CSC’s Yogesh Khanna on Green IT
Yogesh Khanna is vice president and chief technology officer of CSC’s North American Public Sector (NPS). In this one-on-one, he draws on CSC’s experience implementing Green IT initiatives to answer questions about this rapidly growing business area.
How do you develop a business case that sells major stakeholders on a green initiative?
Almost any Green initiative generates a desirable return on investment. So the trick here is to implement best practices that also make a Green contribution — for example, more energy efficient buildings and cooling solutions; energy efficient server and storage technology.
Beyond the business case, how do you sell such an initiative to internal constituents?
In our experience, it’s really not difficult to sell Green IT initiatives to employees, for two reasons. First, in most companies (including CSC), employees are also stockholders, and more efficient operations support the stock price.
Second, people actually enjoy working in a Green building, and studies have shown that work productivity improves.
Does CSC believe we need Green IT regulations from government?
CSC is an international corporation with a significant presence in Europe, Asia and Australia. We are already living with regulatory focus on Green IT in Europe and Australia, and operate major data centers in Europe that are ISO 14001 certified.
So the answer is: CSC welcomes Green IT regulations that are clearly defined, verifiable and offer clear incentives to both industry and government. We also endorse sensible regulations — for example, Energy Star, Green incentives — that promote social goals while also making good business sense.
What are the common obstacles/objections that might arise when starting a Green initiative, particularly in the government marketplace? And how do you overcome them?
The key impediment is the scale of existing legacy facilities and IT investment. The critical factor in overcoming this impediment is to set long-term objectives, build the business case and then execute the long-term plan.
A crucial advantage is the fact that the technology for creating Green buildings and energy-efficient IT equipment is here now. For existing building and resources, both industry and government need to develop and implement best practices that exploit the refresh cycles of their organizations. This requires a strong emphasis on good business-case analysis.
What technologies now under development have the potential to reduce energy consumption in the years ahead?
At the data center level, the IT industry is already making extensive use of server virtualization, blade servers and storage area networks.
But applying these technologies also results in hotter racks, so we have to think holistically about how to improve our cooling practices. Some Green options here include rack-based cooling, hot/cold aisles and thermal modeling.
Similarly, the scaling of servers creates a need to improve storage efficiency through data de-duplication and thin provisioning solutions.
At the desktop level, we see great promise in thin-client and browser-based solutions that concentrate the applications at the server level.
Does the idea of the standardized desktop, now being pushed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a security solution, have a Green angle as well?
The standardized desktop can be implemented in both a desktop and a thin-client instantiation, so it will not restrict the advantages of energy conservation solutions.
Give us some examples of private sector Green initiatives/case studies that are applicable to government.
Green practices are both best practices and good business, so success in one area can always be applied to another. Our use of the ISO 14001 process is a good example.
In a rigorous way that is similar to ISO 9001, the ISO 14001 process creates and implements best practices for an environmental management system and enforces their use.
Our success in this area has resulted in CSC being declared one of the world’s top Green outsourcers. Many of our major data centers in the UK are ISO 14001 certified. In California, one of the most intensively regulated environments in the United States, CSC has earned energy credits from the regional power distributors. In Australia, we have actively implemented the GreenWay program.
What tips would you offer for achieving some early successes in Green initiatives?
Use your resources wisely. Make you early initiatives part of a long-term strategy that reduces your life-cycle cost.
What tips would you suggest for achieving long-term success?
Build solid business cases. In almost every instance, good Green initiatives are good business initiatives that increase productivity or reduce operating costs.
Most important: Embrace Green strategies, don’t fight them. Change is good for industry — and for government as well.
Related Information
Find out what Green IT is all about.
Learn about CSC's GreenWay program.
Join our blog on Green IT, hosted by the Leading Edge Forum’s Executive Program.
Explore our IT Infrastructure Solutions for government.
Contact us and let our experience help you produce results.