The EAUC’s 2011 Annual Conference & its Green ICT Workshop

The 15th Annual EAUC Conference, aka THE sustainability event of the year for the further and higher education sector in the UK, will be taking place from the 11^th - 13th of April 2011, at the University of York. Conference organisers have ensured that every aspect of the programme is relevant to sustainability professionals in universities and colleges.

The conference strands for this year are:

 Inspire Operations: Changes for sustainability in what and how we do things.

Sessions will include: Energy, Environmental Management Systems (EMS), Sustainable ICT, Labs, Workshops & Studios, Procurement, Transport, Waste

Inspire Estates: Changes for sustainability in our physical environment.

Sessions will include: Biodiversity, Capital Projects – Achieving in Low Carbon, Post-Occupancy Evaluation, Low and Zero Carbon Technology, Optimising Space Utilisation, Sustainable Master Planning

Inspire People: Changing culture, how we engage and take everyone with us.

Sessions will include: Communicating Effectively, Going Greener – the role of student engagement and behaviour change, Corporate Responsibility, Green Economy & Skills for a Green Economy, Financing Sustainability.

The SUSTE-TECH project manager will be hosting the 2^nd annual Green ICT conference workshop. Entitled Sustainability at your Institution through the use of Green ICT, the workshop will run from 1:15pm to 2:15pm on day 2 of the conference (Tuesday, April 12^th) and will include presentations from

• Geoff Constable – Aberystwyth University,
• Helen Cutts – Wigan & Leigh College,
• Rob Bristow – JISC

The workshop will showcase what institutions have done to reduce their ICT related energy use. Learn how video conferencing saves time and money by eliminating the need for travel and hear about the mixture of simple yet effective sustainable ICT initiatives implemented by a college. Learn also about the innovative Green ICT projects being funded by JISC and the impact their results may have on institutions.

There will also be a Knowledge Exchange with Sector Experts session running at 4pm on Day 2 of the conference. This is your chance to get a 10 minute 1-2-1 meeting with an expert in implementing sustainable ICT at your institution. (You can also sign-up for your individual meetings at the Knowledge Exchange Boards too).

It promises to be a great session that will leave you inspired to take on whatever ICT challenges come your way and may even give you more “green ICT ideas”!

Maximising your Data Centre’s Efficiency Workshop

As part of the JISC funded SUSTE-TECH project’s ongoing promotion of Green ICT initiatives

a workshop entitled “Maximising your Data Centre’s Efficiency” was held last Thursday, March 31^st 2011, at the University of Bristol’s Graduate School of Education. The event was attended by over 20 delegates, mainly ICT managers who were keen to learn more about how to reduce their data centres energy use as well as how to green their overall ICT systems.

The speakers at the event  included Paul Rock, Principal Consultant Engineer at Cardiff University who presented on the results of his JISC funded Planet Filestore and the StorC Project. In his presentation aptly entitled “How to Make your Data Storage Greener”, Paul explained how by holding the majority of user files on storage, which consumes less energy and is also accessed and backed-up less frequently, Cardiff University were able to demonstrate significant energy and financial savings.

Chris Cartledge, IT Energy Use Consultant presented on how the EU Code of Conduct can help institutions reduce their data centre’s electricity bill. The document, and indeed Chris’s presentation, explains how to implement best practice at your data centre;  purchase energy efficient IT devices only, use virtualised servers and storage, switch off hardware when not in use and use free cooling where possible.

John Milner, JISC Programme Manager for Shared Information Services, presented on the benefits of using shared services and explained how reducing resource consumption and efficiency is basically all that’s required to reducing data centres running costs. 

The last speaker Dr. Hugh Beedie, Chief Technology Officer and Assistant Director of Information Services at Cardiff University whose presentation on “A Holistic Approach to Green IT” pretty much covered everything.

Finally delegates were treated to a short tour of the University of Bristol’s Data Centre.

The tour guide, Dr. Ian Stewart, who is also the Numerical Analyst & Director of Advanced Computing at the University of Bristol lead the tour and took delegates into the university’s data centre. Feedback from the delegates after their tour was that it was very useful.
(I’d imagine many had never seen a data centre of its size before).  

Common threads running through each of the presentations were switching kit off or turning it down and using storage space more economically. In short, a reduction of consumption!

To view the presentations from the March 31^st Maximising your Data Centre’s Efficiency workshop (and others) simply click on the following link:http://www.eauc.org.uk/workshops

Update on the SUSTE-TECH project.

To date, the SUSTE-TECH project has recruited 15 institutions. It has received

10 completed tools with 14 accompanying Action Plans from 7 Y&H, 3 Welsh and 5 South West FHE institutions. The participants are a mixture of 10 HE & 4 FE institutions with one participant offering both HE and FE courses.

The 10 Suste-IT tool results indicated that Servers, PC’s and Networks  are the main consumers of ICT related energy followed by Imaging and to lesser extent : HPC’s, Telephones and VC equipment. 

Each of the institutions, regardless of size, are experiencing similar ICT related energy use problems and are choosing to avail of the same types of  sustainable solutions.

11 institutions are decommissioning, virtualising, or consolidating their servers or even moving servers off site altogether.

14 institutions are tackling their PC & monitor energy consumption by replacing them with Thin Client technology, installing PC power down, virtualizing their desktops and procuring for greener computers.

In terms of reducing paper use, 7 institutions are either consolidating to MFD’s,  introducing charged or code printing or  setting their printers to print double sided by default.

Just 2 institutions are tackling their networks and just one institution has stated they intend on increasing their use of VC and will be addressing their IP phone use to reduce their overall carbon footprint.

However, each of the participating institutions are implementing a “general” energy management system. They are either;

·        automating the powerdown or switch off of their various types of ICT equipment,

·        are creating awareness of campus wide energy use,

·        recycling old ICT equipment,

·        procuring for greener equipment,

·        auditing and consolidating all ICT equipment thus establishing a baseline of how much equipment is in operation and what their combined power usage is.

 In short, they are working towards lowering ICT running costs & reducing waste.

While here has been significant improvement in the past 5 years, there is still huge scope for improvement, with many of the changes being simple “quick wins” that require minimal capital costs.

Cloud Computing

I’ve just finished reading A brief Guide to Cloud Computing by Christopher Barnatt. For someone whose background is in environmental sustainability (as oppose to IT), I found the book to be very well written and informative. This straight talking author's experience in all things computer related is extensive and he is an advocate of the use of the cloud. He believes that it’s the way of the future and for what its worth, I’m incline to agree.

Its subtitle, An essential guide to the next computing revolution, could not be more apt as the cloud has so much to offer in terms of access to the best software, platforms and applications as well as the storage of data and information.

 

From a sustainable point of view the cloud is, in my opinion, the best option for organisations wishing to reduce their data centre’s overall running costs.

The cloud eliminates the need for software CD’s, (and the layers of packaging that accompanies them), transport when purchasing or delivering them and disposal of the plastic discs once used.

Rob Bristow, programme manager of JISC’s Greening if ICT programme wrote in his blog in March 2010 that “There is some skepticism about the environmental benefits (of using the cloud), with many seeing the carbon load being shifted rather than reduced”. In reality it’s doing both. The environmental impact of moving into the cloud is much smaller regardless of which angle its examined from simply because fewer consumables are required.

From an energy savings standpoint, institutions infrastructures can run more efficiently when being delivered in the cloud, thus reducing overall running costs & CO₂ emissions and saving on space (a valuable commodity in FHE’s today).

However, despite reports of massive savings, at a recent Y&H SUSTE-TECH project participants meeting, I asked some of the participants (whose areas of expertise is in ICT as oppose to sustainability) what they thought of moving into the cloud.  I was surprised to receive a less than enthusiastic response.

I can understand why security is a concern, but if rigorous security measures are put in place by cloud service providers to prevent against hacking and ensure secure storage of data, then surely that data is safer than were it being stored on an institutions system? 

Has research been carried out to determine if hacking into a university’s network (or any large organisation for that matter) and accessing top secret files was easier than doing the same to data being stored in the cloud? If so what did the results indicate?  On a more general level has sufficient research been carried out to conclusively determine that data and information is in fact, less safe in the cloud?

JISC are currently funding projects to examine those concerns, the results of which should prove invaluable  to  iunstitutions considering moving into the cloud: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/researchinfrastructure/usingcloudcomp.aspx

I, for one, think the cloud is the way of the future. To steal Rob Bristow’s saying (who borrowed it from Nicholas Carr) “not everything will move into the cloud but eventually the cloud will move into everything”, says it all.

Unfortunately until this happens we remain using the traditional methods of sending and storing data, underutilising our hardware, wasting energy, creating CO₂ unnecessarily and wasting space.

EAUC and JISC practicing what they preach

The EAUC Annual Conference

Nobody can say the EAUC and JISC don’t practice what they preach.

Geoff Constable from the University of  Aberystwyth will be presenting at the 2011 EAUC Annual conference that’s taking place at the University of York from April 11^th -13^th 2011. Geoff, who will be unable to travel to York for the event, will be presenting on the benefits of Video Conferencing and reporting on the results of the project he’s just completed entitled “How Green was my Video Conference” ? .. via Video Conference.  Delegates will be able to experience first hand what it is they are learning about.  While Geoff may miss out on attending the various workshops at the conference, delegates will not be missing out on a live VC experience.

The NBT..

Following on from yesterday's blog regarding what the NBT might be, perhaps it was on display  at the
2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas last week.

Check out the pics on  http://www.cesweb.org/

Whats the NBT in ICT

What’s the next big thing (NBT) in ICT ?

At a recent LUEG Green ICT event there was discussion at the lunch table about what the “next big thing” might be in ICT. As we reminisced about our earliest communication technology experience we laughed about how amazing we thought e mailing was when it first became mainstream.

I still remember back in 1987 using a “wireless  portable phone” for the first time that allowed me to call anyone from anywhere. Eventhough it was the size of a brick, I thought “imagine if all your friends and family had one, you could just call them anytime from anywhere, never having to rely on just bumping into them.

Now that in 2011, we can access e mail from our phones and are contactable 24/7 by devices that are so small they can fit in your to pocket, what is the next big thing  in ICT, how long do we have to wait for is launch and more importantly how will it impact our lives ?