Government Goes Green

One customer, the city of Malden, Mass., now uses the company's virtualization solutions--which allow a regular PC to run up to 30 additional workstations, with models as low as $70 a seat--for hardware and software for its senior center, emergency management facilities and City Council Center.

"Tight budgets and overburdened IT departments are driving government agencies to look for creative means to providing affordable computing access that meets demand," said Stephen Dukker, chairman and CEO of NComputing. "Before, most green IT inquiries have been characterized as a 'nice to have' but not a requirement. Now, more customers are saying it will be a larger factor in choosing technology, and eventually a strict requirement."

It helps when these savings can be pinpointed in dollar amounts. Hewlett-Packard Co. estimates that energy costs now account for 10 percent of the average government IT budget, but could rise to 50 percent within the next several years. With energy-efficient systems, 'smart' cooling, virtualization/consolidation, advanced blade technologies and other techniques, agencies can reduce energy costs by 40 percent, or nearly $2 billion over 10 years, according to HP, Palo Alto, Calif. Data centers are of particular concern, as they account for the most carbon emissions of any aspect of IT. As a result, nearly half of state CIOs plan to reduce the number of data centers over the next five years, according to HP. Those same CIOs are also looking to leverage energy-friendly technologies, such as thermal assessment services and dynamic cooling. HP provides a Dynamic Smart Cooling product that ensures 'just enough' cooling by monitoring every aisle of the data center every hour, and adjusting accordingly, resulting in 20 to 45 percent less consumption.

"Customers can save a significant amount of money on power and cooling, staffing and hardware by adopting energy-efficient technologies and minimizing data center sprawl," said John Frey, chairman of HP's Sustainability Strategies Council. "This investment will not only pay for itself in terms of electricity reduction over time, but will ultimately reduce the carbon footprint of the data center."

Government customers once lagged behind private industry on green IT spending, but are now catching up, according to CDW Corp., the Vernon Hills, Ill.-based solution provider.

In a recent CDW survey, 35 percent of government agencies reported that they've already implemented green IT initiatives, behind the 48 percent reported within private industry. Now, however, one-quarter of those government agencies say they will make green IT purchases within the next two years, which is the same level reported within private industry. CDW's government sales channel subsidiary, CDW Government Inc. (CDW-G), is pursuing this with customers such as the city of Orlando, Fla., where the solution provider has installed $3 million worth of low-energy, high-performance monitors and laptops, and power-efficient LCD screens.

"Energy efficiency has become a 'motherhood' value in IT--more than 90 percent of IT buyers say they care about it," said Mark Gambill, a CDW vice president overseeing CDW-G. "The first step in reducing energy consumption is to know what you're spending."

Some VARs are so committed to this market that they've developed in-house green teams to come up with better environmentally focused product lines. BearingPoint Inc., a McLean, Va.-based solution provider, even maintains a green IT data center lab to explore virtualization and other technologies in a controlled environment, to better serve its federal, state and local customers.

"One area that we see as a future source of innovation is energy-monitoring solutions," said Simon Hernaez, senior manager for management consulting services for BearingPoint's public service practice. "Customers want to monitor energy use across the enterprise, along with the associated costs."

And other VARs now focus on green as their primary brand identity to customers. Canvas Systems, a Norcross, Ga.-based solution provider, has firmly established this niche with sales to school systems and other local/state customers. Thanks to this track record, it recently received a GSA contract to expand into the federal government space. Canvas is seeing government customers' increasing interest for these solutions mirroring that of the general public.

"Americans are waking up and realizing that we have an impact on the environment and a responsibility to future generations," said Mark Metz, co-founder of Canvas. "But when fuel prices are high, it's even easier to convince someone to 'be green' by saving fuel. The government sector is the same. Whether you voted for Al Gore or not, you can now support going green."

Or take a company like Washington, D.C.-based LimeLeap Solutions, which changed its name from Intersoft to better brand its environmentally focused products and services. Today, LimeLeap is highly focused on local government customers. Company president Marco Luzuriaga talks to customers about how his company shuts down 2,000 desktops when not in use to save about $65,000 in electric costs every year, as well as its continuing virtualization and retrofitting efforts--to prove that he walks the walk.

"We want to make sure the IT component isn't overlooked," Luzuriaga said. "So we're working to get the message out that server virtualization reduces disaster-recovery times and allows for quicker scalability--saving on energy and cooling needs."

Next: Three Ways To Expand Sales Via Green IT