Everyone is Going Green

As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, green design, energy conservation and environmental friendliness have become major issues that the information technology industry, among others, is beginning to confront. Around the globe, government regulations, rising energy costs and power shortages are driving companies to look at green IT alternatives.

For companies in China and elsewhere in Asia, the need to meet new government energy conservation standards is slowly forcing IT administrators to consider where in their IT infrastructure they can reduce energy use.

By turning to green technologies now, companies can avoid higher costs and regulatory problems later. Green design, also known as sustainable design, eco-design, or design for the environment (DfE), is the art of designing products and buildings to meet principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability. This includes green operations and management systems and best practices in energy saving, recycling, and hazardous substances control to prevent further environmental damage.

H3C’s Green IT Project

Compliance with government regulations is driving many projects, but uptake is slow. In this environment, companies who fail to consider green as a key factor in IT projects could find themselves with serious challenges, which is why H3C has initiated its Green IT Project.

As a leading global IP solution provider, H3C is fully aware of the importance of green design, and is devoted to promoting the idea of “Green IT”. H3C has made great efforts to reduce the impact of its products on the environment throughout their entire lifecycle, from product development, procurement, manufacturing and installation, to recycling and reuse. As early as the initial design phase, H3C fully considers environmental performance issues such as waste prevention and material selection to minimize the adoption of poisonous and hazardous substances, raise energy efficiency, and extend product life spans. These help reduce waste generation during the manufacturing process and in the use of H3C’s products.

Energy efficient designs are a key part of H3C’s green philosophy. By designing its products with energy savings in mind, H3C has been able to make most of its switches and routers 10-40 percent more energy efficient. H3C has improved the energy efficiency roadmap of its products to continuously minimize the environmental impact of a product during its lifecycle.

H3C also advocates reuse and recycling for environmental friendliness and energy savings. Early in the design process, H3C defines the target reuse and recycle rate for each product. H3C has also developed recycling guidelines that provide clear descriptions of the harmful substances in a given product, and affixed a recycling mark that shows ways of safe removal. The result, more than 80 percent of H3C products are recyclable. Poisonous and hazardous substance control is an important part of H3C’s environmental protection policies. Along with meeting the requirements of various government regulations like the EU’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), H3C also limits the use of 11 additional poisonous materials.

Improving their products is one way H3C is leading the green IT revolution. Another is its commitment to using eco-friendly operations and management systems to further protect the environment and contribute, as a responsible corporate citizen to a more environmentally-friendly society. To achieve this H3C advocates full employee involvement in its green philosophy by reducing paper cup usage and setting up separate disposal bins for used batteries.

H3C’s Green Products

H3C’s green products incorporate a number of technologies to help lower their environmental footprints. For instance, H3C has adopted the PWM (pulse width modulated) design to its cooling fans, which enables dynamic adjustment of fan speed according to the surrounding temperature and the device’s operating status. For some low-end products like its MSR 20-1X routers and wireless AP devices, H3C uses a fanless design. And H3C widely uses multi-core designs for its router and security products that are programmable and easily upgraded via software, which reduces frequent equipment replacement.

By using virtualization, which divides the same physical network and server resources into different virtual networks, and numerous ports that can automatically close to minimize power consumption (one single S9512 switch supports 48 10GE ports or 576 GE ports), H3C’s customers can enjoy significant power savings and a reduced total cost of ownership for their IT infrastructure. By maximizing the performance of its green products, H3C’s customers also benefit from improved IT efficiency and a reduced eco-footprint.