So… Is SAAS Greener?

Published 29.01.10  |  Category:  CIO Strategy  |  Posted by Maxwell Ramutla

GREEN, the stylish thing to say for anyone with an IT budget today…
 

I have met very many CIO’s and other IT folk over the last year, to more recent times, with a keen interest in exploring ways of turning their IT operations green or at best showing how their IT organisations are reducing their carbon footprint. It is quite interesting to think about this in more detail, and to try and understand what it essentially represents.
Stepping back and reassessing our market condition, it seems a daunting task. Business demands solutions that meet its operational efficiency objectives while also promoting a level of competitive advantage and innovative differentiation. Just when I you thought the role of IT was merely to keep the business running.
 

South Africa is reported to have nearly as many mobile phones as its total number of citizens or total number of people living within its borders. South Africa also has one of the world’s highest mobile phone penetration rates at more than 93%. This is equivalent to some 50 million+ mobile devices that are currently in circulation within the country. Although Personal Computer (PC) penetration has not been quite as positive, mobile phones have turned out to be the ideal innovation platform built for vast open distance environments such commonly found in Africa. The thought of the amount of devices that need to be disposed of, be it due to damage, device fault, warranty, device life expectancy, and other factors, is simply a challenge that cannot be wished away.
 

It has become common practise for organisations to replace their computer hardware every 3 or 4 years as part of an asset management process and to maximise productivity levels. This is called hardware refresh cycles. Once computer hardware outlives its economic value, it must be purged and this usually means that the hardware is donated to a worthier cause that would ultimately end-up on company annual reports as social contribution. However there are only so many charities, organisations, schools and other causes that can accept donations in the form of older computer hardware. This inevitably introduces complexities for all organisations involved in this process.
 

So now we have millions of mobile phones replaced annual, hundreds of thousands of computer hardware that is written off by companies and a limited number of willing participant to make room in accommodating associated devices, and future hardware refresh cycles. So passing it on is never really a solution, as it will ultimately have to be someone else’s problem to contend with. I say this is a fascinating problem to have.
 

So back to the point, where would I begin if I were a CIO?
 

Well, let’s start with what we know for certain. Begin with the end in mind. Every asset has a predetermined life-cycle that is either built-in or managed by an approved asset retention policy that the company may subscribe to as a means of dealing with accounting standards for issues such as depreciation, or from some or other compliance requirement or management principle. Consider the question, “What can we do with the technology assets once they reach the end of their economic lifecycle?”
 

Some supply organisations such as Dell, HP and Xerox have defined programs for managing electronic waste relating to their own products and that sometimes have financial benefits in the form of discounts and rebates.
 

Manufacturers in other markets have long been reusing older components to create new and like like-new products and offer these back to the market as refurbished goods.
 

This approach deals with the desktop and other front-end or user related devices. Therefore it goes some way to answering the green question. Next, take an internal view of the technology footprint and specifically, the datacenter. There are a number of options to reducing this facility to a minimum number of hardware while maintaining a stable growth pattern to meet the changing needs of any enterprise. A term comes to mind at this stage, consolidation! This is the term most IT organisations have been using as a result of dwindling IT budgets and resources. Please refrain from talking this approach unless you have multiple datacentres and a myriad of hardware from which you wish to consolidate.
 

The first option in today’s terms, is hardware virtualisation, which has matured over the years to include not only hardware virtualisation but also software. Virtualisation makes it possible to have multiple hardware platforms for hosting applications and services in a managed and secure manner all through shared physical environment that can be managed as one. This is a virtual environment.
 

The other is considering hosted services in the form of Software as a Service. This makes it possible to have services without the associated hardware management challenges. Let’s take a closer look at this. Software as a Service (SaaS) has been called very many things but it can also be explained by using a number of examples.
 

Imagine having the ability to demand and expect a service without the associated hardware asset management challenges. SaaS may be seen as the ability to truly share resources while moving the notion of consolidation from just company-wide, to industry-wide. It is essentially a mix of shared services, consolidation, virtualisation and service management all in one. SaaS model has benefits abound but it also introduces some pitfalls that must be managed with the utmost care and candour.
 

Consider SaaS as part of your asset management, consolidation and service architecture strategies.
 

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