Conference: Green IT Track

The next few years will bring widespread awareness of the environments impact (especially energy costs) associated with data storage. Already several regulations and initiatives (e.g. ROHS, WEEE, and Energy Star) affect manufacturers of storage components or computers. There are also some innovative storage technologies especially targeted towards energy conservation including MAID, along with the well-known alternatives of removable storage like tape and optical. Several vendors have also begun to offer data on power use, energy consumption and cooling loads in response to competitive pressures from other vendors and customers. Some vendors and consultants are offering energy modeling as part of their TCO analysis, either for competitive reasons or as part of their professional services portfolio. This presentation will quickly review basic engineering topics relevant to understanding "Green", including stuff you may have successfully avoided, such as environmental chemistry, thermodynamics, energy vs. power; and computational and storage density, as well as the resulting energy and cooling issues. Conceptual models sufficient to understand or even develop energy budgets will be taught. All of this will converge on a basic model for TCO that includes energy modeling. This session has been brought to you by the SNIA Green Storage Initiative.

Controlling power costs is a hot topic in the data center. However, most organizations have far more PCs than servers, and controlling power management policies across many PCs with different usage patterns is much harder than managing power usage in the highly centralized and controlled data center environment. In this session, you will learn about the challenges and solutions for managing PC power consumption, such us how to identify usage patterns, manage user expectations, control policies and report on your success to upper management. The ROI is substantial, and can be proven, as long as you have the right tools. This session will show you how to save money for your company through implementing a simple power management solution.