be the final phase in a long chain of events that begins with selecting and purchasing a product in the first place, of course. So it’s a good idea to consider disposal from the very start before you buy

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The world has gone not so much environmentally friendly, as enviro-friendly mental. Green is the new black and woe betide the unwitting business that doesn’t realise it. Especially with the rest of the world busy nodding sagely along with Bono and chums, and trying to make all the right carbon-neutral noises.

The problem is that thinking and sounding green is rather easier than actually being and going green.

For a start there’s a whole myriad of acronyms flying about to confuse things, like WEEE (the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive) and RoHS (the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment) − and they’re just the common ones.

Then there are all the software, hardware, and electronics firms pressing their green claims, and all sorts of other interested parties – savvy consultants, canny vendors, tenacious taxmen, et al – trying to make sure they get their cut too.

Suffice to say it’s very quickly all become very perplexing. Indeed, it can difficult for businesses to know which direction to turn for the best. And unfortunately, in the absence of something more definitive, many businesses are favouring the opposite approach. i.e. sitting on their hands or, worse, sticking their fingers in their ears and going: “La, la, la, la, la, la... can’t hear you... la, la, la, la.”

Here then, while the big Green monster continues to dominate in the media and at the ballot box, it clearly hasn’t been quite such a hit in the boardroom. At least not yet.

And, if research from B2B consultancy energyTEAM is to be believed it may be exactly here – in business’s reticence to truly embrace ‘green’ – where the real issue lies.

The study found that the business leaders in two thirds of UK companies with over 50 employees take no responsibility for energy management within their organisations, leaving it instead to less senior personnel like facilities and operations managers, and health and safety officers.

In other words, whether we’re in the office or at home, it seems we’re all a bit too keen to pass the buck where going green is concerned.

Jillian Frantsen is a director with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) specialists, Flag Communications. She is one among a growing lobby of commentators who suggest that the responsibility for an organisation’s environmental impact now lies increasingly with its board, and that environmental initiatives must therefore become more prominent on senior management agendas.

Adopting such a ‘top down’ approach is, she argues, key to creating the internal drive and support required for the kind of company-wide initiatives that will have a significant impact on the organisation’s environmental footprint.

A second challenge, she says, is that environmental initiatives often require up-front investment.

Enterprises often baulk at these – hardware like energy efficient heating and air conditioning systems rarely comes cheap – but it’s important to remember that there is a trade off and that there will be an ROI in the form of cost savings.

carbon reDuction

got those green blues?With environmental issues gaining pace and corporate social responsibility rising inexorably up the commercial agenda, greenness and naivety can too easily become synonymous

“In this instance a business case can be made for the environmental initiative both on the ground of decreased environmental impact and cost savings,” she adds.

And yet there lies the $6 million question. Is it really possible to go green and positively impact your bottomline? At the same time?

And if so, how do you do it and where on earth do you begin?

“The simplest change any company can make is to recognise the issue,” says Mike Dinsdale, CSR Director with Brother. “Everything else flows from that point.” For Brother, this happened as far back as 1992, when the company first looked at the closeness of the connection between environmental stance and business efficiency.

“Reducing energy consumption, eliminating waste, [and] improving supply chain efficiency not only has a very positive impact on the bottomline, but also brings reductions in carbon footprint too,” he adds.

There are many approaches, but perhaps the most sensible is to begin with getting the best out of what you’ve already got.

And that often starts with the most obvious things. Switching lights, PCs, monitors and printers off when they’re not in use can have a major impact on power consumption and CO2 emissions for instance.

“Companies of any size can look at all aspects of their businesses and find ways to reduce their energy use”, says Steve O’Donnell, Global Head of Datacentres and Customer Experience Management at BT.

“(But) being a more environmentally friendly company begins with making energy efficiency and a green approach to IT core to the company’s practices.”

O’Donnell believes that companies need to mandate that a concern for reducing energy and carbon footprints be built into everything they do.

“Very often companies are not organised to make ‘going green’ a natural outcome”, he explains. “For aspects such as using energy and disposal of waste across the organisation for instance, employees do not have direct accountability for non-adherence.”

Here, he says, BT has tried to ensure a succinct approach through engineering a cultural change within the business itself.

“For example”, says O’Donnell, “when we design a new program we spend a great deal of time thinking about the most energy efficient way it could be implemented.”

This means talking energy efficiency with vendors. Points to consider include the full life cost of a piece of hardware and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) factors such as its energy use and its refrigeration needs. Ask these questions

70% of even large corporates haven’t got a clue how to dispose of hardware properly...

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(and others) of all your vendors and go only with those that have the right answers.

BT, for instance, has replaced traditional cathode ray (CRT) monitors with LCD screens when implementing desktop refreshes. While the LCDs were more costly than the CRTs, they only use 20 per cent of the energy and so paid back the initial capital investment within just 6 months.

It’s also important to take an end-to-end rather than a piecemeal approach; with the Carbon Trust estimating that wasted energy cost UK businesses £570m last summer, every little bit counts. Not that the IT department appears to need convincing about any of this.

In a survey of 100 IT managers carried out by Neoware in June, 82 per cent felt their IT infrastructure’s impact on the environment was either ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important, with 71 per cent citing a preference for IT products and systems that are more environmentally friendly or energy-efficient.

Why should the IT function be apparently so much more receptive to, and aware of, green issues? Partly it’s because IT is so often the department responsible for compliance with legislation such as WEEE. But there’s also another reason. A company’s social policy is an increasingly important factor in its broader strategies and standing – its reputation, its brand values, its employee recruitment and retention. IT is also a key part of those strategies. Q.E.D. IT and environmental concerns must go hand in hand if they’re not to fall foul of one another.

“Any investor worth their salt will be well aware how these factors equate to pence on the share price,” says Rob Cameron, director at Flag Communications, which designs annual and sustainability reports for clients including Ford, Shell and Friends Provident.

He believes businesses should focus more on financial savings rather than environmental measures. Profit isn’t just the bottomline, he argues, you have to make it the topline too.

This means challenging the assumption that green initiatives cost green backs.

“Often, what’s good for the environment is also good for business,” he comments. “It can take a fresh pair of eyes, looking for environmental wins, to spot new ways of doing things which result in resource savings, reduced utility bills, and less waste – all good for the bottomline.”

Spotting these environmental “wins” often involves looking beyond the datacentre however. At facilities management and travel for example – where everything from energy efficient heating and lighting systems to collaborative technologies such as teleconferencing can replace more traditional business methods.

A good first bet is to measure the environmental footprint, which can be done using one of a number of not-for-profit companies and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Companies should also consider things like using DC rather than AC supplies within their

datacentres. (BT estimates to have shaved 30 per cent on power consumption using DC, contributing towards an overall £3.8m saving in electricity costs over the past 6 months.) Fresh-air cooling and technologies like document management, IP, and virtualisation are also worth thinking about.

In this way, says Frantsen, corporate responsibility is nothing new. “It is about taking accountability for a company’s non-financial risks.”

The change comes largely around a company’s stakeholders taking a vested interest in these non-financial risks. Shareholders, employees, and customers are also demanding companies be more transparent about their actions.

Doug Johnson, senior director for technology policy with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) says that such behaviour is becoming increasingly pronounced. “Recent studies have clearly shown that key business constituencies – clients, employees at all levels, the local communities in which you operate, and the financial community – increasingly choose firms that develop meaningful, credible environmental programs.”

It’s also important that SMEs are able to meet compliance needs without deviating from their core business interests.

“The biggest challenge for SMEs implementing the WEEE directive (for example) is use of resources”, notes Tony Roberts, CEO of Computer Aid International, one of a number of Environment Agency-approved WEEE facilities (AATF). “Time and money are easily swallowed up searching for a trustworthy, compliant scheme, readying the equipment for removal and, in some cases, actually transporting the equipment off the premises.”

AATFs provide organisations with all the documentation necessary to certify WEEE compliance; they then transfer legal responsibility, and destroy any residual data to military standards.

With the ever-burgeoning raft of environmental regulation, it’s the sensible business that keeps pace, but according to Dinsdale, many are doing little to stay abreast of what’s likely to affect them now and in future. And yet staying up-to-date is not as difficult as many of them think, he says.

Not that sustainability should come at the expense of core business goals, says Rob Bamforth, principal analyst for service provision and mobility at Quocirca. “Being green is great from a marketing perspective, but if it costs rather than saves, it’s unlikely to get enterprise traction”.

Enterprises must therefore think carefully about success metrics going forward. Should you invest in the short-term to save money in the medium term and the environment in the longer term might be one such question to ask yourself or the financial director.

Bamforth also cites the need to think about the larger implications of costs across and beyond departmental levels.

“This is harder”, he says, “but it’s better than guilt-shifting from one department to another. Guilt-shifting or carbon offsetting is just a way to spend money to placate a conscience – it does nothing positive overall for the business or the environment.”

It’s also important that SMEs are able to meet compliance needs without deviating from their core business interests.

“The biggest challenge for SMEs implementing the WEEE directive (for example) is use of resources”, notes Tony Roberts, CEO of Computer Aid International, one of a number of Environment Agency-approved WEEE facilities (AATF). “Time and money are easily swallowed up searching for a trustworthy, compliant scheme, readying the equipment for removal and, in some cases, actually transporting the equipment off the premises.”

AATFs provide organisations with all the documentation necessary to certify WEEE compliance; they then transfer legal responsibility, and destroy any residual data to military standards.

With the ever-burgeoning raft of environmental regulation, it’s the sensible business that keeps pace, but according to Dinsdale, many are doing little to stay abreast of what’s likely to affect them now and in future. And yet staying up-to-date is not as difficult as many of them think, he says.

Not that sustainability should come at the expense of core business goals, says Rob Bamforth, principal analyst for service provision and mobility at Quocirca.

“Being green is great from a marketing perspective, but if it costs rather than saves, it’s unlikely to get enterprise traction.”

Enterprises must therefore think carefully about success metrics going forward.

Should you invest in the short-term to save money in the medium term and the environment in the longer term might be one such question to ask yourself or the financial director.

Bamforth also cites the need to think about the larger implications of costs across and beyond departmental levels.

“This is harder”, he says, “but it’s better than guilt-shifting from one department to another. Guilt-shifting or carbon offsetting is just a way to spend money to placate a conscience – it does nothing positive overall for the business or the environment.”

aDVice for the sme on DatacentresEnsure refrigeration systems are suitably maintained and operating at optimum efficiency.

Lay the datacentre out with ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ aisles to try »and separate hot and cold air.

Seal the plenium floor to ensure the air on the exits are »only at the front of cabinets that contain equipment.

Keep your asset management systems accurate and »up to date. Switch off equipment that’s no longer necessary.

Keep a skeptical view about what equipment actually »needs to be in operation.

Despite the tendency towards hard disk, tape remains »the greenest storage medium. Such creativity is to be welcomed, says Day, but the greenest hardware disposal option of all is, of course, not to dispose of it at all.

ten tips for Weee complianceFind out how WEEE affects you. Know the legislation and what’s expected of you Appoint someone to take charge of WEEE compliance

Consider re-use as an alternative to recycling – it’s 20 »times more effective at saving lifecycle energy.

Donate to charity »Remember: any equipment purchased before 13th August »2005 is not eligible for producer take-back schemes

Check collection/disposal services for Approved Authorised »Treatment Facility (AATF) status

Make sure data is professionally wiped. Under the Data »Protection Act it’s your responsibility

Demand documentation from your recycle/re-use vendor. »Ensure you have written confirmation of the total amount (in tonnes) of WEEE disposed of, and proof that it’s been dealt with by an AATF.

Check the small print when buying. Some producers »or retailers may levy a charge at the point of sale to cover the cost of collection, treatment, and recovery of WEEE.

Ensure your CSR programme is global. »A CSR programme allows a business to build a positive public image and a reputation as an ethical supplier.

SOURCE: Computer Aid International

It’s also important that SMEs

are able to meet compliance

needs without deviating from

their core business interests.

In a survey of 100 IT managers carried out

by Neoware in June, 82 per cent felt their IT

infrastructure’s impact on the environment was

either ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important, with 71 per cent citing a preference for IT

products and systems that are more environmentally

friendly or energy-efficient.



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In fact these days it’s through the door, shoes off, feet up, enjoying a cup of tea and a chocolate hobnob or two.But while home-working has quite literally made itself at home over the last few years, left to its own devices it’s not necessarily the most helpful house guest – in fact it can be downright bone idle. And many businesses have already found to their cost that remote technologies are only as effective as the people and processes behind them.

This is a greater concern than ever given today’s shifting business practices and priorities and with new legislation in the pipeline that’s set to force organisations to offer employees more flexible, family friendly working practices.

The concerns for the business are manifold. First there’s security. There are the hardy perennial issues like firewalls, viruses, encryption, and authentication of course, and then there are new and emerging threats like wireless cracking and call-jacking.

(According to Vodafone for example, 70% of people use their mobiles to talk business in public, many of them discussing critical, confidential issues – with more than one in four admitting to having followed up sales leads after listening in on other people’s conversations).

Then comes cost – which can quickly spiral out of control if left unchecked and unmanaged – as well as logistics and efficiency, which also need careful monitoring.

However, the effort of addressing all these issues – security, cost, efficiency, logistics – and others, can be justified and (almost) even set aside for the business that can put a firm tick in the most important box of all – the one marked productivity.

mobile Working

taking remote controlWhether you’re a business, a manager, or an individual, and whether you like it or not, mobile working has well and truly arrived.

TIpS fOR THE BUSINESS

So how do you ensure your business’s remote working practices are productive ones?Insight has compiled a list of top tips for businesses and individuals looking to make sure mobility doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Training. » Your homeworkers can’t be expected to make best use out of solutions that they don’t know how to use properly. So make sure they’re fully trained to use their remote devices and software to their maximum potential.

Security. » It’s not enough to put robust security policies in place – VPNs, encryption, strong multiple-factor authentication – you have to promote good practices around their use and enforce them – and that means ensuring that your workers are kept aware and alert to today’s range of possible security threats.

Policy. » Draw up acceptable use policies (including dos and don’ts and acceptable home-working practices and habits) and get workers to buy-in and stick to them – via disciplinary mechanisms if necessary. Lest the written policy gets shoved in the bottom of a drawer consider pop-up message alerts that warn users when they’re about to do something ‘illegal’.

Usage. » Consider what applications and functionality particular individuals will need. Your salesforce is likely to need much greater functionality and fl exibility than say, piece-workers or virtual contact centre operatives.

Back-up and synchronisation. » The lack of a slick back-up, synchronisation, and software update mechanism can quickly lead to serious duplication, versioning, and productivity problems.

Remote working practices. » Draw up and distribute a sensible list and encourage your people to work with it. It can really pay dividends in the long run.

Health & Safety. » Make sure your homeworkers have suitable seating / desk arrangements or health and safety can quickly become an issue. A good chair is essential even worth subsidising if you want to avoid issues like bad backs and posture related repetitive strain injuries.

Police working hours. » Both ways. While it’s vital to make sure remote workers are performing, it’s important that they do so within sensible boundaries. People should be discouraged from working too late into the night for example. Don’t be too stringent about enforcing a conventional eight-hour working day however. Regular breaks are to be encouraged to prevent attention lag and a more fragmented day can actually

prove more productive in the remote-working environment. Map certain activities to certain days or hours where possible. This will help maintain some semblance of working structure and also help with functions such as remote back-up and synchronisation. Measure and monitor activity where possible, but don’t turn into Big Brother. Encourage homeworkers to track and review their own time with something like gtimelog (http://mg.pov.lt/gtimelog/) – which lets you enter activities on completion and gives you a summary the end of the day or week.

Environment. » Is there a part of the user’s home that will naturally make for a suitable working environment? Encourage users to set time and noise boundaries for themselves and for others around them.

Consider ‘online’ times. » Not every remote worker needs to be available online to everyone else, all the time. Things like Instant messaging and constant phone calls can often prove an unwelcome distraction – and control freakery can be demoralising and counter-productive.

It’s a culture. » Remember, mobile working is a very different way of doing things and the same rules don’t apply as in the office. Give the business and its individuals time to adjust.

TIpS fOR THE REMOTE WORKER

There’s no doubt, working from home certainly has its attractions...Tea and toast on tap, Fern and Phil at half ten of a morning, and not a traffic jam in sight – but there are dangers too – procrastination, pyjamas at two in the afternoon, and pot noodles. There are ways to keep productive and sane however.

Define your working space. » Try to separate work from home and have a room or a space – however small – dedicated to work. This will allow you to go to and from ‘work’ and change your state of mind from “Honey I’m home” to “I’m at work”. Set regular hours and try to stick to them.

Develop a routine. » Don’t sit unshaven in your PJs. Get up at a set time, shower, get dressed, have breakfast. Only then preview your tasks for the day and get started.

Don’t start work until you start work. » Don’t “quickly check your email” before you’re ready for work. One little thing leads to another and before you know it you’re bathing at 3 in the afternoon.

Don’t jump straight in » . Take some time to ‘get’ to work. Relax. Open the post.

Read the paper. » Just make sure your head isn’t in “I hate work” mode.

Close the door. » An open door is one you

can walk out of if you’re having a rough day or you just don’t feel like working; and one your family can walk into and that generates the idea that Dad’s around and available.

Tidiness. » Keeping your workspace tidy helps maintain focus and productivity. Nobody likes to work, or live, in a mess, and if work starts cluttering your home it can lead to resentment from both you and your family.

Don’t just skive off. » If you get demotivated – and you will – take a short break or find something else to do that’s productive don’t just wander off. It’s only a small step from “I’ll just watch the news” to “Might as well pack in for the day”.

Don’t fall into the trap. » Keep written to do lists and tick them off as you go. The three-list method is a popular one. The fi rst has three things you must do today. The second is three things you’d like to get done, but that aren’t vital. The third is three things that need to be done at some point. Surprisingly effective.

Take a break. » Don’t lock yourself away all day long, it isn’t healthy or productive. Work in intense bursts and take a 10 or 15 minute break for every hour you work which is probably only the equivalent of the time you’d spend chatting to colleagues if you were in the offi ce. It gives your mind time to digest your recent activity, take stock, and refuel. When it’s

time, stop work, go home and don’t go back unless absolutely necessary. Had an idea or thought of something urgent? Jot it down, pin it up, and go back to it during scheduled hours. Schedule work, where possible, around your natural schema. Some people peak in the morning, others in the afternoon or even late at night. Make sure the kids and your other half know when you are and aren’t available.

Manage your environment. » Some people like to listen to music while they work, for others it’s a distraction. As is the TV. Whatever your preference, make sure you envelop yourself in conditions conducive to productivity rather than procrastination.

Eat lunch » – many people recommend something with a high carb content – to keep yourself ticking over and put in the right frame of mind for the second half of the day.

Limit your outside contact but don’t avoid »it altogether. Instant messaging, calls and texts can be a welcome (or unwelcome) distraction. A good rule of thumb is to respond to what you really need to and ignore what you don’t.

Get yourself some sound-cancelling »headphones. Seriously indispensible when there’s a 3 year-old or a workman in the house.

Be grateful you’re working from home »and not from some cubicle! It’s great for keeping yourself motivated

How do you ensure your business’s remote workingpractices are productive ones?Insight has compiled a list of top tips for businesses and individuals looking to make sure mobility doesn’t outstay its

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Mention it and people would think quite expressly about the convergence of voice and data. Which was fair enough. The integration of voice and data networking was, and still is, a pretty big deal.

The truth is, however, that their coming together tells less than half the real convergence story. Because, in the meantime, a whole range of other technological disciplines having been quietly converging too. Audio Visual (AV) technology and mainstream IT are a prime example. Indeed, AV and IT aren’t so much converging these days, as heading for one

another at great speed on a direct but mutually beneficial

collision course, and all manner of new technologies, micro markets, and applications, are now emerging as a result.

But why AV and IT? Historically they’re quite different, distinct marketplaces. And why now?

The reasons are, of course, manifold. AV has been making a definite if gradual move toward the technology mainstream for several years now, and IT too is fast discovering new uses and applications outside its traditional boundaries.

Perhaps the single biggest driver however, is burgeoning demand. Not just for ‘traditional’ AV solutions – projectors, displays, and the like – but for emerging technologies and apps like video-conferencing, dynamic

signage, and unified communications. The reason for this in turn is that businesses are fast discovering the true reach, scope, and applicability of AV’s alliance with IT in enabling other key commercial imperatives. Collaboration. Knowledge sharing. Revenue generation.

This issue’s Insight Special Report looks at how, where, and why...

These are worrying times for the seasoned road warrior; for the city-hopping international executive; for the jet-setting company director accustomed to his champagne and foie gras punctuated, transit lounge, club-class, mile-high existence. You see, along with creatures like the smoker, the UK motorist, and the Britney Spears fan, the corporate globe-trotter is an increasingly persecuted breed.

OK, so their natural habitat isn’t exactly under threat, and they’re not quite an endangered species – not yet anyway – but business travel is less and less the done thing these days. It’s just so 2005. Why? Less time, less budget, less justification. Greater responsibility, pressure, and expectation. And that’s without the great green environmental monster throwing its

spanner in the jet engine.

Then, as if that transatlantic trip wasn’t hard enough to rationalise, along comes this thing called “Video Conferencing”, and nauses things up even more by enabling you to meet face to face with Joe in New York without leaving Basingstoke. And where’s the fun in that?

Thankfully, there were teething problems. Early VC solutions were stricken with all manner of difficulties, most of them well-publicised. It was too expensive. It was complicated. It was difficult to integrate and use. There were no real standards. Worst of all though, it didn’t really work. As often as not, the frustrated user would end up face to face not with Joe in the Big Apple, but with a jumble of pixels and noise more closely resembling a big mess.

Suffice to say, the world wasn’t terribly impressed. Other factors stymied VC’s early growth too, says Mitch Lewis, a Senior VP and General Manager with converged video pioneer Dilithium.

“At the start of the century, it was thought that an assumed threat of global terrorism post-9/11 and an increasing focus on green issues would spur VC and collaboration. However, until recently, that hasn’t been the case.”

“In addition, while the largest corporations could easily afford the huge costs associated with running and maintaining the private networks needed for successful VC services, their less-well-off brethren continued to find the one-time hit of taking a flight (or indeed a train or an automobile) to their meeting more convenient.”

Much has changed in the intervening few years however. The technology has brushed up, sped up, and cheapened up to an almost unrecognisable extent, greatly broadening its appeal on several levels.

There’s more choice, more quality, and more variety than ever before. Perhaps most crucially of all, businesses are under greater pressure than ever to cut operational costs and inefficiencies, making collaborative solutions like VC all the more attractive and justifiable. As a result, video looks to be enjoying something of a renaissance.

In 2005 the global VC market was worth around $1.15 billion according to industry analysts Frost & Sullivan, but they expect this to treble to more than $3 billion by 2010, at a CAGR of 22.1 per cent. Fellow analysts at Gartner are even more bullish, estimating that the sector will be worth almost $13billion by 2011.

aV: entering the mainstream?

big auDio Visual Dynamite

aV: entering the mainstream?

ViDeo killeD the jet-set tsar

A few years ago, when it entered the everyday technology lexicon, the word convergence came to mean something quite specific.

After a shaky start, Video Conferencing technology has come a long way in recent years; possibly even far enough to put the high-flying, globe-trotting business executive on the endangered list after all.

VC is now truly an option for mid-market and smaller businesses – in fact it is suitable for any business with multiple locations.

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been significant advances in areas such as the availability of HDTV monitors at reasonable prices; compression technInsightues; and high-quality microphone and camera technologies, also at accessible pricing.”

She also cites the growing ubInsightuity and the improved ease of delivery of technologies such as IP Virtual Private Networks (IPVPNs), which guarantee the quality of the transmission for real-time services like VC.

Perceptions of how and where VC can be deployed are changing too, notes Victoria Kemp, Senior VP for EMEA and APAC at BCS Global. Until recently, she says, VC was seen by the majority of businesses as the preserve of the boardroom, or only worthwhile for ‘serious’ meetings with large groups.

“(But) VC is now truly an option for mid-market and smaller businesses – in fact it is suitable for any business with multiple locations.” Barry Cross, MD of Touchline Video thinks similarly. “There has been a dramatic reduction in costs, which has allowed SME’s to move into the VC market. VC has been brought into the mainstream – it’s no longer just aimed at corporates.”

HD-based products and more immersive, fully-integrated solutions – often collectively referred to under the umbrella of telepresence – are growing in popularity too.

As the word suggests, telepresence typically incorporates a range of elements designed to make the VC experience even more lifelike and seamless; to help conference participants feel more like they’re in the same room as fellow attendees. More cameras, better camera placement, higher screen resolutions, enhanced sound-proofing and processing, and innovative room design, for example.

Cisco for one has seen particular success with its telepresence offerings. Since entering the market just over a year ago, Cisco TelePresence has been adopted by over a hundred companies including Proctor & Gamble, SAP, and Regus – making it the fastest growing new product category in the company’s history. Quite a boast given Cisco’s pedigree.

And it isn’t just multi-nationals and blue chips that are buying into the ideal, says Marcus Gallo, European Marketing Manager for Unified Communications with the networking giant.

“It’s not only the large enterprises who are picking up on the benefits. Forward thinking smaller enterprises are also looking to VC as technologies like Web 2.0 collaboration raise expectations of how communications need to evolve in the business sphere.”

The Regus Group, for instance, is currently looking to make Cisco TelePresence available at its managed offices on an ‘on-demand’ basis.

Ray McGroarty, EMEA Solutions Marketing Director at Polycom believes that the drive towards greater “naturalness” will be a major factor moving forward, with resolutions increasing, in turn enabling larger screen

sizes and deployments in larger spaces. Better handling of voice in terms of positioning and processing will also be key, he says, allowing, for example, a conference attendee’s seating position to be identified by voice alone.

Other enhancements will likely include better handling of conference content (from freehand drawings to DVD), smoother integration with other applications and new display technologies (e.g. to simulate 3D presence), and the broadening of the user’s choice of conference launch points to include the PC, documents and spreadsheets, phones, mobiles, and PDAs.

“All need to be managed in an appropriate way and to an acceptable, natural quality level”, he says. Easier call launching via integration with the applications from the likes of Microsoft, IBM, Avaya, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent and others will be a further area of focus, notes McGroarty, as will integration with VoIP, which is often a precursor to video deployments.

But companies are well advised to consider shifting cultural dynamics as well as logistical and financial concerns, he warns. Changing employee working practices and expectations for instance.

“Young directors and managers coming into the business matrix have more than just profits to contend with. They need to think about environmental impact, resourcing, and new ways of working. Here too, new generations of workers – who have already been using video for many years on their PCs via applications like Instant Messenger and Skype, and on their phones and gaming consoles too – will hit the workforce and ask: ‘where’s the video kit?’.”

Demand for VC is ramping. But why?Technological improvements. The arrival of High Definition (HD) has drastically improved VC quality in high-end systems delivering improved clarity and visibility of facial expressions and body language.

Bandwidth is now more widely available at a lower price, while WAN optimisation solutions like Riverbed are reducing the amount of bandwidth needed for certain applications; freeing more pipe for hungrier apps like Video and VoIP.

Profile. High-visibility VC marketing from the likes of Cisco and Microsoft is driving the market and benefitting incumbent providers.

Increasing IP convergence is negating the need for separate VC networks requiring extra support and expertise.

Commercial and ‘green’ pressures to cut business travel and other operational inefficiencies

David Galton Fenzi, Group Sales Director, Zycko

In common with several other market observers, Kent Lowell, VP Video at BT Conferencing believes that video’s resurgence is being driven by the confluence of three key trends: the increasing availability of inexpensive, pervasive bandwidth; the emergence of reasonably priced high definition (HD) systems; and the “spiralling” expense of travel.

As such, he notes, conferencing technology – specifically that which allows participants to see, share, and edit content as well as interact face to face – now looks to be turning VC into the popular alternative to business travel that it always promised to be. And even more so as adopters begin to grasp VC’s decision making, productivity, and green benefits.

Recent research from Interoute – owner of Europe’s largest next generation network – appears to bear this out. Surveying more than 1,000 business leaders including MDs, CEOs, CIOs across seven European countries about their use of technology and its impact

on carbon footprints, the study saw a massive 83 per cent of UK business leaders (and an average of 65 per cent across Europe) citing collaborative technologies including VC and Instant Messaging (IM) as key to their carbon reduction strategies.

Susie Davison, VC product manager at Easynet, suggests that video’s new-found success is down to a combination of the market gaining critical mass and ongoing solutions innovation – in video support technologies as well as in VC itself.

She comments: “Continuing (travel) budget cuts have inspired both growing demand and product development. Innovation is focused (mostly) on quality and HD, but there have also

the business looking at a ViDeo conferencing Deployment shoulD ask itself seVeral key questions

Do we really need VC or can we make better use of existing investments? Is this investment truly business-case driven »or is it really just a vanity exercise? High-end VC solutions are known to need 4 to 6 hours a day usage to justify their existence.

Is our primary investment driver to reduce travel expenditure? If so, beware using a mackerel to catch a sprat and »spending £200k to save £20k.

What exactly is our requirement? Is the solution for internal use only or will it be customer facing? If the latter, do »we have the budget for something of sufficiently high-quality? Do we have a room available that can be turned into a dedicated VC suite?

If not, think again. »Have we the skills and the logistical wherewithal in house to drive and troubleshoot the solution once it’s in place? If »not there’s likely to be a considerable training and facilities management overhead. The alternative is to over-engineer the solution, which will itself add further expense.

What about the time and expense of integration with other systems and networks? »Will communication be mostly point-to-point or is a multi-point solution needed? If so then think about the extra »financial and logistical overheads of bridging and extra bandwidth provision.

How comprehensive and high-quality does the final solution need to be? Elements like intelligent control systems, »echo cancellation, sound processing, equalisation, room acoustics, and run silent air-conditioning will all add significant expense.

What kind of content will we need to share over the »VC connection and how fat will the pipe and the rest of the solution therefore need to be?

Do we want / need an HD solution? Why? Can »we afford the extra expense and the extra band width required?

Who owns the problem if the system goes wrong? »You? Your supplier?

burgeoning ViDeo applications currently incluDe:

Product development »and evaluation With quality and resolutions reaching new heights (it’s now possible to examine finely detailed items like chips and boards) video is becoming increasingly viable for use in areas such as product design, development, and manufacture.

Education, training, team »building, and remote collaboration

Sales and marketing » Slick, content-rich video demos enabling faster, greater, more effective customer reach.

Corporate updates » Boardroom keynotes and presentations delivered ‘live’ worldwide

Distance recruitment and »interviewing

Work/life balance » Social imperatives, especially work/life balance, have never been more topical

Remote troubleshooting, »supervision, diagnosis, and surgery Increasingly useful in technical industries and in areas like medical diagnosis.

Reporting » Improvements in quality and reliability are driving greater use of video in reporting from “front-line” locations such as war zones.

Law enforcement »



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active interest in the way printers are used and how they’re procured, the cost of managing print infrastructure can be significantly reduced. As well as decreasing the volume of paper required for printing, a more holistic approach can also help to cut costs. This can be achieved by looking at the procurement process for the printers themselves.”

Larger MFDs can be more cost effective for many print jobs, he says, while fewer desktop printers will mean fewer consumables being put through employee expense accounts. Other economies of scale can be brought into play via tactics such as acquiring your entire print fleet from a single supplier. Law firm Shepherd & Wedderburn for example, replaced 100 desktop printers in its Edinburgh office with 23 MFDs, cutting its per page printing costs by around 50%.

As Rawling Church pointed out previously, even where replacing an entire print fleet isn’t viable, it is still possible to save money by actively monitoring the printers themselves.

Ricoh, for example, has launched its @Remote solution – a software package that allows management to monitor networked devices

and collate data on usage and faults – which help ensure the print fleet is being used in the most efficient way possible. If a printer’s usage doesn’t justify its place in the business it can be disposed of, reducing both consumable and electricity overheads.

“Additional software from companies such as Equitrac can provide further data on usage to ensure devices are being utilised for the tasks for which they are the most efficient”, says Moloney. “For example printing only in full colour and not mono documents on colour MFDs.”

It is, however, vital to reinforce any print rationalisation strategy by continually challenging and changing ingrained user habits and perceptions – by banning email printing other than in exceptional circumstances for instance; by encouraging users to think before they print and to print in mono when it is unavoidable. Emails often comprise one page of relevant information and four or five pages of filler. People should be educated and encouraged to select and print out only what is pertinent.

skint on print A few little-known facts and figures about common print practices:

More than two thirds of enterprises (67%) don’t know how much »they are spending on printing (IDC) Enterprises currently spend between £300 and £1,000 per employee (Gartner) The cost of producing paper documents typically represents between 1 and 3% of an enterprise’s revenues (Gartner)...

... perhaps even as much as 4% according to some sources... »

... and typically represents between 5% and 15% of a »business’s expenditure

The ‘average’ employee prints 700 pages per month (Ipsos)... »... consuming between 50 and 70Kg of paper by the end of the »year (Lexmark)

At least 20% (one page in five) of printed matter is placed »immediately in the bin without ever being read (Ipsos)

An effective print strategy can cut print costs by as much as »40% (IDC)

53% of British workers admit to having printed the same »document several times by mistake; and almost one in ten (8%) to printing emails before they’ve read them (Fujitsu Siemens).

OK, so printers perform an important function and, paperless office notwithstanding, the place just wouldn’t be the same without the good old colour laser in the corner. But let’s face it, printing isn’t exactly glamorous or interesting is it? Why should it be? The sum that the average enterprise spends on printing every year only amounts to between 1 and 3% of its annual revenues. It’s barely worth even thinking about.

Hang on a minute. What were those figures again? 3% of annual revenues? Really? That can’t be right. Can it? Well, according to Gartner it is, and others put the figure as high as 4 or even 5%. And oh yes, IDC reckons that 67% – more than two thirds – of enterprises can’t or don’t quantify their print spend. Ears pricked? Curiosity pInsightued? Then we’ll begin.

“The cost of general printing in a business cannot be underestimated and the bigger the organisation, the harder it is to keep track of print costs and keep them down”, nods Chas Moloney, Marketing Director at Ricoh UK. “Factor in the cost of printers themselves, paper, and toner, as well as the expense of disposing of waste, and it is clear that a fleet of printers constitutes a considerable drain on resources if not properly managed.”

As such, many print sector vendors are now at pains to help companies rein in and better manage their print practices and costs. Indeed one manufacturer, Lexmark, has even taken an ostensibly anti-printing stance; quite literally extending a less is more philosophy as far as its slogan.

“Print Less. Save More.”

As Raj Meghani, Head of Strategic Development at the company puts it, it’s all about ‘‘Letting Paper Go.’’ And the first step in reducing the burden, she says, is to take a good hard look at your print practices and your print fleet from the ground up.

It’s vital to find out what is being printed, by whom, on how many devices, how often and how much it costs, agrees Tracey Rawling Church, marketing director at Kyocera Mita.

For instance, she says, some of the measures that are in place to supposedly cut wastage may be, directly or indirectly, the very cause of that over-consumption – printing off emails for instance. Many people think that making

sure the paper goes in the recycling tray once they’ve read their messages mitigates their use of resources, but it doesn’t, and it completely misses a much wider point.

The easiest way to get a suitably accurate handle on usage is via a dedicated print management solution, which will make such data accessible in a format that can be easily manipulated and analysed.

Once in place, says Meghani, this will allow the business – often for the first time – to build user profiles, track usage, monitor consumables and so on to get a clear picture of exactly how its print resources are being used. Print management also delivers a clear view of the individual printers in the fleet, giving management visibility over all network-connected print devices and the number of documents being printed on each.

This often leads to the replacement of outdated personal, single-function desktop devices with multi function devices (MFDs). “This ability to identify exactly what devices they actually have and to reveal additions to the network at a stroke can come as a real shock to some companies”, says Rawling Church.

“Armed with such information, companies can set about optimising their print volumes and cutting back on costs. Particular printing costs can then be allocated to specific cost centres, departments, teams, and even individual users – so everyone can be made properly aware of and directly accountable for what they print.”

Moloney concurs: “By putting print management policies in place, and by simply taking a more

the prints anD the pauper

Many people think that making sure the paper goes in the recycling tray once they’ve read their messages mitigates their use of resources, but it doesn’t, and it completely misses a much wider point.

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print has been sniffed at for many years as one of IT’s poor relations, but organisations underestimate its impact on operational costs – and potential savings – at their peril if they don’t want to end up significantly poorer themselves.

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Put simply however, says Moloney, the best way to reduce print overheads is to think and act for the long term. “While the basic steps may reduce waste and have a slight impact on overheads, these are not sustainable solutions. Print overheads will start to creep up again and control will be lost as people forget to follow guidelines or as printers are added locally one at a time. Longer term solutions are needed in order to ensure that print overheads are kept to a minimum.”

Only by keeping a close eye on how printers are used on an ongoing, iterative basis can maximum efficiency be achieved, he says. No, print really isn’t glamorous. But take your eyes off it and it could cost you a pretty penny.

The optimim print less output strategy should:

Default to duplex (double-sided) printing »Use high-yield cartridges »Network all devices »Measure down to cost-centre level »Control consumables »Improve workflows »Continuously work towards improving all »of the above

shepherD & WeDDerburn lays DoWn the laW With neW print strategy Law firm Shepherd & Wedderburn reduced its print volumes by around 40% by introducing Multi-function Devices (MfDs) with electronic content management software, which allow the firm to scan important documents and store them electronically. This reduces overheads on two fronts. firstly, instead of printing out every single email for auditing purposes, print volumes have been drastically reduced because all important email correspondence can be archived to the document management system.

Secondly, documents do not need to be physically archived, meaning few resources need to be allocated to storage space.

In this way, print and storage overheads were significantly reduced simply by changing the way that hard copies of documents are handled and the way in which printers are used.

the best way to reduce print over-heads is to think and act for the long term. “While the basic steps may reduce waste and have a slight impact on overheads, these are not sustainable solutions.

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"The BackgroundToday’s datacentres are – as they are expected to be – greater than the sum of their parts. It’s a perfect microcosm of IT itself in fact. But, perhaps because of this, the definition of what the datacentre actually is has become a little blurred around the edges over the years.

Time was that the datacentre could be defined simply as the physical facility used to house a business’s IT systems and components – its servers, storage, telecomms kit, UPSs, cooling, security – a room in fact.

Now though, because of the datacentre’s huge integral and strategic importance to the business, coupled with the convergence and virtualisation of entire swathes of business technology, the datacentre’s presence and influence are no longer governed by the same physical constraints they once were. In short, the datacentre is evolving.

The Need for ChangeNecessity is the mother of invention of course, and Paul Hammond, MD of GlassHouse Technologies says that this is certainly the case where the accelerating evolution of the datacentre is concerned.

He cites the organic growth of IT infrastructures in turn leading to added complexity, siloed applications, and increased energy consumption as being among the key factors in bringing the datacentre “to where it has arrived at today – a hot building full of under-utilised servers”.

Accordingly, he says, with a greater focus than ever on issues such as cost savings, service agility, and environmental friendliness, the datacentre is now set to go through a major and in all likelihood business-critical transition.

“There’s no doubt that the datacentre is in for dramatic change and its long-term future is anyone’s guess. (But) whatever happens, it’s all about making it easier and more cost effective to deploy and manage new technologies and serve the business.”

poWer management

the changing face of the DatacentreWith business expectations of technology ramping fast and IT strategies shifting accordingly, the very heart of organisational IT – the datacentre itself – looks set to undergo a period of massive change. Insight breaks down some of the Whys, Hows, and Wherefores.



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The Shift From a technical perspective, the change in the physical make up of the datacentre will essentially take the form of virtualisation and consolidation, says Hammond – fewer servers occupying less space, using less energy, at lower costs while processing more data.

However, while virtualisation has quickly become quite the sweetheart of the IT industry, just four or five per cent of datacentre servers have as yet actually ‘been’ virtualised, so it will be some time before virtual datacentres appear en masse.

By way of specifics there’s an array of current thinking as to what the immediate curve will look like – though most commentators predict huge change.

According to AFCOM, more than half of all datacentres will have to relocate to new facilities, for example, while power constraints will also become a big factor – with power failures and availability limitations “halting datacentre operations at more than 90% of companies”.

Large numbers of datacentre refresh projects seem the likely outcome, with recent research from outsourced datacentre operator Digital Realty Trust bearing this out.

In its survey of senior, Fortune 2000 datacentre decision-makers, a huge 86% of respondents said they would probably or definitely be expanding their number of datacentres sometime in the next 12 months, with almost half planning to expand in three or more locations – an uplift of nearly 20% over the previous year.

Datacentres look likely to take up more room too – with planned square footage for the average expansion rising by an enormous 50% from 10,000 last year to 15,000 this, with the DRT survey reporting that a whopping 83% of respondents were planning to expand the physical space of their datacentres. 77% and 76% respectively are planning to expand their power and cooling capabilities too.

All these are extremely telling statistics says Michael F. Foust, Digital Realty Trust CEO. “This survey confirms what our team has suspected... the demand for datacentre space is accelerating... across a wide cross-section of industries. It’s particularly significant that 86% of companies are planning datacentre expansions in the next 12 months – especially in the context of the current economic environment.

Despite challenging market conditions, companies are making major investments in IT infrastructure, reflecting the critical nature of these assets to today’s corporations.”

The survey also found that datacentre power usage is continuing to grow (and fairly alarmingly given the trend for increasing power costs), with racks using an average of 12% more kW each in 2008 than in 2007.

The ReasonsThe reinvention of the datacentre seems to bebeing driven not by any single compelling factor, but by several.

Strategic imperatives » Boards, and CIOs most particularly, are under greater pressure than ever before to align strategic IT needs with those of the business.

IT imperatives » Our use of IT is itself undergoing something of a shift – with huge paradigm changes like convergence and virtualisation now holding incredible sway and in turn demanding major adjustments at a granular datacentre level.

Operational imperatives » The growing clamour for watertight Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning and contingency have, for instance, been cited frequently and in several surveys as key drivers for datacentre expansions.

Physical need » Power, connectivity, cooling requirements as well as the integration of new applications and the need for more physical space

Legislation & CSR » Businesses now face a tougher, more stringent, more complex legal burden than ever before, to the degree that legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley is now being felt even in the datacentre itself. In addition, datacentres are not only profligate users of power, but profligate wasters of it, and EU legislation comes in to force in 2013 to police this more vigorously. Put simply, datacentre owners must either adhere to 2013 EU energy requirements now, or face some very expensive retrofits come 2013.

The ImpactThe long term ramifications of the datacentre’s immediate and ongoing evolution are difficult if not impossible to fathom fully – though they are sure to be felt the length and breadth of the business in one way or another.

Predicting the immediate future for the datacentre itself looks a little easier however. Several commentators predict a return to mainframe principals of old, for example. “Future-gazing conjures images of almost a new form of mainframe”, says

Hammond. “Ultra-datacentres” in remote locations, hidden underground or under bodies of water using local renewable energy sources. (Indeed some companies have already made headlines by following just this pattern).”

Kelly Smith, MD of Smartbunker also sees datacentres de-coupling data from systems in mainframe fashion. “A datacentre that fully virtualises becomes incredibly flexible in its ability to deliver services on demand, as well as becoming more efficient and easier to manage.

So in concept it would have similarities with a mainframe computer.”

“Mainframes are defined by their overall computational power, high utilisation rates, reliability, and the fact they can be maintained and upgraded while still in service.

All these attributes will be realised by a fully-virtualised data centre. (But because it) is constructed from small computational units it will be far more flexible than would be the case with a single mainframe.”

Here, says Smith, the datacentre could effectively become a single, shared hosting platform, consolidated to a single point – making load balancing, security, and contention easier to manage.

Consolidation will be the w a t c h w o r d a c c o r d i n g to Ranga

Bakthavathsalam, Senior Product Marketing Manager with Emulex Corporation – with enterprise datacentres in particular facing ‘infrastructure sprawl’ even as the datacentre itself consolidates – more rather than less servers, networks, and storage hardware.

Here, IT management will need to think about consolidation at the most fundamental, granular level. i.e. from the datacentre outwards and upwards.

The trend towards server and storage rationalisation and virtualisation will continue therefore, with technologies such as blade servers and thin provisioning helping to increase rack densities in the datacentre.

A further trend will be the increased adoption of higher I/O bandwidth and external SAN storage to facilitate consolidation and mobility, says Bakthavathsalam.

“Ever since the emergence of Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Networks (SANs) in the late 90s, enterprise IT managers have invariably maintained two sets of networks – one for storage I/O traffic and the other, a Local Area Network (LAN), for data networking traffic. While IT managers could continue to maintain two separate networks, the increasing need for SAN expansion and consolidation in the datacentre is driving the need for a unified fabric where multiple traffic types – networking, storage, and clustering are all carried over a single network infrastructure.”

CEO of Scalable Software Mark Cresswell thinks

the outskirts of the datacentre will

also see s o m e

s i gn i f i can t changes, with

companies becoming much more vigilant about

the nature and scope of their software deployments for example.

“For many organisations, the use of SAM (Software Asset Management) tools in preparation for an audit or ‘true-up’, turns out to be an exercise in little more than understanding early on what the cost exposure of an audit is likely to be”, he comments.

“Traditional approaches to SAM don’t consider how much software is actually needed, because the concept of need doesn’t feature in entitlement definitions. Has anyone ever seen a EULA that says a licence is required for every user that needs the software? Instead SAM analysis of the number of licences

required is based on discovered installations or a misleading notion of usage.”

This is particularly crucial given the current financial climate, says Cresswell, with “the nagging doubts” as to whether software is actually needed putting pressure on CIOs to turn SAM into a cost-mitigation process.

This is something that’s sure to impact the outer reaches of the datacentre – consolidation applies to software too.

Though many organisations still haven’t made this connection, it is an important one.

Cresswell cites a recent example wherein a 20,000-employee company had spent several years spending over $20,000 per month on just three popular software titles. Following a study of its actual software usage it found enough unused copies of those three titles within its estate to halt that spend for four years, a total cost-mitigation of almost $1m.

The OutcomeExpect the face of the datacentre to change almost unrecognisably – hardware, software, storage, plumbing, architecture, everything – just don’t expect it to change overnight. It’ll happen over an extended period. But it will happen.

Future-gazing conjures images of almost a new form of mainframe. “Ultra-datacentres” in remote locations, hidden underground or under bodies of water using local renewable energy sources.

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