Desktop Technologies

What's Happening

  • Watch the Computer Power and Patch Management demo to learn about the new campus service.
  • Want to know how it’s done? Read the Workstation Best Practice Implementations white paper for insight on how to administer energy-saving practices in your unit.
  • Kill-A-Watt Meters are available to borrow from campus libraries. Monitor your energy use by checking out a meter from circulation desks at Shapiro, Hatcher, or the Art, Architecture & Engineering Library
  • Check out the best practices for students, faculty, and staff to use on campus and at home.
  • Discover how the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) is using Kill-A-Watt meters to gather baseline measurements to test the desktop best practices.

 

The Desktop Technologies Team develops energy-saving computing practices for students, faculty, and staff at the University of Michigan. The team researches and deliberates to create and maintain a series of best practice guides to decrease energy usage on and off campus. Since every unit runs their systems and updates differently, the Desktop Technologies Team has a lot to take into consideration. The team also intends to gather U-M metrics to share because of the demand on campus. PCs and monitors consume an average of 235 billion kilowatts of electricity annually1, which is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions of 63 million tons of hazardous waste disposed in a landfill2.

What we do

  • Identify the best green IT practices for end-users operating portable/home computers, end-users working at University desktops, and IT professionals handling university computers
  • Make environmentally-friendly IT practices an easy and natural routine
  • Find additional ways for workstations to implement energy-efficiency practices

Andrew WilsonAndrew Wilson, Team lead
Wilson is the LAN administration manager for Information and Technology Services, Technical Infrastructure Operations and Business and Finance IT. He has worked at the University of Michigan for 13 years and in network administration for 18 years. He believes changing people’s mindsets to conserve will be the biggest challenge. He says we must first persuade people to think green, then teach them how to easily conserve, and finally, make it an instinctive routine.

Team Members

  • Todd Austin, College of Literature, Science & Arts (LSA)
  • Matthew De Genaro, Digital Media Commons
  • James Dormal, Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC)
  • Mike Emery, School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE)
  • Daniel Gallegos, Information and Technology Services
  • Helaine Hunscher, School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE)
  • Bill Manspeaker, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
  • Gary Munce, Univerity Library IT
  • Phil Ray, School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE)
  • Ricardo Rodriguiz, Population Studies Center - Institute for Social Research (ISR)
  • Steve Sarrica, Information and Technology Services
  • MaryBeth Stuenkel, Information and Technology Services
  • Daniel Thompson, Rackham Graduate School

1 Estimating Total Power Consumption by Servers in the U.S. and the World - Jonathan G. Koomey, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Consulting Professor, Stanford University
2 Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator – United States Environmental Protection Agency