Green Storage Programs

Programs: Educational Awareness, Solutions Development

The GSI addresses topical issues of concern to the storage networking and information management industries. Its focus is on energy and technological efficiencies in networked storage. In addition to the creation of Green Storage Tutorials, GSI has developed developed , best practices documents for data center managers, print collateral, and other awareness-raising activities. As the Green TWG reaches consensus on metrics or energy use and "digital load" in storage, the GSI will serve as an advocate to support the findings of the TWG and continue to develop alliance relationships with other organizations working in the IT world on environmental matters.

The Green Storage Challenge

Thoughtful members of our community and member companies have identified the unique role that digital storage plays in our world, and how vital the goal of energy efficiency will be in supporting storage and information. The GSI's programs focus on a landscape that is challenged by both unparalleled growth in storage, and the costs (both environmental and economical) of increasing energy consumption. Other "facts on the ground" include the following:

• Storage data continues to grow at exponential rates
• Providing increased storage capacity requires more electrical power and data center cooling infrastructure
• Power is becoming increasingly scarce, expensive, and will become a major portion of data center budgets
• Little focus on power and environmental issues around networked storage

The GSI will focus on ways that it can serve the networked storage and information management industries, creating programs, providing educational awareness, and supporting solutions that will continue to improve networked storage efficiencies in the future. Our programs have included awareness-raising meetings at SNIA Symposia meetings and SNW conferences, and are focused on creating a rich set of collaborative opportunities for the GSI.

Introducing the SNIA Emerald™ Program.

The SNIA Emerald Program and its corresponding website, www.SNIAEmerald.com, is targeted at multiple audiences: the storage networking industry, companies evaluating the energy efficiency of storage networking systems as a component of their purchase strategy, facility managers looking for help determining power requirements for their datacenters, the press, analysts and others.  Currently, not only is there no vendor neutral means of determining storage networking system energy efficiency, there is no central location for determining peak and average power usage that can be used to help determine facility costs. The SNIA Emerald not only requires the results of testing to be submitted, but also requires basic power ratings be included beyond just testing. At last, useful information in a standardized format will be made available to anyone needing this information without having to sift through the literature and manuals of multiple storage networking industry vendors.

To read more about the SNIA Emerald™ Program, please click here.

All companies are encouraged to join, get involved, and to help develop the agenda of the GSI. For more information, please see our join page or contact GSI@snia.org.