Recently in Green IT Category

Extreme Networks has copied Nortel's campaign of attacking the Cisco Energy Tax, but then hides energy consumption behind unreal 'best practices', and creates a closed calculator tool.

Virtually all Extreme's estimated "savings" are based on their assumption that all phones/ports are powered off - every night, weekends and holidays. Basically Extreme's "Green IT" best practices design recommendation is that customers power their network down the equivalent of 106 days out of the year to save electricity. For the vast majority of companies that I talk to this approach does not make either business or operational sense. Reject this best practice and the result is higher energy bills and TCO with Extreme solutions.

I admire truth in advertising.

And the Cisco human network effect is hugely .....NEGATIVE... when it comes to CO2 emissions.

Across some 500 million Cisco enterprise ports globally, Cisco is adding an additional 11.5 MILLION metric tons of CO2, that wouldn't be added to the atmosphere if those ports were Nortel.

The EnergySmart Hospitals Initiative was launched last July and aims to help improve efficiency in existing buildings by 20%! This is a laudable objective, since more than 50% of institutions reported double digit energy cost increases... and lights out operation is not an option.

Part of that saving can be achieved by switching to Nortel healthcare solutions, which use 40% less energy, while delivering 7x the resilience of those from Cisco.

This is a win-win for energy conscious hospitals who also demand clinical-grade networks.

I've written extensively about the Cisco energy tax.

We have run into tow type of situations.
1. Enterprises with Green initiatives and someone who is accountable, immediately embrace 40% lower energy efficiency with Nortel (over Cisco) and start asking all the right questions (e.g. "Are we really best served by putting all our networking investments in Cisco's coffers?")
2. Others understand the Cisco energy tax but come back that they don't see or own the monthly energy bill, and so they don't have the budgetary impetus to change what they are doing.

London put sustainability at the heart of its bid for the 2012 Games, framed by the concept of 'Towards a One Planet Olympics'.

This was derived from the World Wildlife Federation BioRegional concept of 'One Planet Living®' , which is based on the fact that globally mankind are consuming resources at a faster
rate than the planet can replenish them. If everyone lived as most Europeans do, we would
need three planets; if as most North Americans do, then five!

In announcing Nortel as its Official Network Infrastructure Partner for the 2012 Games, the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games also declared Nortel as its Official Sustainability Partner.

I have spoken extensively about the Cisco Energy Tax. It's all part of our commitment to give you the facts on what your Cisco network is really costing you (up to 64% more according to a new Tolly Group report) and how Nortel can lower your recurring monthly energy bill substantially.

Now the Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator has gone public. You can calculate your savings for yourself, based on your specific environment. Just click here and start calculating.

Cisco just announced a four-year plan to make its business more environmentally friendly, but nothing specific to make its products more energy efficient. The Cisco energy tax will continue.

But Cisco IT doesn't have the option of saving a bundle by using Nortel data solutions. With over 65K employees and HQ'd in California, this is no small change: $10M and 40M KWH over 5 years.

Fortunately, unlike Cisco IT, you have a choice.

As did the Spring Independent School District in Houston, Texas, which is buying Nortel networking solutions, after assessing the Nortel's energy efficiency offer.

Watt should you do? Start by getting the facts.

"Another factor (in our decision to go with Nortel data) included costs savings on electrical consumption alone. This, combined with ease of configuration, time tested resiliency capabilities, and absence of code security issues commonly found in other vendor products provided a compelling case for making a switch from the University's incumbent vendor." That comes from Michael Firsdon, Network Engineering team lead at the University of Toledo (Ohio).

In fact the savings are no small change: $1.5M over 5 years, a number referenced by Joel Hackney at his keynote at Nortel user conference.

Customers are getting the facts on Nortel vs Cisco solutions, a key tool being the Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator.

Ever since Interop, there’s been a lot of buzz in the industry about the Cisco Energy Tax.

Customers have asked me: “Why are Cisco routers and switches such energy hogs?”

The answer lies in how Cisco has architected their products, driven by their network-centric strategy built on IOS. IOS has evolved into a Swiss army knife of functionality, with literally hundreds of features that most enterprises have little use for (I discussed this ‘Feature Creep’ in an earlier posting). Anyone still running DECnet or IPX in their networks?

Perhaps you've seen this ad?

Central to our efforts to give you the facts on the Cisco energy tax as compared to Nortel solutions, is the Nortel Energy Efficiency Calculator. This calculator is an engineering planning tool, that not only addressees networking in the data center (the hottest area in Green IT discussions), but also the converged LAN/WAN including IP phones and call servers.

I played with it and it’s a very neat tool..