Storage Best Practices for Energy Efficiency

All data centres are looking at strategic transformation, usually, and sensibly, based on how to get more 'bangs per buck' in a volatile business climate. However, there is a growing view that, as an industry, we are in danger of digging our own grave when it comes to energy efficiency. Governments may look at registration for all participants and then for a common reporting metric. The big question is "which ones to use?" It is likely that every data centre will be under a great deal more scrutinity than is the case at the moment.

A co-ordinated approach to transformation is needed, but this is not easy in practice; some businesses see data centres in a strange way, governments are often, in effect, clueless and the proliferation of trade bodies only seems to muddy the water.

This webinar explores how the practical application of frameworks, metrics and accreditations might be used to avoid common pitfalls when implementing a Data Centre transition.

IT professionals are often running out of power at the rack, creating hot spots and not properly managing capacity. Learn how to avoid these common issues as well as different concepts for data center design.

This talk will describe the key driving forces affecting data center costs, developing and documenting detailed examples from available data, estimating costs and correcting them for inflation, and explaining the implications of the results. It also will explore some ways to improve data center efficiency, the most important and most neglected of which relate to institutional changes that can help companies reduce the total costs of computing services.

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) has been discussed in data center conferences and media. It is a set of tools and methods to make a data center as a whole perform optimally. Simply put, DCIM deals with mechanical and electrical systems of facilities, and power and environmental information of IT equipment. No standards have been defined yet but several functional areas have been mentioned, such as Inventory, Change, Capacity, Simulation, Monitoring and Efficiency Modeling. Many vendors have emerged with various solutions that focus on one or a few areas but not on a holistic scale. So the integration of multiple tools will be necessary to satisfy the overall needs and some vendors are working together to integrate their solutions.

But equally important is how to manage IT equipment at a higher level, such as server health, and application and service status. This is the market segment known as system management. Although DCIM and system management have been developed independent to each other, it is increasingly necessary to integrate the two to manage a data center even more efficiently. The information obtained with system management functions will become crucial to control the infrastructure sides of facilities and even IT equipment.

In this panel session, we will review DCIM solutions and how they can be integrated with system management for better design and operations of data centers. We will also discuss the impact of such integration, such as management and organizational structure. But at the same time, we need to realize that the ultimate goal of having a data center is to satisfy business goals of an enterprise with IT infrastructure, such as server health and applications status. That is why it is utmost important to integrate both IT and Facilities under common management to plan, design, monitor and control. Join this panel as these thought leaders discuss how you can use DCIM to best manage the facilities and IT within your data center.

Learn how you can improve the performance and efficiency of your data centers with Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM). How do you leverage power, space and cooling optimally, to meet the needs of the business? Learn how Datotel, a provider of business solutions including private cloud computing, colocation and hosted managed services, is using DCIM to achieve improved energy management in their data center.

In this complimentary webinar, you’ll:
- Learn how the technology can help data center operators to monitor and optimize performance, to better manage capacity and to reduce costs.
- Hear how Datotel is using DCIM technology to capture and analyze detailed real-time information to achieve insight into data center energy use
- Discover where DCIM is going in the future, including how DCIM can deliver further significant benefits if it be integrated into an overall management architecture for IT service delivery
- Learn what to consider when evaluating technology solutions and to integrate DCIM with existing IT management processes.

Register below to join:
- Andy Lawrence, VP of Research for Data Center Technology, The 451 Group
- David Brown, CEO, Datotel
- Peter Gilbert, VP of Energy & Sustainability Strategy, CA Technologies

With funding decreasing every year for higher education, universities are turning to data centers to cut some of their operating expenses. Find out how Utah State University redesigned their data center with energy efficiency in mind to both lower the cost of running their infrastructure as well as understand their role in the environment.

This webinar will cover topics including:
- Understanding the fundamental problems with a data center redesign
- Developing a solution for hot isle, cold isle design
- The efficiency results from USU's redesign
- How the USU data center has impacted the educational environment

Cloud computing seems like the perfect solution for creating an efficient and eco-friendly data center -- you, personally, have no physical data center to manage or bills to pay for the facility. However, is that necessarily true? Is cloud computing a process efficient and energy efficient investment for data centers? Join this panel as industry thought leaders discuss whether you can be efficient and energy-conscious by adopting cloud computing.

This panel will answer questions such as:
- How much more efficiency does the cloud provide than physical, on-premise data centers?
- How are you measuring efficiency after moving to a cloud provider?
- What benchmarking should you do internally before deciding what's efficient or greener?
- How will the transition from traditional data center to the cloud affect how the organization runs its business?

Is your storage infrastructure as energy efficient as it can be? Learn about common industry best practices and technologies such as thin provisioning, data deduplication, compression and storage-tiering to reduce energy consumption. Understand the SNIA Emerald Specification and Program for energy metrics when selecting new storage solutions.

The 451 Research, a division of The 451 Group, is an independent technology-industry analyst company focused on the Business of Enterprise IT Innovation. Our research makes sense of swiftly moving trends in the industry creating information technologies (IT) used by large and midsized organizations. We have offices in the US and Europe.

CNet is the world's leading provider of Data Centre training and the only source of Data Centre qualifications in the world today. Our Data Centre courses are the only means of acquiring independently awarded QUALIFICATIONS that are accredited by the largest number of independent organisations of any communications training provider; these include City & Guilds, BTEC (Edexcel), and BICSI. CNet also provides specialist training in IP & Communications with a full portfolio of technically based courses.

The Data Centre Alliance is a professional, not-for-profit association open to all Data Centre operators and Data Centre industry organisations to represent the data centre industry to the business world, academia, the media, governments and the general public.

Did you know that networked PCs represent the single biggest IT energy consumption area for an enterprise? Saving energy is not only the right thing to do, it is also easy to do with McAfee ePO and AVOB.

In this webinar, you will learn:

- How to estimate your potential savings
- How to monitor, analyze, and optimize energy consumption
- How to leverage smart power management to improve IT maintenance tasks

To this day, 50-80 percent of the e-waste recyclers out there are simply shoving your old electronics into sea-going shipping containers and sending the material off to China, Vietnam or West Africa. Why? Because the United States is the only country that currently allows this legally. But there are many practical and principled reasons why doing the quick and dirty with your old electronic discards is a very bad idea. Jim Puckett, Executive Director of the Basel Action Network, will explore those reasons and then offer you a better way. One that has been in the making for 8 years and is now ready for business. One that has been supported by over 70 environmental organizations. One that has been supported by Samsung, Bank of America, Capitol One, Wells Fargo and a growing number of other companies that realize that a toxic footprint is every bit as deadly as a carbon footprint. Responsible businesses finally have a one-stop solution for electronic waste!

The technology team has a leading role to play in a company’s effort to reduce its environmental footprint, a role that extends far beyond comfortable dialogues around data centers. But tech expertise is an underused resource in many sustainability programs. Citi will offer ideas on why this occurs and give examples from its award-winning sustainability program of ways the tech team can be better leveraged to build enterprise-wide awareness and understanding. Key to this effort is helping non-technologists understand the system as a whole and the down-stream implications of even their smallest actions.

Zen Kishimoto, Principal Analyst, AltaTerra Research Network (moderator); Mike Walker, President, Beacon Consultants Network Inc.; Carol Baroudi, Practice Advisor for Sustainability at Redemtech; Mary Vincent, Founder and Director, Green Star Solution

As State Street approaches 10 years of IT environmental focus, we recognize that maintaining momentum and commitment is critical to our continued success. In this session, Madge Meyer, Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation Office and Technology Fellow, will provide an overview of State Street’s Green IT program, which entails three key components, as highlighted below:

Green Culture – We consider the environmental impact of everything we do.

Green Solutions – We continually identify new opportunities to meet business requirements and deliver environmental benefit.

Green Operations – We embrace green solutions in our standard operating procedures.

Green IT presents technology leaders with an extensive list of opportunities to cut costs and their carbon footprint: But what should you prioritize? To answer this question, a panel of IT professionals from leading organizations will discuss what green IT projects they are prioritizing, how they came to this decision, and what benefits they expect to realize.

PC power management has been one of the more successful examples of so-called 'green IT' in action. Suppliers have an easy sales story thanks to compelling ROI, which is reinforced by utility rebates in the US. IT decision makers are also able to communicate the relatively simple concept of slashing electricity bills from idle PCs to budget holders further up the food chain. However, the rise of desktop virtualization, increasingly efficient hardware and better power management in Windows pose long-term threats to the market.

What you really need to know to ensure your IT use is sustainable through out its lifecycle – from hazardous substance elimination to low carbon IT services, discover the way to navigate the maze of green claims when purchasing IT for your home, office or company.

Kieran McKenna, London Storage Manager at global engineering firm Arup, shares his experiences in how to manage data storage infrastructures to reduce space, hardware and power requirements.

Arup has an ever increasing data load as it constantly creates and updates plans for high profile projects like London Heathrow Terminal 5, the Beijing Olympic Stadium and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Engineers need instant access to current as well as historical plans, sometimes dating back decades, which equates to a vast amount of data that needs to be stored, backed-up, regulated and recovered in the event of a disaster.

Kieran will detail four IT projects including data and mail consolidation, tapeless back-up, virtualisation and lifecycle management that have enabled Arup to work leaner, smarter, cheaper, and greener whilst still meeting storage requirements.

This webinar will discuss the problems associated with the recycling and refurbishment of electronics, the need for an internal policy for recycling electronics, and tools for creating and governing a strong recycling program that will ensure corporate sustainability and vendor conformity to a high standard. The recently launched accredited and independently audited e-Stewards Certification program will be discussed as a critical tool to both define the standard and provide confidence in service providers’ on-going conformance to the standard.

Lauren Roman is the e-Stewards Business Director at the Basel Action Network (BAN). Among other things, her work includes development of the e-Stewards Certification program, as well as contributing policy expertise to the EPEAT standards development process and the United Nations’ multi-national PACE Projects.

Carol Rademtech, Practice Advisor for Sustainability for Redemtech, a leading asset recovery company and e-Steward Founder. She is a frequent speaker advocating best practices for technology reuse, privacy compliance, sustainable IT, and responsible e-waste management.