Green storage technology reduces data center power consumption

By Suresh Nair, Managing Director, NetApp ASEAN | Feb 20, 2009

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In the current economic climate like it or not - the march toward green technology will keep going and so will the mantra of doing more with less. For some organizations, moving to energy-efficient storage isn't just a nice, green idea but an essential part of using less power, which in some circumstances has become an extremely limited resource.

The wide array of technologies that fall under the green storage heading can all be used to rein in the data center's fastest-growing overheads, and can help postpone the expansion or relocation of data center premises. In fact, it may even be the only way for companies to manage the continual growth of data, and thereby stay in business especially during these times of recession.

The data center - with its escalating demand for power, cooling and space - is increasingly seen as one of the major culprits generating an estimated 170 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 0.3% of the global total.

As corporations continue to grapple with escalating storage requirements, disaster recovery protocols and globalization, this will only get worse. A recent McKinsey report predicted that data center emissions will overtake those of the world’s airlines by 2020. Not to mention that data centers now account for 25% of the IT budget, with energy bills growing at 16% a year.

Exponential data growth is an undeniable reality for most data centers. IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Forecast 2006–2010 predicts that worldwide data will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 50.6% through the decade. This growth is a huge concern for IT managers.

Until recently, continuous improvements in price, performance and $/GB have made it both easy and affordable to solve storage concerns simply by adding more disks to existing storage systems.

However, IT executives are discovering that there are limits to that easy growth: floor space, weight loads, rack space, network drops, power connections, cooling infrastructure, and even power itself are finite resources. Hitting any one of these limits significantly jeopardizes the ability of IT to meet the demands of business.

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