As global climate change becomes an increasingly pressing issue on the world stage, businesses everywhere are doing everything they can to minimize their carbon footprints and mitigate the damage being done to the environment. To that end, a great first step to take on the journey toward carbon neutrality and energy efficiency is the optimization of your IT infrastructure. By reevaluating and upgrading the systems, servers, and other electronic items that your company uses on a daily basis, you can significantly reduce the amount of energy you need to use.
Upgrade Your Old Servers
It is estimated that nearly 3% of the United States’ energy consumption in 2011 was accounted for by data centers. That means, servers and related systems are not only using a significant amount of energy, but they are also responsible for the creation of a measurable amount of greenhouse gases.
There are a few ways to combat this problem. If you are currently using an in-house server, you can consider upgrading it to a more energy-efficient model—ENERGY STAR servers use, on average, 30% less electricity than standard models. Another option to look into is server virtualization. Server virtualization is the partitioning of one physical server into multiple virtual servers, allowing you to take full advantage of a single physical server’s power and run additional applications without adding additional physical servers. A third possibility is to eliminate your on-site server altogether and transition into cloud computing.
Reassess Your IT Strategy
Beyond optimizing your server, you can increase your business’s energy efficiency by taking a closer look at your entire IT strategy as a whole. XOverture will help you evaluate your current infrastructure and discuss with you ways in which things can be optimized, improving both the functionality of your business and its energy-efficiency at the same time. Our team of experts will guide you through the entire process, ensuring a smooth transition into a more dynamic and efficient working environment.
In addition to helping your business become more energy efficient, we at XO are doing our part as well. By making changes such as working remotely whenever possible, upgrading to power-efficient servers, and more, we are proud to say we have achieved carbon neutrality.
If you would like to move toward carbon neutrality as well, optimizing your IT strategy is a great place to start—and XO is here to help. Contact us today for a free consultation.
