The Pakistani Spectator

Few days back I attended the event which was organized by Al-Futtaim Technologies Pakistan (formerly known as Alcatel-Lucent Pakistan) about “Green IT” and recently I have come to know about IBM’s event “Paint Your IT Green” organized in Lahore and Islamabad few days back. As being the World’s Leading IT Innovator and Business Solutions Provider IBM is providing Services to the Pakistani Organization from many decades and IBM is uniquely capable of Integrating Industry and Technology Expertise to help businesses meet their urgent energy, environment and sustainability Challenges and also same goes with the Al-Futtaim Technologies they are the leading Technology Solutions Provider in UAE ………………………Both the event which were conducted was primarily focused on the importance of Green IT ……

For those who don’t know what Green IT is? It means that

“How to use the computer resources in such an efficient way by adapting the friendly environmental habits such as Power Consumptions, Recycling, and Virtualization etc.”

Let me clarify what Green IT is in more detail ……By keeping in mind that we want to implement Green IT in our organization we have to follow some approaches about it. As I have mentioned in the above definition that we have to adapt Friendly environmental habits such as Power Consumptions, Recycling, Virtualization.

The approaches which I was talking about earlier in my point of view are as follows

1) Recycling

2) Virtualization

3) Power Management

4) Data Storage Systems

5) Telecommunication Techniques

The above said approaches in others mind might be different but this is what I feel that we can follow in order to implement Green IT infrastructure in our working Organization.Now what are those approaches let me define them one by one in much broader terms

1) Recycling: As well know that all know that Computers parts are being made from the materials such as of Lead , Mercury , Gold and other related materials , so when we go for recycle them we need such kind of facilities where we follow the standards being followed to recycle any type of computer parts . As currently we can see in our Country the prices of Desktop Computers have fallen down so drastically have you ever think why it is all because of the fact that we don’t have any kind of rules and regulations in our country for maintain and taking care of our People’s Health and Safety. Neither have we had the so called Recycling Facility nor do we care about it or having some awareness about what recycling is. We have to educate our people in this regard. Correct me if I am wrong in relation with the activities and policies about RECYCLING.So Importers of Personal Computers and Parts, in my point of view, are not taking care of this point and they just keep one thing in their mind that is making Profit. May be I am wrong but this is what I observed and feel about it. Yes it’s good to have Personal Computers at each home of Pakistan for the progress of IT Industry but at the cost of this thing? Where our coming generation at the stake of getting ill by using such kind of Products Usage which might be injurious to their health….. Does it feel sensible to all of you? You might be against me on this point. But that’s what I feel so I said it…….

2) Virtualization: Virtualization is a concept which enables you to work on one computer to do the job of multiple ones being residing on one physical hardware by sharing it resources for doing work across multiple operating environments, which makes easy for you to control your machine locally or remotely. So by using this concept Computer Professionals are utilizing this in combining several Physical Computer Systems into one single logical machine……. This makes them enable to monitor the power consumptions, Server Utilization, Temperature/Cooling Controls ………

3) Power Management : As being an IT Professional and specially related to the purchasing and selection of hardware , I have observed that we have to really look into this matters because it all depends upon the services and utilization requirements of ours that we choose any computer hardware. In Power Management we have to look what are the things (hardware such as Processors, Monitors , RAM’s, Hard Drives) are being used at what time and if they are underutilizing then we have to use ACPI ( Advance Configuration and Power Interface) which allows the Operating Systems, likes of Windows XP, Windows 2000, AIX , Linux(Any Distribution of it) .. are to name of the few, to directly control the power savings features.

4) Data Storage Systems: hmmm Well on this side, I can say that we really have to take care of all the data whether it’s personal or of organization. For storing the data we take our backups on Floppy Disk, Flash/USB Drives , CD , DVD, Zip Drives, Tape Cartridges and even on some complex structures too likes of Storage Area Networks … all the devices being used for taking backups and for storing does use some power whether it is on small scale or large ones……

5) Telecommunication Techniques: In today’s world the boom of telecommunication enabled us to connect in any part of world at any time regardless of boundaries…. That’s why today’s corporate organizations are utilizing this format in such a way by adapting the latest telecommunication techniques which are not only environment friendly but also helps them to reduce their over head costs and increase their profits ……..

In Pakistan we do lag such kind of facilities where we can adapt the state of the art practices and feel proud of them. There is no such kind of policies and Regulations from the Government side. At least there is some interest being showed by the local Government bodies who are taking participation in making this fact and idea to some what real ………….. For the implementation side, we do need to learn the facts, techniques and governance based upon our culture and society.As we all know that we really are lagging of such professional who have those kind of vision in relation of Green IT ………..

My Question to all of you is that… Are we ready for implementing Green IT? As we are going through the power crisis, economic crisis, political crisis …..Do Comment