SNW 08: Storage must cut energy use

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Storage needs to go green - not just to benefit the earth, but to cut costs, reduce risks and stay competitive, according to speakers at Storage Networking World (SNW) in Orlando.

A straw poll - using electronic polling machines - of attendees to a keynote panel session at the conference showed 51 per cent believe reducing costs is the top reason to cut and manage energy use.

"For a sustainable approach to protecting the environment, there needs to be a financial element," said Mark Showers, chief information officer at biotech firm Monsanto.

But Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer at Hitachi Data Systems, argued that there's more reason than just cash. "IT is in a position to demonstrate leadership in this area," he said. "We have the technology."

Either way, cutting energy use in data centres stands to benefit the bottom line and the planet. "It's moving from a cost or annoyance to a sound business practice," said Chris Wood, director of global storage practice at Sun Microsystems.

He added: "Customers want to buy products from companies who are green or socially responsible... Who wants to buy from one that's socially irresponsible?"

Increasing consolidation and use of virtualisation are helping cut energy use already, but to avoid risk, companies will have to do more, as access to energy is becoming increasingly expensive and no longer guaranteed, as power failures are beginning to occur even in places like Florida.

"There is risk. We are running out of energy," explained Yoshida. "The likelihood of outages is high."

There are other ways to colour a data centre green than consolidating and virtualising, the speakers said. Yoshida noted that most systems use just 20 to 30 per cent of their storage capacity, which can be increased with techniques such as thin provisioning, as well as virtualisation.

Yoshida also suggested that organisations should audit their data, and find the most efficient way of storing it. He noted that data over 60 days old has just a seven per cent chance of being used again, so should be archived to save storage costs and energy.

And, he suggested IT managers make sure they eliminate copies of data, to increase how much usable data can be stored on already existing devices.

But organisations face challenges - and not only with how complex data centres have become. The speakers cited a study by Gartner that suggested just three per cent of firms knew how much power their IT used, making cutting energy costs difficult. "You don't really know what you're doing until you measure it," said Yoshida.

Despite this, improvements can be made. "There's so much low hanging fruit... you don't have to know all the details," said Showers. "If you cut devices, you're going to save power."

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