Green Initiatives in Technology

The world of technology makes many things easier and more accessible but it also needs electricity to run.  The computers, phones and other electronics and use a very large amount of power.  In an effort to reduce our impact on the planet and to reduce the costs to the tax payer the Kimberly Area School District Technology Department has implemented a number of programs to be more "Green".

Power Saving

With the help of a rebate provided by the Focus on Energy organization we have installed a power management application that allows us to control the power settings on all computers. The software monitors the computers activity and during periods of inactivity will power down parts of the computer. In the evening it will automatically shut down computers and monitors that are accidentally left on. This information is collected and reports of energy savings can be produced to analyze our energy use.

Virtual Servers

Traditional server setups required us to have an separate computer for each operating system we were running or for each application. The number of server computers quickly grows and the consumption of power to run the servers and to cool them increases.  With virtual server software we are able to run multiple server operating systems on a single physical computer. In our case we have been able to take 34 physical computers and move them to 2 physical computers yet still maintain 34 running servers.  This greatly reduces energy consumption.

Recycling

All broken or obsolete equipment from the schools is collected and picked up by a certified electronics recycler.  The equipment is then dismantled and the individual components are either re-purposed or recycled and this avoids it going to the landfill.