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BiographyPreston Gralla
Preston Gralla is the editor of GreenerComputing. He has been covering IT and the computer industry for more than 20 years. He was the founding managing editor of PC Week (now eWeek); a founding editor, then editor, and then editorial director of PC/Computing; and executive editor for both ZDNet and CNet.
He has written about technology for major national newspapers and magazines, including USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News, PC World, Computerworld, PC Magazine, CIO Magazine, and many others. A well-known technology expert, he has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR.
In addition, he's won a number of awards for his writing, including Best Feature in a Computer Magazine from the Computer Press Association. Under his editorship, PC/Computing was a finalist for General Excellence from the National Magazine Awards. Preston is also the author of nearly 40 books, which have been translated into 20 languages and sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, including "How the Internet Works," and "Windows Vista in a Nutshell."
He also has a background covering environmental issues, starting when he was a reporter writing about the environment and alternative energy in western Massachusetts. He has also written about environmental issues for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and is the author of the book, "How the Environment Works."
Columns
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The quickest way to green IT is to cut your data center's energy bills. That's easier said than done. But Kenneth Brill, executive director of the Uptime Institute, has some free advice on how you can cut your use of electricity. For the full story, check out his article at Forbes. Here are his top five tips: Correctly set the temperature and relative humidity set control points on the cooling units Brill has some counterintuitive advice here: Using the coldest air is not best. He warns that "Cold intake air is actually bad for reliability because it causes water to condensate inside the hardware." If you use air that is too cold --- colder than 59 degrees Farenheit --- it will cause water to condense inside the hardware. His conclusion: "The temperature of the air
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One of the biggest impetuses to green the IT infrastructure comes not from the public sector, but instead from state CIOs across the country. That's the message from the annual conference of state CIOs, NASCIO 2008, held last week in Milwaukee.
The top IT initiative for CIOs this year, according to a poll taken at the conference, is a green one: consolidation, with its accompanying savings in energy and infrastructure costs. There's more in this GreenerComputing article.
The poll found that 46% of state CIOs say their top initiative is consolidation, well ahead of the number two initiative, replacing legacy software, with 27%. The poll also found that 92% of state CIOs were already implementing a consolidation plan, or planning to do so.
Why are CIOs greening
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A recent survey by solution provider Logicalis found that a whopping 86% of IT managers make decisions based on saving money rather than on helping the environment. On first blush, that doesn't seem to be good news for green IT. In fact, though, it's very good news, because those money-saving measures are generally good for the environment as well.
The survey found that almost 88% of respondents have either used virtualization technologies, or plan to do so in the next year. And about 85% have already consolidated and reduced their server count, or plan to in the next year.
Virtualization and reducing server count are two of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce energy consumption and green a data center.
The end result? Most IT managers are accidental
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