University Services Rolls Out Green Computing Pilot
Vice President O’Brien recruited a team from across the University and then charged us to put a number of good conservation ideas into practice. The Energy Conservation Operations (ECO) team has been meeting since June and is prepared to roll out a green computing pilot to U Services on November 9.
The idea is to run computers through a step down process that conserves energy when a machine is not being actively used. University Services Infrastructure Support (USIS) conducted a successful mini-pilot in October to ensure the process would work. They will now use Active Directory to apply it U Services wide.
No action will be required of you. The step down process looks like this, after an individual computer is not in use for a certain time these actions will be automatically initiated:
1. Screen Saver - 9 minutes. This is currently in place
2. Monitor Turn off - 10 minutes
3. Hard Drive Turn off - 15 minutes
4. Stand-By mode - 60 minutes (the biggest impact for energy savings)
To 'wake up' your computer from any of these settings simply jiggle the mouse or press the escape key, some laptops and desktops may require you to press the power button (please remember not to hold it down for more than two seconds).
Our results indicate that you will not lose any documents in progress (MS Office, etc) or access to applications (unless the applications time out) as the computer goes through these power down steps. In addition, if you Remote Desktop into your computer, the computer will 'wake on lan' which will bring your computer out of the stand-by mode if you remote into it.
This will be a phased roll out beginning November 9. If your computer experiences any issues, please contact Systems Support at 5-1830, or email at usitss@umn.edu.
Thank you in advance for being a part of the University's commitment to conserving energy, it is important for University Services to lead by example. This program has potential to save up to $40 per machine and It All Adds Up!
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