Green IT Gets Real As The Hype Disperses

When it comes to hyped areas of IT, you’d be hard pressed to come up with two more impressive examples of technology marketing department excess than ‘cloud computing’ and ‘Green IT’. True, some of the momentum behind the whole green phenomenon has dissipated over the last 12 months, but cloud is still going strong and is probably at the “peak of the hype cycle” as some other analyst groups would have it.

While all the flak being thrown up around both subjects might serve the short term interests of certain suppliers, it’s actually rather detrimental to sensible debate and analysis of what are two very fundamental, and disruptive trends in enterprise IT.

While I wouldn’t go as far as Richard Stallman in dismissing everything bearing the cloud moniker as merely marketing, the old adage that less is more certainly holds true as far as cloud is concerned. More judicial use of the term would not only help to clarify its true meaning but also avoid the cold shiver the term now elicits from many in the industry – myself included.

The bubble around cloud computing has to burst, but green IT seems to have seen its fortunes wane of late. The term is no longer sandwiched into every supplier press release or marketing announcement going.

But behond the lack of hype, the concept of sustainable and energy efficient technology is just as solid as it was three years ago, if not more so.

Green IT no longer a marketing tool

Rising energy prices, concerns about nuclear safety, new carbon legislation such as the UK’s CRC Energy Efficiency scheme, continue to reinforce the idea that more IT performance per kWh is fundamental to the development of enterprise IT. What we have really witnessed is the marrow being sucked out of Green IT as a PR tool, with voracious marketeers casting aside one bone to wave another in the air.

Whether the problem is too much hype or not enough, the reality is that innovative projects around cloud and green IT are happening out there. But many are not getting the attention they deserve either because they are lost amid the flood of information around cloud computing, or suffering from the switch in fashions around green IT.

I am actually involved in a project at the moment which is focused on the intersection point between cloud and Eco-efficiency (The 451 group’s preferred term for energy and economically efficient IT).