ICT60115 Advanced Diploma of Information Technology
ICTSUS601 Integrate sustainability in ICT planning and design projects
Australia is enforcing all Australian companies to be compliant in energy consumption and sustainable workplaces.
Refer to http://www.environment.gov.au/about-us/legislation and http://envlaw.com.au/ And ‘National Action Plan.pdf’ from your resource folder.
You are an IT project manager at International Digital Marketing Company (IDMC), and your new project is to lead a small team to ensure that IDMC is fully digitized and online in accordance with the newly proposed sustainability regulations from the Australian Federal government.
Your supervisor, IT director of IDMC, is keen to learn what improvements you can make for IDMC under what resources. He will directly report your work to the CEO of IDMC for immediate action.
These are some details about IDMC:
1. There are approximately 500 computers in 4- storey building. 2. There are 20 digital designers in Sydney office and 50 designers in Brisbane office. 3. There are 50 marketing professionals in Sydney office with only 2 in Brisbane office. 4. The computers are not turned off or in sleep mode during the night time 5. The building is equipped with approximately 200 lights 6. The building is equipped with 2 microwaves and fridges in each floor. 7. The building is equipped with centralized heating and air-conditioning (harder to measure the energy consumption) 8. Operating system and application software were installed on ad hoc manner 9. Desktops or servers are not virtualized 10. Printers are heavily used for colour printing and all business documents 11. Lights are on at night time for cleaners
Refer to the available sustainability projects in Appendix 1 and the case scenario, you are to submit a full report for IFRC on their project to improve sustainability.
Assessment PART A: Integrate Sustainability to ICT Projects:
Complete all tasks.
1. Evaluate suitable ICT projects into which sustainability can be integrated (1.1)
a) Evaluate available ICT projects (from the Appendix 1 and other resources) to identify suitable sustainability projects for IDMC.
b) Evaluate the option of computer virtualization or cloud computing for ITMC.
c) Evaluate the use of online collaborating platforms to replace printing (e.g. GitHub or Dropbox) in view of sustainability management.
2. Negotiate with the stakeholders to establish the extent to which sust
ainability is to be integrated (1.2).
a) Evaluate the impacts of using cloud computing for IDMC. What operational changes are you expecting?
b) Consider your college as a side-example. What college operations can be offloaded to the cloud computing?
c) Identify which elements of the business cannot be offloaded to cloud computing or virtual computing.
3. Research and identify suitable technology solutions applicable to the project (1.3).
a. Identify the available technological solutions to implement your selected sustainability project (e.g. for online file sharing, Dropbox, GitHub, draw.io or Creately.com)
b. Identify the available solutions the sustainability of IDMC. Consider green computers and reduction of energy-consuming devices (using environmentally friendly lights and other electronic devices) – Refer to Appendix 1.
c. Identify the price, cost and availability of the selected technology solution(s). Provide an executive summary only for senior management in less than 200 words.
4. Gather power consumption data on ICT equipment required for an energy audit based on an agreed standard (1.4).
a. Calculate the energy consumption estimate based on the number of computers, servers, printers, and other energy-consuming devices.
You may refer to online calculator such as http://www.energyrating.gov.au/http://www.energyrating.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Energy_Rating_Documents/Library/Computer s_and_Peripherals/201011b-supp-info-consult-ris-computers.pdf http://energyusecalculator.com/calculate_electrical_usage.htm and http://www.csgnetwork.com/energycostcalc.html or other available solutions).
5. Determine and oversee implementation of short term technology solutions to achieve reduction of power consumption (2.1). Students are to discuss their selected sustainability project with the class and make a 5-minutes short presentation on their plans.
a. Consider some or all of the following: ●Online platforms to reduce paper usage ●Virtualization of servers/desktops ●Environmentally friendly light (bulb) or types ●Environmentally friendly computer monitors and TV screens ●Environmentally friendly refrigerators ●Other electrical devices that can be updated/upgraded for sustainability
Assessment PART B: Analyse energy audit data
1. Establish, regularly review and improve key performance indicators (KPI) on sustainability performance (2.3). a. Review the KPI on sustainability of Optus (2009) from the ‘Resource Folder’. Summarize their KPI in short sentences. b. Devise a set of KPI for IDMC in less than 200 words.
2. Incorporate innovative planning and design rules for ICT projects which foster sustainability and environmental best practice (2.4). a. Investigate and summarize the best-case examples and best procurement practices on ICT sustainability from www.greenit.net and other resources available on ‘Resource Folder’.
b. Investigate the opportunities of virtualizing the computers and servers to save the energy consumption (note one physical server can handle more than several virtualized desktop instances)
3. Identify energy usage within the scope of the ICT project and provide a detailed report (3.1). a. Estimate the energy cost given the number of computing devices, monitors, computer racks, printers and other energy consuming devices ‘within your college’. Use the reference materials including: http://www.environment.gov.au and energy calculating spreadsheet from the ‘Resource Folder’. b. Using the same resources, estimate the energy consumption at IDMC given they have 500 users in 4 storey building (approximate energy consuming devices based on a normal business operating condition).
4. Estimate potential energy savings and payback periods for recommended actions (3.2) a. Consider and report the new energy consumption in consideration of virtualization and your selected green-computing projects (note: has the number of servers reduced? Have you changed the lightbulb types? Have you changed the monitor energy consumption? Have you considered green refrigerators?)
b. Any investment must be returned for the business. Estimate the payback period from the sustainability project using the resources including: http://carbonfootprintmanagement.com/how-do-i-calculate-the-payback-period-of-an-energy-savin g-investment/ https://sustainabilitydictionary.com/2006/10/21/payback-period/ and other resources from ‘Resource Folder’.
5. Estimate the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the nominated project (3.3) a. Estimate the carbon dioxide emission from the selected project of yours. Refer to http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/ind-calculator.html or any other relevant resource
6. Evaluate the estimated CO2 emissions with comparable benchmarks (3.4) a. In business, we always benchmark our performance. Compare your energy and CO2 consumption against the benchmarking data of similar sized company. Use the following reference https://www.carbonfootprint.com/carbon_benchmark.html Or any other relevant resources.
7. Make recommendations in order of priority and give estimates of implementation costs on integration of sustainability for other ICT projects (3.5)
Introduction
Energy consumption and sustainability has become an important aspect for today’s workplaces. Australia has enforced all Australian companies to be compliant with energy consumption and sustainability. IDMC or International Digital Marketing Company is an Australian Digital Marketing agency aiming at fully digitization and going online in accordance to the newly proposed sustainability regulations from the Federal Government of Australia.
The organisation has a 4-storey building with approximately 500 computers. They have two offices in Sydney and Brisbane. There are 20 digital designers and 50 marketing professionals in the Sydney office. There are 50 designers and 2 marketing professionals in the Brisbane office. The organisation needs to prepare and follow some green computing and energy saving plans to implement the sustainability requirements. In the following sections of the report, those requirements and practices have been discussed in details.
ITMC can focus on the following ICT projects to implement sustainability at the workplace.
Computer virtualisation can be done using cloud computing. Cloud computing can help to reduce the use of computing machineries and it will also help to take most of the tasks online, it will also help to move the data storage requirements online. Hence, it will help to promote green computing initiatives. For the organisation, they can deploy a hybrid cloud computing environment that will help to implement desktop virtualisation and office automation for the employees, virtualisation of data storage and so on.
For online collaboration with the clients and between the employees of the two centres, the organisation can replace printing services with the collaboration services like GitHub and Dropbox.
Cloud computing can bring the following operational changes to the business,
Following college operations can be offloaded to the cloud computing,
Some of the critical and private business elements cannot be offloaded to cloud or virtual computing. For example,
The selected sustainability project is replacement of other appliances like those 500 monitors with suitable eco-friendly monitors. It will require buying high energy saving rating based monitors. The cost for such a system will be around $150 to $200 per monitor (Murugesan & Gangadharan, 2012).
Energy consumption calculation is as follows,
There are 500 computers that are running 24x7 as they don’t shut it down in nights also. So, the calculation is,
Computer and monitors appliance rating in watts is 100, it is running for 168 per week. Hence, for a single computer, it will consumes around 874 kWh per year. The cost of energy in a year for a computer is around $218.40. So, for 500 computers, the cost will be, $109,200.00.
Other than that, there are AC, heating solution, printers etc.
Attached in the MS PowerPoint File
| Introduction | The aim of the presentation is to provide information about some short term technology solutions that will help in reduction of power consumption and to improve sustainability at the workplace. |
| Online platforms to reduce paper usage | There are various online collaboration solutions for sharing documents, such as Dropbox, TransferNow and so on. Dropbox offers file hosting solution based on cloud storage solution. It also offers solutions for file synchronization, personal cloud solution for the clients and so on. It is synchronized with multiple web and mobile based platforms. Users can store and access files from anywhere. They do not need to keep printed copies for collaboration. When some file is updated then all accounts synchronized with the file get automatically updated. It also offers a collaborative space called Paper that allows users to teamwork with different types of content. And there is the Dropbox Showcase that allows to showcase the work done. Hence, it reduces the requirement of paper based printing tasks for collaboration and paper based presentation to share ideas, and to show work. |
| Virtualization of servers/desktops | Virtualization of servers and desktops both are possible and useful to promote green computing at workplaces. Desktop virtualization allows a large number of employees to work remotely from multiple devices. On the other hand, server virtualization allows a business to diversify its workload to maximize the efficiency of the servers. Same tools can be used to manage desktop and server virtualization. In server virtualization, a physical server is partitioned into multiple virtual and smaller servers. All these servers reside on the same physical server. An example is, virtual machines based infrastructure. A single virtual server will work like a single physical server. It helps to maximize the efficiency and usage of a physical servers. Thus it helps in achieving better utilization of servers. The business can use server virtualization technique to distribute workload of different types like databases, graphics, file sharing, delivery of media files and so on. On the other hand, there are desktops or computers used by the employees. And the business is having around 500 computers. Instead of managing and keeping 500 physical computers, it can utilize the benefits of desktop virtualization. A virtual desktop will be stored at some remote server and it will be delivered to the user as a cloud service. They can operate from any device and any location and can do all operations like a physical computer. Multiple virtual desktops can be accommodated into a single server. There are various methods of desktop virtualization. For example, VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and DaaS or Desktop as a Service (Hu, 2012). |
| Environmentally friendly light (bulb) or types | Rather than keeping the lights on during night time, when there are around 200 lights in the building, the organization can follow the practices supporting environment friendly lighting. There is a vendor, called Ecochic that offers environment friendly lighting solutions. The materials are made from ecofriendly materials. Other than that, there are sensor based lighting solutions that can be automatically switched on or switched off based on sensing the movements of the users. It will help to save electricity and to reduce the emission of carbon di-oxide (Unhelkar, 2010). |
| Environmentally friendly computer monitors and TV screens | Some monitors and TVs come with eco-friendly settings so that the backlight will be dimmed or adjusted based on the light present in the environment. With the eco mode enabled, the TV and monitors consume lesser energy and reduces the emission of pollutants in the environment. While disposing the monitors and TVs, the organization can search for suitable recycler and can recycle the devices. |
| Environmentally friendly refrigerators | The organization uses refrigerators and microwaves. Environment friendly refrigerators come with energy efficiency ratings. These fridges consume lesser power, and emit lesser gases in the environment. Additionally, some of such fridges are made from recycled materials. |
| Other electrical devices that can be updated/upgraded for sustainability | It can replace the monitors currently being used by the organization with proper eco-friendly monitors. Among the other electronic devices, the organization can use energy efficient and eco-friendly air-conditioning and heating systems. It can use a geothermal cooling system and a heat pump. It can use solar or alternative energy sources instead of traditional power sources. |
Attached in the MS PowerPoint File
The KPIs of the OPTUS are,
The possible KPIs for the IDMC are,
It will help to understand the traffic sources that are driving more visitors to the websites.
It will help to understand the reputation and trustworthiness of the brand. At the same time it will help to understand the credibility of the brand to the targeted audience. It covers the social media signals and the search engine optimisation performance of the brand.
It will help to estimate the cost for lead generation and how the investment is going on for the business.
It will help to understand different aspects of the traffic management for the website.
It will help to understand the interests of the visitors, their preferences and so on.
Online conversation rate measurements will help to understand the scope of more conversion, how to generate more lead and so on.
It will help to understand the lead generation funnel.
It will help to improve the lead generation and overall performance of the business.
Some of the procurement practices supporting the concepts of green IT are,
Virtualisation of the computers and servers can help in saving energy consumption in many ways. For example,
The energy cost for the college is estimated below,
| ENERGY STAR Computer Power Management Savings Calculator | ||||||
| Savings Estimate | ||||||
| Energy Saved Annually (kWh) | Dollars Saved Annually | 3-Year Totals | ||||
| $ Savings | Pollution Prevented: CO2 (in tons) | Equivalent to: | ||||
| Acres of trees planted | Number of cars removed | |||||
| Savings from ENERGY STAR qualified monitors vs. standard monitors: | 67,153.0 | $6,069.96 | $16,844.69 | 154.6 | 31.88 | 25.69 |
| Savings from ENERGY STAR qualified notebooks vs. standard notebooks: | - | $0.00 | $0.00 | - | - | - |
| Savings from ENERGY STAR qualified desktops vs. standard desktops: | 43,930.5 | $3,970.87 | $11,019.54 | 101.1 | 20.86 | 16.81 |
| Total savings from ENERGY STAR qualified monitors & computers: | 111,083.5 | $10,040.83 | $27,864.23 | 255.8 | 52.74 | 42.50 |
| Savings from monitors going into sleep mode: | 354,275.2 | $32,022.93 | $88,866.56 | 815.7 | 168.19 | 135.54 |
| Savings from notebook displays going into sleep mode: | - | $0.00 | $0.00 | - | - | - |
| Total savings from monitor sleep mode: | 354,275.2 | $32,022.93 | $88,866.56 | 815.7 | 168.19 | 135.54 |
| Savings from desktops going into system standby or hibernate mode: | 371,663.3 | $33,594.64 | $93,228.20 | 855.8 | 176.44 | 142.19 |
| Savings from notebooks going into system standby or hibernate mode: | - | $0.00 | $0.00 | - | - | - |
| Total savings from system standby and hibernate mode: | 371,663.3 | $33,594.64 | $93,228.20 | 855.8 | 176.44 | 142.19 |
| Total savings from monitor and computer sleep settings: | 725,938.5 | $65,617.58 | $182,094.75 | 1,671.5 | 344.63 | 277.72 |
| Total Savings: | 837,021.9 | $75,658.4 | $209,959.0 | 1,927.2 | 397.37 | 320.22 |
For IDMC, the calculation for the 500 computers is,
| Savings Estimate | ||||||
| Energy Saved Annually (kWh) | Dollars Saved Annually | 3-Year Totals | ||||
| $ Savings | Pollution Prevented: CO2 (in tons) | Equivalent to: | ||||
| Acres of trees planted | Number of cars removed | |||||
| Savings from ENERGY STAR qualified monitors vs. standard monitors: | 224,729.4 | $20,313.29 | $56,371.23 | 517.4 | 106.69 | 85.97 |
| Savings from ENERGY STAR qualified notebooks vs. standard notebooks: | - | $0.00 | $0.00 | - | - | - |
| Savings from ENERGY STAR qualified desktops vs. standard desktops: | 114,530.4 | $10,352.40 | $28,728.86 | 263.7 | 54.37 | 43.82 |
| Total savings from ENERGY STAR qualified monitors & computers: | 339,259.8 | $30,665.69 | $85,100.09 | 781.1 | 161.06 | 129.79 |
| Savings from monitors going into sleep mode: | 196,518.8 | $17,763.33 | $49,294.87 | 452.5 | 93.30 | 75.18 |
| Savings from notebook displays going into sleep mode: | - | $0.00 | $0.00 | - | - | - |
| Total savings from monitor sleep mode: | 196,518.8 | $17,763.33 | $49,294.87 | 452.5 | 93.30 | 75.18 |
| Savings from desktops going into system standby or hibernate mode: | 218,011.8 | $19,706.09 | $54,686.18 | 502.0 | 103.50 | 83.40 |
| Savings from notebooks going into system standby or hibernate mode: | - | $0.00 | $0.00 | - | - | - |
| Total savings from system standby and hibernate mode: | 218,011.8 | $19,706.09 | $54,686.18 | 502.0 | 103.50 | 83.40 |
| Total savings from monitor and computer sleep settings: | 414,530.6 | $37,469.42 | $103,981.05 | 954.5 | 196.80 | 158.59 |
| Total Savings: | 753,790.4 | $68,135.1 | $189,081.1 | 1,735.6 | 357.86 | 288.38 |
Following investments are possible for the green IT initiatives for the selected project of changing the power consumption of the 500 monitors used by the IDMC. Use of virtualisation will no longer require high computing power of the local computers. So, the power consumption can be lowered. At the same time replacement of the existing monitors will reduce the power consumption and emission of carbon-di-oxide. The equivalent CO2 emission is 1,735.6 tons.
The calculation for the payback period for the selected project is also given below.
The payback period can be calculated as, investment/savings. The total investment can be around $100,000 in a year including the cost of the machinery, virtualisation and so on. And the savings is, $68,135.1.
So the payback period is, or nearly 1.5 years.
The selected project is replacement of the monitors of the 500 computers in use at the IDMC with the help of eco-friendly computers. The calculation to estimate the emission of carbon-di-oxide from those machines is 1,735.6 tons in a year.
The comparison of the energy consumption and CO2 emission with the benchmarking of other companies is given below.
Carbon footprint standard for green computing for a small to medium scale business is, 40Kg. Then it will be called carbon neutral. Hence, in compared to the scale, the carbon footprint is very high for the IDMC.
It is recommended for the business to undertake the project on replacement of the existing monitors with the eco-friendly monitors, using sleep mode for the monitors when those are not in use, employees must turn off the monitor while leaving their desk after their jobs. The company must not keep the monitors turned on in nights when the monitors are not being used.
Login
Pages: 4
Words: 890