ICT INFRASTRUCTURE

ICT Infrastructure

ICT Infrastructure

Although often unknown to many, ICT infrastructure has emerged particularly since 2007 and experienced impressive growth in the past three years as a new business and technological and social phenomenon. ICT infrastructure is still an evolving term that is subject to various interpretations by different parties, and at this writing there is no commonly agreed upon definition. It can, however, generally be understood as how information technology is planned, designed, deployed, developed, used, and disposed in a environmentally and socially responsible and economically sustainable manner. (Denstadli, 2010: pp. 371-376) ICT infrastructure includes not only a set of new technological innovations such as data center greening, server virtualization, energy-efficient computers, and cloud computing, but also a set of new organizational practices and strategies such as e-waste management, telecommuting, IT recycle and remarket, and power management.

ICT infrastructure is a comprehensive term encompassing multiple dimensions as each of the aspects mentioned above (and oftentimes multiples of them) can be associated with different technological innovations and/or organizational strategies. For instance, on the “dispose” aspect of ICT infrastructure implementation, organizations can develop a set of responsible e-waste management programs to properly recycle their IT equipment and/or redeploy it by giving it to other departments or organizations for reuse. In another example, on the “plan,” “deploy,” and “use” aspects, the green data center has emerged as a key ICT infrastructure innovation to store, process, and manage data and servers for higher energy efficiency and lower environmental impact. To reach these goals, the green data center often implements a set of new technologies and strategies such as using virtualization and storage tiering technologies to enhance the server capacity, low-emission building materials to decrease the carbon footprint  of data centers, and alternative energy to increase cooling of servers. Server virtualization is a major technology used to green the data centers. It involves defining and combining several virtual machines in one powerful physical box, thus giving access to different people and applications. This could increase the capacity utilization of the physical server and eliminate the need for and energy cost of using several physical servers. (Qiang, 2009: pp. 235)

In terms of areas and scope of application, ICT infrastructure has recently expanded from ICT infrastructure 1.0 to ICT infrastructure 2.0. The commonly referred to ICT infrastructure 1.0 focuses on the traditional application of ICT infrastructure in the IT domain itself—how to reduce energy and carbon footprints of IT equipments that include computers, printers, servers, data centers, and so on. More recently, the potential of IT's role in climate change has been experimented with and is starting to be implemented from the IT domain to virtually all other non-IT areas and industries such as water, transportation, and city. In the new ICT infrastructure 2.0 innovation, IT's potential role has been explored to make the rest of the world efficient and green. Examples include the design and use of smart meters using IT in smart grids that help homes and offices to be more energy efficient, and the design and ...