Company's CIO tells <i>Network World</i> that by reducing demand for redundant platforms, it finds it needs fewer machines Consulting company Deloitte is embracing green IT in a big way, according to a Network World interview with the company’s CIO Larry Quinlan. Beyond replacing traditional computers with thin laptops, embracing LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for its new datacenter, and getting rid of excess printers, the company has found savings through application centralization and platform standardization. Following are some excerpts from the interview that I found particularly interesting (though I do recommend reading the rest of the interview in its entirety). Network World: You talked about the need to reduce operating costs and demand for computing resources. How do you reduce demand? Quinlan: The first way we deal with demand is by actually understanding it. People ask for all kinds of applications, which then drive the need for all kinds of servers and system development efforts. By really understanding what people are asking for, by assigning folks to understand the business and the business processes, we get a good feel for what we ought to do. So in some cases you realize a request for 10 different systems could really be met by two systems. In some cases, if you can demonstrate how to fix a process, maybe you don’t need the system at all. If you put in place platforms that allow things like collaboration, then you move away from one-off systems to deal with each request and instead build on top of these platforms. Don’t have eight different CRM systems; change the business process such that you have one CRM system. Those are all techniques we’re using to get across the goal line. Network World: You’ve … got a strategy to eliminate applications and centralize what’s left. How does that relate to your green IT efforts? Quinlan: Application centralization has several benefits to it. First, of the techniques one would use to do application centralization, the first is platform standardization. Instead of building multiple applications to do the same kind of collaboration, you build all of the applications on a common platform. The second is application standardization [as in the CRM example mentioned earlier]. That’s just good business in my mind and allows us to be more nimble and agile. And if you standardize those platforms and associated applications, it goes a long way toward doing server virtualization and consolidation; that’s where the green benefit comes in. But it’s not a silver bullet. Everyone is looking for some silver bullet. If I do this, I’ll save the planet. It isn’t like that. We’re just approaching this in a pragmatic way. Are there ways we can reduce our emissions? The answer is yes, if we do these eight or nine projects in these three or four buckets, we’ll do better. Let’s just do it and make it good business and move on.(Thanks to Environmental Leader for pointing out this interview.) Technology Industry