How to rein in power-hogging data centers

In this 14-minute podcast, Dan Esty, one of the world's leading experts on corporate environmental strategy, and Dennis Quan, CTO of IBM High Performance On Demand Solutions, look at the explosion of power use by today's rapidly growing data centers. A recent EPA report estimated data centers use 1.5 percent of the total electricity generated in the United States — a figure that has doubled in the past five years and will double again by 2011 at an operating cost of $7.4 billion annually. The problem and solutions, including a smarter approach to IT, are discussed.