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Mission: To
provide Volusia County agencies with a secure and
reliable information technology and communications
infrastructure along with the IT products, services,
and knowledge necessary to streamline operations and
deliver the highest quality customer service.
What they
are doing to be more “green”
The
Information Technology Division has taken steps to
help conserve energy, and reduce consumption and
costs. This process requires an ongoing search for
new opportunities including the phasing-in of more
efficient technologies as new equipment is acquired
and older equipment retired. Helping in this
process is the fact that computer manufacturers are
now expressing a greater awareness of environmental
issues and are experiencing greater pressure by
consumers to become more environmentally sensitive.
The computer industry is responding by bringing
products that are more efficient to the market,
which will benefit us all.
Reducing power consumption of personal computers
(PCs) located in county government offices
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The Computing Security Policy not only promotes
system security, but also power conservation by
requiring PCs to be turned off at the end of the
workday. Turning off the approximately 75% of
the county’s PCs not required for
around-the-clock operation such as the jail, has
resulted in savings of up to $55,000 annually.
According to a study
by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, one workstation
(computer and monitor) left on all night for a year
is responsible for one ton of carbon dioxide
emissions. Switching it off at night and setting it
to standby when not in use during the day can reduce
energy use by as much as 80 percent.
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The Information
Technology Division rolled out a program that
automatically places PC monitors and hard drives
in standby mode after a period of inactivity
during the workday. The result is reduced power
consumption with an estimated savings of at
least an additional $10,000 annually.
Depressing a key on the keyboard, or moving the
mouse returns the PC from standby mode to normal
operation.
ENERGY
STAR is a joint program of the EPA and the U.S.
Department of Energy that sets standards for
energy-efficient products and practices.
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Nearly all
computers and monitors procured by the
Information Technology Division for county use
are labeled ENERGY STAR, which are typically
more energy efficient.
Reducing the amount of e-trash going to the landfill
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Information
Technology Division’s PC lifecycle management
program extends PC life and reduces the amount
of electronic trash sent to the landfill. PCs
that no longer meet county requirements are
recycled through an employee purchase program.
PCs not purchased by employees are returned to
the county’s PC supplier to be refurbished and
re-circulated on the secondary market. This
program has successfully recycled over 3,800 PCs
to date.
Reducing power consumption of equipment located in
the county’s data center
The
EPA predicts that energy consumption by U.S. servers
and data centers will nearly double in the next five
years, reaching more than 100 billion KWH and
costing businesses roughly $7.4 billion a year.
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To slow the
growth of power consumption in the county’s data
center, the Information Technology Division is
using centralized tape backup equipment rather
than standalone systems dedicated to individual
servers. One central tape unit can back up 25
to 50 servers, which according to equipment
manufacturer specifications; can result in power
consumption savings of over 85%.
According to a white
paper published on Data Center Power
Consumption, new equipment consumes about 50%
less power per terabyte of storage space than
other storage technologies.
Data storage technology used by the Information
Technology Division maximizes increased storage
capacity, reduces the amount of needed
equipment, and minimizes power consumption.
Based on the Data Center Capacity Planner by
Dell, for every ten servers consolidated into
one server, a savings of 80% in electrical and
cooling consumption can be realized.
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Information Technology is utilizing server
virtualization technology to regain floor space
in the data center, improve server management,
and reduce server software and hardware costs.
A positive byproduct of server virtualization is
the reduction in server power consumption.
Server virtualization technology provides the
ability to run multiple software programs on one
server instead of multiple servers. Currently,
ten virtualized servers have replaced 42 servers
in the county’s data center and these same
virtualized servers will be used to eliminate up
to an additional 40 servers as they reach
end-of-life.
Reducing fuel
consumption
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Information
Technology Division utilizes a software tool
that is freely available over the Internet,
which allows IT staff to provide remote
technical support from any location.
Through the use of this software, end-users
in county departments can grant control of
their PC to an IT analyst or a Support Desk
team member from anywhere in the county.
This remote connectivity gives IT technical
staff the ability to assist computer users,
as well as troubleshoot and repair a large
number of service requests from the office
rather than traveling to the site. An
analyst can also use this tool when in the
field by logging into any available PC.
Utilization of this process has reduced the
amount of travel necessary to support
offices throughout the county improving the
efficiency of service calls and reducing
fuel consumption.
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Information
Technology’s Radio Services section uses a
monitoring system to check on the emergency
backup generators located at various radio
sites throughout the county. Use of this
system minimizes the number of trips needed
to check on the generator at each site,
thereby reducing fuel consumption.
Reducing
paper consumption
The Information
Technology Division continues to roll out
Liberty, the county’s Electronic Document
Management System (EDMS), to various workgroups
throughout the county. Liberty is comprised of
software and hardware required to maintain
document control including scanned images and
electronic files such as spreadsheets,
documents, and graphics. The complete system
includes document imaging, optical character
recognition, text retrieval, workflow, and
import/export capabilities. Once captured in
Liberty, information is available via the
county’s Intranet for use by staff.
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Liberty’s
electronic document storage and sharing
capability can dramatically reduce paper and
print cartridge consumption through reduced
print requirements.
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Nightly
processes captures large amounts of data,
imports the information directly into
Liberty allowing staff to review reports
electronically at their desks eliminating
printing requirements.
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Over 4
million documents are currently stored in
Liberty, which is equal to 243 tons of
letter-sized paper or 1,561 4-drawer file
cabinets of paper no longer needed.
Approximately 60,000 new documents are added to
Liberty each month, and end-users perform an
average of 5,180 requests (searches) per month
for electronically stored documents.
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