The green computing trend is establishing itself to be a preferred IT philosophy today in many companies. Green computing refers to using computers in the most efficient manner so that less electricity or power is wasted in using them. It also covers other aspects such as faster processors that use lesser power and the proper disposal of used computers such as recycling.
Green computing is not only helping companies to cut costs but also save the environment and maintain its sustainability.
The green techniques will lead to reduced energy usage so that there is lesser burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere. The advantages of green technology can be seen on a large scale as well as a small scale. You can make use of green computing in the entire organization or just for a single workstation. Unfortunately many businesses today are going for green computing because of the large initial costs involved, however they don’t understand how much savings they can make in the long run. Eventually the savings from green computing will outnumber the costs.
Cloud computing is the latest trend in the field of green computing. Cloud computing does away with the hardware servers and uses virtual servers also called servers in the cloud. Hence cloud computing will help the companies to get rid of their bulky servers that consume a lot of energy. Cloud computing will soon be used in areas such as networking, data storage and running operating systems. This way, businesses will save a lot of time and energy by switching to cloud computing architecture.
You can even adopt cloud computing techniques for your individual computer. You can implement power management which will help you save energy. There are many operating systems that have power management functions and you should use them fairly. There are some products such as surge protectors that can save energy. These protectors will detect when a computer is switched off and they will then automatically switch off any peripheral devices such as scanners and printers.
Green computing can also be used in other areas such as saving paper by sending email. You can even implement other practices such as printing your content in smaller fonts. Teleconferences and telecommuting can indirectly save a lot of carbon dioxide emissions in the environment.