SNIA Green Storage Specification and Membership Discount Announced

SNIA Emerald^TM Specification Recently Approved as SNIA Standard
The SNIA Membership has recently approved the SNIA Emerald^TM Power Efficiency Measurement Specification to be a publicly available SNIA Standard, which can be downloaded from http://www.snia.org/sites/default/files/EmeraldMeasurementV1_0.pdf.

The specification is the culmination of over three years of SNIA Green TWG technical work and cross-industry collaboration. The significance of this specification is it can be a foundation for national bodies working on green IT and data center energy efficiency equipment programs to cross-reference.

This new SNIA Emerald^TM released specification defines methodologies and metrics for the evaluation of the related performance and energy consumption of storage products in specific active and idle states. Storage products and components are said to be in an “active” state when they are processing externally-initiated, application-level requests for data transfer between host(s) and the storage product(s). For purposes of this specification, idle is defined as “ready idle”, in which storage systems and components are configured, powered up, connected to one or more hosts and capable of satisfying externally-initiated, application-level initiated I/O requests within normal response time constraints, but no such I/O requests are being submitted.

This specification includes:

• A generalized taxonomy for storage products
• An assessment mechanism for software-based Capacity Optimization Methods
• Measurement and data collections guidelines for assessing the power efficiency of block-oriented storage products in both active and ready idle states
• Metrics describing storage product power efficiency

The SNIA Green TWG will release a set of training materials in Q4 2011 that will aid vendors, independent testing labs, and test auditors on how to properly setup a storage system, power measurement equipment, and workload generator to conduct SNIA Emerald^TM measurements.

SNIA GSI Discounted Membership Program Announced
SNIA Green Storage Initiative (GSI) is now offering a discounted membership program that includes favorable entitlements for the forthcoming SNIA Emerald^TM Program. The terms of the program are straightforward: 50% discount off the 12 month membership rate.

GSI membership levels include:

• Voting for $9000 (with discount, a company can now join at $4500)
• Non-Voting for $4500(with discount, a company can now join at $2250)

Additionally, non-SNIA members may be eligible for discounted rates to join SNIA.

New entitlements with the GSI Membership include:

• Free SNIA Emerald^TM Program test result submissions
  • A Voting level membership includes 8 free test submissions
  • A Non-Voting membership includes 4 free test submissions

SNIA Emerald Test Submission prices for SNIA members who are not members of the GSI are set at $750.

By becoming a member of SNIA GSI, you can save $750 or more. The more test results to be submitted in a 12 month period, there is an additional savings of $375 per result after the first 4 test results.

For example, if you plan to test and submit four (4) products, here is how the cost savings work:

• Option A) SNIA member, but not a member of GSI
  • 4x$750 = $3000
• Option B) SNIA member, and just joined as a SNIA GSI non-voting member,
  • Cost of discounted membership = $2250
  • Cost of first 4 test results = $0

Contact SNIA Membership Director, Lisa Mercurio, at membership@snia.org to become a member of SNIA Green Storage Initiative.

To learn more about the SNIA GSI, visit http://www.snia.org/forums/green.

SNIA GSI is in the midst of readying the SNIA Emerald^TM Program for launch at Fall SNW. Follow the details of the program at www.sniaemerald.com and see the program launch and news. Better yet, become a member of the GSI and become recognized at SNW.