Rahul Desai's Blog

‘Go Green’ seems to be the Mantra of the moment. Not sure if it’s an outcome of the recession, every organization is talking about it – big time. I recently happened to attend one of Microsoft’s technology conferences - Tech.Ed 2009 (SHOW TIME!! :D), which had lots to say in this regard. (I'm curious on learning more about Symantec's role in this line. Anyway.)
 
And while I thought it was just big enterprises’ business, I recently came across a very nice ‘Special Report’ in The Economic Times, all about ‘going green’ using technology. While their purpose was to elaborate the potential of a concept called ‘cloud computing’ as an eco-friendly option reducing some direct expenditure for SMEs; my interest is to highlight the understanding of the three keywords:
 

• SME
• Cloud computing
• And, Go Green.

 
Although the article talks all technical stuff, they’ve neatly explained the concept. Go ahead – it’s not so bad. 
 
The dramatic economic meltdown over the past few months has proved to be a veritable tsunami for the Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs). However, the turn of events has induced the SMEs to revisit their existing business models that had helped them to survive and grow in the past.

In the process of achieving this objective, Information Technology (IT) has emerged as one of the most critical elements of growth. The era of ‘making-do’ with an accounting package, a payroll application, and a bunch of spreadsheets populated with unreliable and irrelevant data, from a management perspective, has now ended. In today’s scenario, real-time information based on transactional data being captured at an operational level across functions and locations, triggers and alerts from the management’s dashboard, and re-designed business processes and workflows that are enabled electronically are all becoming essential in order to survive and grow.

The IT budgets for SMEs have been increasing significantly over the past few years. However, large portions of these budgets have been earmarked to procure ‘tangible’ products like PCs, servers and networking hardware. SME offices and factories have undergone tremendous change from their previously traditional ‘paper-and-files’ formats to an upgraded ‘Monitor-Keyboard-Mouse’ environment. Furthermore, open offices have now transformed into an air-conditioned maze of cubicles.

Impact of IT usage on environment

India’s increasing expenditure on IT and its resulting influence on the environment needs no further emphasis. The software hubs in India have been experiencing firsthand, year-on-year increase in ambient temperature. The impact due to the increasingly unmanageable traffic caused by the commuting of IT/ ITeS workers is also extremely tangible, and needs no further elucidation.

However, what needs elaboration is the fact that the overall environment change we have witnessed of late is primarily due to the increase in IT usage by relatively few large business enterprises-primarily in urban areas. The potential carbon footprint of the coming wave of increasing IT usage by literally millions of SMEs across the country is definitely an environmentalist’s nightmare.

Cloud computing

The challenge lies in providing a solution that addresses the SME’s need for IT-based solutions at extremely affordable prices, while simultaneously reducing the environmental impact dramatically. Cloud computing is increasingly becoming accepted as the only way to address this dual challenge. Cloud computing is an offering that involves a ‘disruption’ in the way IT is delivered to customers and consumers. Cloud computing envisages huge data centers hosting software that end-users can access through the worldwide web in a safe and reliable manner. However, the SME would need to invest in providing simple, low-cost, low carbon footprint internet access devices (also called thin-clients, netbooks, etc.).

Affordable options for SMEs

Instead of incurring capital expenditure for procuring servers and software, and then incurring additional revenue expenditure for managing these on-premise installations, customers would now be required to pay only for accessing this software as a subscription on a pay-per-use basis. The offering would not only obviate the need for an SME to incur any capital expenditure, but also eliminate the need for recruiting, training, and retaining expensive IT professionals. This “sachetisation” of access to IT with the resultant ‘pay-per-use’ affordable pricing-is expected to enhance IT penetration in the SME segment positioned at the bottom-of-the-pyramid.

Environment-friendly for the SMEs

From an environmental perspective, the low-cost devices that the SME would need to procure would each need only 10 to 50 W of power as compared to 150W+ required for a typical PC. As these devices would have no moving parts and would not become obsolete in a couple of years, the resultant increased lifetime would mean phenomenal reductions in potential e-waste generation. In addition, as end-users could access their data from anywhere and at anytime, the amount of commuting and travelling that information workers are required to do could reduce dramatically.

Environment-friendly at the data centre

The preclusion of millions of power-hungry servers, and the resulting reduction in additional air-conditioners and UPS/Battery combinations will significantly reduce the impact on the environment. Significant R&D in server technology-blade servers, multi-core processors, developments in basic semi-conductor design that
reduce the need for heating and cooling-is also driving data centers to become more environment-friendly.

Cloud computing effectively addresses the needs of SME customers and enables them to manage their businesses more efficiently, and in an affordable manner. Not only does it offer SMEs the option of pay-per-use without upfront capital expenditure and high-cost IT professionals, but it also enables the SME to access the latest technology while ensuring that the carbon footprint generated is minimal.
 
Cloud computing is in – how about you?

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What is Blackle?

It is the black version of Google.

Why Blackle?

A few months ago, TreeHugger Mark Ontkush wrote a post on his blog EcoIron titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year. The post lays out the following train of thought. "An all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts." Google, which has a white background and gets about "200 million queries a day" could reduce global energy use by 750 Megawatt-hours a year by simply changing the color of its homepage to black.

How Blackle?

In response to this post a black version of Google emerged called Blackle.com. According to Blackle's homepage at publication time, 4,408.917 Watt hours have been saved by. Nice ideas. But how does the search measure up? Very well indeed. Give it a whirl yourself and start saving energy one search at a time. :: Blackle.com

Also check: http://www.bloogle1.com

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Edge over analog

In a conventional analog CCTV system, an analog camera transmits the analog signal over coaxial cable, to terminate at the display and/or recording device. These are typically dumb systems where there can be no intelligence or analysis of the video data without human intervention to retrieve and evaluate the recorded material.

In an IP-based system, a digital camera transmits the digitized video signal via ethernet over a Cat 5 LAN cable to a LAN switch and into a Video Server (Computer). The server manages and manipulates the video signal from this and other digital cameras and displays, records, retransmits the images in nearly an infinite number of options that are selected by the administrative software, including sending data via the Internet to any site on the world-wide web. Thus an IP-based solution is capable of analyzing and recording the data in selectable software formats, and can initiate preventive actions.

IP-based surveillance systems have an edge compared to the conventional analog CCTV-based solutions as they enable live video to be transmitted, stored and managed over a single data network. In many cases, IP based–surveillance systems can be easily integrated with existing analogue CCTV systems.

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• Routing and Switching: Professionals who install and support Cisco technology-based networks in which Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) routers and switches reside.
• Design: Professionals who design networks in which LAN and WAN routers and switches reside.
• Network Security: Those who design and implement secure networks.
• Service Provider: Professionals working with infrastructure or access solutions in an end-to-end environment primarily within the telecommunications arena.
• Storage Networking: Professionals who implement storage solutions over extended network infrastructure using multiple transport options.
• Voice: Those who install and maintain voice solutions over IP networks.

• Network Administration: Designations vary from network manager, infrastructure manager, networking engineer, IT engineer, network systems administrator, web technical administrator, customer support engineer, hardware technician and network technician among others.
• Network Design: Designations vary from IT architect, network research & analysis manager, systems architect, information systems auditor operations analyst, network planning analyst and network systems analyst among others.
• Network Communications: Designations vary from VoIP engineer/architect, telecommunications administrator, telecommunications analyst, voice communications analyst, telecommunications technician, network data communications technician and EDI specialist among others.
• Network Security: Designations vary from computer security specialist, network security engineer, network security manager and information systems security manager among others.
  

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A wi-fi enabled notebook and a compatible multimedia cell-phone (with sufficient calling currency) can make a killer combination.

6:25 in the morning, the machine wakes up and a preset media player playlist pops up (Scheduled task) at my service. Meanwhile, Nokia PC Suit auto-connects to ‘AirTel Mobile Office’. 6:30 now, Outlook Express comes in (a Scheduled task again), and ‘you have no new messages’. Not an issue; there will be one, by 9 for sure. And I guessed it right: there’s a new message, on reaching the office. Mail from a friend, asking to meet over coffee, post-work in the evening. Ctrl+R, “Deal”, Alt+s. Needful done. No redundant communications ever, after this. Just an email, and an acknowledging reply. (Thankfully, none of those hundreds of planning-calls, Rs 1.20/min each)

Between this, the reminder on cell-phone ticks: I have to make a presentation post-lunch between 3:00 and 4:00pm. The ‘Meeting’-type reminder also specifies the person’s name and contact number whom I have to ‘meet’, apart from the meeting timing and duration. Not to mention, all this well in advance, giving me all my time to rehearse. On the way, I realize the cell-phone battery is low. No issues: the latest technology DKU-5 (cell-to-PC connecting cable) can also be used to charge the cell-phone through the notebook’s battery. Thank USB! So here I manage to reach, on time. It’s a government office: Bhopal Development Authority (BDA).

As the name suggests, an Indian government - Sarkari scene. The boss appears at 3:20pm and asks me to wait a while more. No issues: I can transfer the images captured in the BDA gardens from the cell to PC, meanwhile. And guess what? A mail from Sonalben (my cousin in Fremont). She’s sent her kids’ pictures. Ummm… why not transfer it to the cell and set it as the wallpaper? Thankfully, BDA Boss gives me all the time under the sun to do the needful. And this really looks good on cell-screen. I better MMS it to Ben (my sibling, married in Bombay). Instant SMS reply from her, she liked it too. And Boss too has time to shower his mercy.

Done with the meeting, back to my own office around 5:30pm. And something waiting for me: a voice message in the answering machine. Whoever it is, just doesn’t know how to leave a message to an answering machine. But hey, why does it show my cell-number on the ‘in’ list? Just a sec. The voice message is from my cell. What the (!?) Oh, I had set all calls diverted to my office number actually. Need to check the received calls list, for that time. Mom’s cell? I better call her. Oh, I see. Ben sent Sonalben’s kids’ picture to Mom’s cell. Mom called back to tell me she loved the pic. Just wanted to covey. Message some how conveyed.(ultimately!) Ma, it just doesn’t end with buying a 3-G mobile phone.

The invite in the morning-mail read '6:30pm, Barista’; I manage to reach on time and here I find them- two of them, already there. Waiting for me (never knew my single-word mail ‘Deal’ was so committing and powerful). Sipping up the bitter caffeine, these guys will talk anything but sense. But didn’t I really need this? A healthy-light-pointless, short-talk; to end a hectic-restless-tiring day? Agreed, you have to schedule even your breathing when in business; but then hello! What’s the point taking up your own venture if you can’t take a little time out to chill with friends? Oh, friends reminded me, Bina-Pritesh (Birmingham, USA) called this morning. Lisa-Emma (London) were with them. They had flown in for a vacation. All had a ball of time, touring. I was in the middle of my presentation rehearsal then; so called them back later, around noon.

Hi-tech communication resources, as well as an access to them; not a big deal these days. Challenge is to make best utilization out of this access. It’s a challenge, as far as you’re out of reasons. With a bunch of first-grade friends, spread all over the world, what stops you use the technology? As one of my friends in West say, ‘None ain’t no far no more’!

If technology can regulate my routine (for good), if I can be the best in touch with all my people in different corners of the sphere, is it so bad being so technology-dependant? If not, am I too late reach this level?

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