Head to head: “How important are Green IT issues to the end-user?”

RESELLER: Oriel Technologies

Rodney Haywood, virtualisation practice manager

Oriel is seeing a shift towards Green awareness from our customers in the mid-market space, however we haven’t seen Green IT as being either the reason for initiating new IT solutions, or as a key requirement for those new solutions.

When you implement server consolidation plus desktop virtualisation on the latest hardware that deals with power and cooling more efficiently, such as blade servers, it is easy for customers to go Green. However customers are flocking to these solutions because of traditional benefits such as high ROI, reduced TCO, flexibility, higher service levels and reduced management overhead.

Where energy savings are a requirement, it is because of current capacity restrictions rather than Green benefits. We do expect to see the ‘Green’ mandates, currently in the government and major enterprise space, flow through to the mid-market space. Once IT managers pay for their electricity out of their own budget, along with needing to meet emission reductions alongside the other business units, the drivers will change quickly. Maybe the Green IT wave is about to land?