Forget the post I wrote yesterday, and the Network World article it pointed to. If you want to solve all your problems with your facility and don't mind for the rewards to come in a couple of months rather than a couple of weeks, Peter Judge of Green Data Center News has a very simple solution:

STOP BUYING NEW HARDWARE!

The funny thing is, this is not as preposterous as it first appears. If you think about it, it is actually stranger that vendors get away with playing the 'green' cards in the marketing/PR games. Every single piece of equipment added to the data center uses additional power. It is that simple. You really don't have to be PUE mathematician to figure that out.

Instead, maybe IT departments should only 'upgrade' whenever a machine breaks down. Most office applications actually work fine for years, so why even bother? Your IT environment actually gets to grow in a more organical way.

Or am I being a reactionary hippie now?