Big Blue goes green with Zodiac

IBM's Zodiac tool uses a big database to establish the total power consumption and carbon footprint of a customer's server banks, across all platforms.

Big Blue says that with green IT being "an important consideration in the technology sector, due to environmental and financial benefits, the improved Zodiac service incorporates carbon footprint statistics to enable customers to improve data centre efficiency and offset carbon emissions."

The firm says its customers have a tendency to under-utilise their hardware, with servers running at between 10-12 per cent of their capacity and needlessly wasting energy.

Startlingly, in such a scenario, IBM recommends reducing the number of servers being used to ensure that the remaining servers are being run close to full capacity and at maximum efficiency.

It said it helped one firm cut its annual carbon footprint by 156 tonnes of CO2, or 516 trees in new money.

"Energy consumption has become one of the biggest business overheads and companies must take it seriously," said Dave Kay, an IBM systems and technology veep, in a statement.

He reckons Zodiac is the "most comprehensive model on the market, which will simultaneously help customers to save money and be more environmentally friendly, by reducing their carbon footprint.” µ