On April 22nd each year, Earth Day, we get the chance to think about our relationship to the planet, and how we should be more mindful of our carbon footprint.
As the sixties came to an end, many Americans were driving around, using leaded gas in massive V8 sedans. Wasting precious resources was a sign of prosperity, and air pollution was the price of progress.
Mainframe computer systems were housed in strictly controlled environments, and large amounts of energy was used to condition the air to keep the machines crunching data.
Although the computing power of CPUs has grown by leaps and bounds and great strides have been made in reducing the heat they produce, modern data centers are still energy hogs.
There are many innovative ways to reduce the computing footprint:
- Use data centers that are built close to renewable energy sources
- Use the excess heat from the data center to warm the local swimming pool
- Use virtualization and cloud technologies to efficiently use the smallest number of machines
- Write smart code, and use the latest compilers and optimized virtual machines
- Get old inefficient code off your mainframe and run your business with EventDynamics
At TeleSciences we can't control all of these elements, but we try.