With more than 15 storage vendors as members, the Initiative's scope of work will span all shared storage technologies, including disk and tape systems, server connectivity, storage appliances, fabrics and other storage network infrastructure, file services, and storage applications. Activities will initially include the development of tutorials and educational material, white papers, and best practices for energy-efficient data center storage operations. The Initiative will also act as the SNIA liaison to other allied organizations such as the Green Grid Consortium and the EPA to collaborate on the development of more environmentally friendly data center solutions.
For its part, NetApp will contribute its knowledge, expertise, and best practices for deploying leading-edge data management techniques to reduce data center power consumption. The NetApp technology approach to halting power growth is to provide solutions that reduce raw storage and improve storage utilization to enable customers to do more with the storage systems already in their IT environments. This approach not only helps IT organizations achieve greater energy efficiency, but also lower infrastructure complexity and costs while enabling customers to better respond to new business demands.
In addition, NetApp is a member of the SNIA Green Technical Working Group, which is focused on the development of metrics to measure and test against the energy consumption of data center storage. NetApp involvement in various industry organizations and consortiums, including the Green Grid Consortium, demonstrates the company's commitment to helping customers implement real, achievable data management techniques to reduce power, space, and cooling in the data center.
"Storage industry collaboration and cooperation will be an important aspect of effectively addressing the growing issue of data center power consumption," said David Dale, director, Industry Standards, NetApp. "NetApp has been very involved in helping our customers achieve greater energy efficiency in their data centers. Continued dialogue across the industry, as well as with government organizations such as the EPA, will play a vital role in developing best practices for improving energy efficiency that customers can put into action."
As noted in the recent EPA "Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency," increased demand for and investment in critical business applications and functions, disaster recovery, and applications for regulatory demands are driving the demand for large amounts of data storage in data centers. The EPA notes that the number of installed enterprise hard disk drive storage devices is expected to nearly quadruple from 2004 to 2010.
To solve this thirst for more data, many enterprises simply add more storage equipment, leading to greater power, space, and cooling requirements in the data center as well as severely underused capacity. Improving storage utilization and optimization enables enterprises to attack power consumption at one of its major sources. NetApp IT, for example, undertook a storage consolidation project to better utilize its storage capacity. As a result, NetApp reduced its storage equipment and increased storage utilization to an average of 60%, cutting its storage footprint by 75%, eliminating 94 tons of air conditioning, and reducing electricity costs by almost $60,000 a year.
"We have the leadership and expertise to provide valuable input to customers, industry, and government alike," continued Dale. "The EPA recently recognized our innovative use of distributed generation (DG) and a combined heat and power (CHP) system, stating that innovative uses of power are among the ways that data center operators can reduce energy usage and costs. We are certainly trying to do our part in helping enterprises, vendors, and government organizations understand how storage and data center design can have a big impact on energy usage, as well as share best practices to replicate in data centers around the world to save energy and reduce power."
For more information about the NetApp approach to addressing power consumption, please visit www.netapp.com/company/power-conservation/index.html. Further details can also be found via NetApp TechTalk Online Events, http://www.netapp.com/news/techtalk/podcasts-on-demand.html, and a podcast with Chris Bennett, who shares key recommendations on how improving storage utilization can help customers address power consumption in the data center.
About Network Appliance
Network Appliance is a leading provider of innovative data management solutions that simplify the complexity of storing, managing, protecting, and retaining enterprise data. Market leaders around the world choose NetApp to help them reduce cost, minimize risk, and adapt to change. For solutions that deliver unmatched simplicity and value, visit us on the Web at www.netapp.com.
NetApp and the Network Appliance logo are registered trademarks and Network Appliance is a trademark of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.
SOURCE: Network Appliance, Inc.
Network Appliance, Inc. Roger Villareal, 408-822-1959 rogerv@netapp.com
More News:
Market Updates |
Stock Alerts |
All Trading News |
Stock Index
|
|
