Technology

Incarta's vision requires the company to consider the environmental impact of the technologies that it develops, sells and supports.  Critical to this consideration is Green Computing.  So what is Green Computing and what do we do about it?

The term Green Computing referes to the practice of designing and deploying computing systems and networks in such a way as to minimise environmental impact.  The impact of computing technology can considerable.  Examples include:

• Exploitation of production comodoties such as hydrocarbons (for plastic), various metals, Silicon and rare earths.
• Green house gas production through the manufacturing process, shipping, sales and use.
• Environmental contamination due to manufacturing processes.
• Disposal (as land fill) and the subsequent leaching of toxins into the environmental.

The impact on the environment of the last decades explosion in computing technology has been enormous and will be felt many decades into the future.  All who participate in the computing revolution are part of the problem and potentially the solution.  Yet so often we see consumers unwilling to pay for sustainability being driven only by price, utility and fashion.

With significant reduction in time to market demands and price pressure it has been left to the major computing vendors and system integrators to drive innovation and reduce the impact of computing.  Foremost agmost the more environmental systainable technologies offered by companies like Oracle and VMware are the various virtualisation suites.

Virtuaisation technology enables multiple (virtual) servers to be installed on a single piece of hardware, thereby utilising the hardware resource more efficiently.  A decade ago, a single physical server may have functioned as a mail server or possibly a web server.  Now, in Incarta's data centre we are running single servers that are hosting up to thirty virtual servers - combinations of email, web and administrative servers.  This represents an enormous saving in power, cost and carbon production.  Virtualisation is now a practical reality for small business driving down costs, improving efficiency and reducing environmental impact.

Virtualisation is also available for the desktop.  Virtualise your personal computers in a data centre to dramatically reduce costs and carbon production.  So how do you access a virtualised computer - using a device known as a "Thin Client".  A Thin Client is simply a light weight computer with no disk drive and only a small amount of memory.  In fact Oracle Thin Clients (Sun Ray) don't even have an operating system!  Technically the Thin Client acts as a display device for a virtualised computer.  Now consider this: Oracle Thin Clients have no application program memory, disk drive or operating system, so what is there to upgrade?  Nothing!  And with a life time expectation of 20 years a single Sun Ray will outlast possibly six personal computers!  Think about it.....

 

What is Incarta Doing?

Well for a start we promote and sell the worlds most energy efficient computing technology.  Not only that, we use it ourselves.  All Incarta staff use virtualised desktop technology.  We access our desktops from where ever we are on what ever device we have access to - thin client or iPad.  It all works and it all clicks together.  We minimise travel making extensive use of conferencing services such as Skype.  The interesting thing is - what is good for the environment is generally good for business - yours and ours.

So talking to Incarta about green computing might just save you money and preserve a little more of the world for the next generation.

Our Computing Mantra

• Design Green
• Manufacture Green
• Use green
• Dispose of Green