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December 12, 2007 The State of the Art in Sustainable IT Home | Climate News & Ideas | Connections | Events | About

Does Green IT Pose a Security Risk? Interested in greening your IT operations? Get used to having your data accessed more remotely and by a wider spectrum of users, says Quocirca service director Bob Tarzey. In a recent article for IT Director, Tarzey makes the case that the efficiency-fueled trend toward datacenter consolidation raises some challenges for chief information security officers (CISOs). Facilities: Reducing datacenters' carbon footprint is all about location, location, location. IT innovators including Google and Yahoo! are looking to site their datacenters closer to sources of sustainable power, from hydroelectric facilities in Iceland to wind-swept areas of the U.K. The result? Climate-friendly datacenters that users must access from far away — most likely via the Internet. Infrastructure: Datacenter improvements such as server consolidation and virtualization are helping to make local IT operations more energy efficient, but what about scattered locations such as branch offices? Apply the same principles of consolidation: Purchase datacenter space to support branch office computing. You'll reduce energy use and limit IT operations to a secure network as opposed to a wide area network (WAN). Many companies are saving on datacenter costs by going through a co-location provider or outsourcing some applications to software as a service (SaaS) vendors, which rely on datacenters for infrastructure. Usage: The trend toward flex-work and teleconferencing necessarily opens IT use to more external users — again, most likely over the (inherently insecure) Internet. On the other hand, the carbon emissions saved for every flight not taken or commute not driven help drive sustainability over the entire enterprise. When balanced against the environmental benefits, the security risk may well be worth it. Read the full text of Bob Tarzey's column here.

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Sustainable Life Media is home for business professionals looking to build new value and competitive advantage by innovating more sustainable processes, practices and products. We bring you top stories related to the what, who and how of environmental and social innovation, and help you connect with thought leaders, peers, partners and solutions providers that can help you quickly reach your goals. This work is licensed under a CreativeCommons License. Copyright Sustainable Life Media Inc. 2007

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