Top 12 green IT products

Network World - Editor's Note: Network World and Computerworld teamed up this year to conduct a "green IT" survey. The goal was to identify organizations that are implementing smart, efficient strategies to achieve green IT and to identify the most popular green IT products and technologies in use today.

Invitations to fill out the online questionnaire were sent to the IT community through a variety of channels, including e-mail newsletters, e-mail broadcasts and social media. Ninety-five organizations completed the survey during the May-July time frame.We then contacted representatives at the participating organizations to verify that the information provided on the survey was truthful and accurate. Only organizations that filed verification letters were considered.

Based on a weighting scheme, Computerworld selected its top 12 Green-IT Users and top 12 Green-IT Vendors.

Network World asked respondents to identify their most useful and effective green-IT products . We narrowed that list down to the 12 that got the most mentions. (Watch a slideshow version.)

Solar panels on the roof? Nope. Wind powered turbines? Negative. Air-side economizers? No. Photovoltaics? Biofuels? Nanotechnology. Not so much.

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Fancy, new energy saving gizmos and technologies were hardly mentioned by our survey respondents, 95 in-the-trenches IT execs. Instead, we found IT managers focusing their green efforts on cost-effective, nuts and bolts products, technologies and tactics that don't require huge capital expenditures.

And we found that money-savings green initiatives aren't limited to the data center. IT execs are thinking green from the desktop monitor to the recycling bin to the copy machine.

The move beyond the data center is an important one, says Forrester analyst Doug Washburn. He cites recent Forrester research showing IT playing a central role in corporate sustainability efforts at 38% of 476 organizations surveyed.

Whether they're turning down power at the desktop or instituting technology enabling the paperless office, IT will find greater opportunity for financial and environmental savings the more they look outside the data center, Washburn says.

Here are the top 12 areas where survey respondents are going green.

IT efficiency

Energy-efficient server hardware

People's picks: Dell PowerEdge servers, Fujitsu Primergy BX900 blade servers

What makes them green: IT leaders are demanding energy-efficient hardware, and vendors are listening. That's particularly true when it comes to server hardware, where performance-per-watt is improving markedly thanks primarily to improvements at the processor level, says Andy Lawrence, eco-efficient IT research director at The 451 Group.

"IBM, HP, Dell – they're all putting a lot of thought into how servers are designed for efficiency. For example, they're putting more effort into the number and placement of fans, airflow, use of power supplies and converters. And these all can add up, and combined with power management at the processor, we've seen rapid progress in the last few years," he says.