page tag
green
IT
NO LIMIT
Gary Watson of Nexsan explores how IT professionals can save power
and costs through the use of green IT, without limiting performance.
W
hether it’s climate
change or fuel bills,
we are increasingly
becoming more
energy aware
and energy conscious. The public
pushes for ecological conservation
and rewards organisations that put
forth their own conservation efforts.
Unfortunately, the storage industry
is behind the curve. IT professionals
continue to buy and deploy wasteful
storage systems. It appears that
energy efficiency is rarely taken into
consideration. Yet, over the span
of one year, a typical 42TB storage
solution pushes 8.9 metric tons of
CO2 into the atmosphere, which
is one of the greenhouse gases,
which trap heat from the sun in our
atmosphere and contribute to global
warming. Not matter how many TBs
you use, switching to an energy
efficient storage system, could reduce
this number and the impact of your
storage on the environment.
And it’s not just about CO2 either
because even if an organisation isn’t
worried about reducing its CO2 levels,
all businesses should be concerned
with the increasing cost of fuel.
Inefficient storage uses more power
and power costs money. So, if storage
is inefficient, it won’t be rising sea
levels that concern you first, it will be
those rising energy bills.
Then there’s the third issue –
space. Inefficient storage usage
means more racks taking up more
space, space that costs money to
consume. This is a problem which will
continue to grow as we accrue more
and more data.
So, why doesn’t every IT
professional deploy a greener more
efficient solution? The answer is
simple: they’re afraid that energy
efficiency will limit performance. Whilst,
in the past, concerns that reduced
power meant reduced performance
might have been valid, that no longer
has to be the case. By considering
the efficiency of both the storage
and how you use it, you can save the
environment, money and space.
In storage, the common sources
of energy waste are inefficient
IT infrastructure
from smallest
to largest.
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