Green IT for Dummies®

Chapter 4. Getting to Know the Standards and Metrics

In This Chapter

• Knowing the role of standards

• Involving standards and metrics in IT practices

• Looking at ongoing standards development

• Getting ratings from various groups

Standards play a central role in modern information technology. Since the introduction of the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) in 1963, use of widely accepted industry standards has made IT growth even faster: Such standards allow users to mix the best solutions from multiple sources, instead of locking them into proprietary products from a single vendor.

Standards development and application can produce broad, long-lasting effects:

• Timely, well-crafted standards often create major new markets. The Internet Engineering Task Force RFC series was key to the Internet's explosive growth.

• Standards often find application in areas their creators never dreamt of. The ubiquitous 19-inch racks that fill your data center — all built to the EIA-310-D standard — trace their ancestry to the early days of railroad signaling, when 19-inch racks held electromechanical relays that controlled the safe movement of trains.

Note

Standards related to green IT are in early development.

• The most mature standards — mostly those applying to consumer and desktop computing — rate IT equipment in terms of green concerns, such as energy consumption, the use of hazardous material, and eventual disposal.

• Standards for larger equipment, such as servers, are still in development. ...