Environmental Benefits Of Hosted Desktop Environments
by Paul Rudo on 23/02/12 at 8:13 am
Today’s consumers want great value, but they also want to know that they’re doing business with a responsible company that cares about their community. And organizations that foster a sense of social awareness within their corporate culture are the ones which prosper in today’s economy.
This can be seen at companies like Ben and Jerry’s, The Body Shop, Starbuck’s, Whole Foods, and many others. Today’s consumers want to know that the products they consume were the results of ethical behaviour.
Environmental sustainability also helps with employee morale and retention, which can help boost productivity by providing high-value workers with an enhanced sense of pride.
One great way that companies can simultaneously save money and do a good deed for the environment would be through the use of hosted virtual desktops.
Computers Last Longer
Every year, millions of old, obsolete computers are tossed out simply because they weren’t powerful enough to run the latest software. These discarded machines accumulate in landfills, where they can take centuries to decompose.
And every time an old computer is tossed out, huge amounts of fossil fuel energy must be spent in the production of new replacement computer hardware. Then, more fossil fuel must be burnt in order to ship these computers across the world to their final destination. After 2 or 3 years, this hardware becomes obsolete and the cycle starts over again.
With desktop virtualization, all of the hard work is done on a remote server. This means that you can significantly extend the life of your hardware. As long as a computer is powerful enough to run the remote desktop client, then it can run any apps you want through the server side.
This one benefit alone will save countless perfectly good computers from the trash heap.
Many organizations will also throw away perfectly good, brand new machines for the sake of IT efficiency. Some organizations believe that – from a TCO point of view – it’s simply cheaper to scrap every machine at once, and replace them with identical, cookie-cutter computers with the same hardware and configuration. That way, maintenance and support is greatly simplified.
However, this approach also generates a lot of waste. You could accomplish the same thing with virtual desktops without ever tossing a single piece of hardware.
Employees Work More Sustainably
Remote desktops also allow organizations to implement a “Bring your own PC” policy, without exposing the company to any of the security risks that would come from giving up control over the OS and software. Now, the working OS stays inside of its own virtual bubble… completely isolated from the user’s OS.
A BYOPC policy makes it easier for organizations to encourage teleworking. By occasionally working from home, employees can eliminate those miserable, gas-guzzling, rush-hour crawls to and from work. It’s a win-win situation for both the employer, the employee and the environment.
For the employer, teleworking also offers a number of important benefits such as better resiliency against external disruptions, overhead cost savings, and organizational flexibility.
If your company wants a simple way to cut costs while also helping the environment, you may want to consider a switch to hosted virtual desktops.
This article was made possible by mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc., a leader in outsourced IT services. If your company would like to leverage the benefits of a hosted virtual desktop environment, contact mindSHIFT today.
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