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Green Storage is Alive and Well: ENERGY STAR Enterprise Storage Stakeholder Meeting Details

While Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list if not already extinct, there are many things taking place to shift the focus from talking about being green to enabling and leveraging efficiency and optimization to boost productivity and enable business sustainability.

The industry has seen and is seeing the shift from the initial green hype cycle of a few years ago to the more recent trough of disillusionment (or here) typically found with a post technology or trend hangover, to the current re-emergence, and growing awareness of the many different faces and facets of being green.

Granted there has been some recent activity by the U.S. government to add new climate control legislation (e.g. HR2454 – Waxman/Markey) to build on previous clean air acts of the 1990s as well as those dating back to the 1970s and earlier.

While the green gap (or here) still exists with confusion by IT organizations that Green is only Green if and only if it is about reducing Carbon footprints as opposed to the realization that there are many different faces or facets of being Green and efficient. For example, there is also a growing awareness that addressing power, cooling, floor-space or footprint to enable sustained business growth as well as enabling next generation virtual, cloud as well as traditional forms of IT service ennablement has both economic and business benefits. That is, determining energy usage, shifting from energy avoidance to expanding and supporting energy efficiency initiatives along with boosting productivity, doing more with what you have, fitting into and growing within current or future constraints on available power, cooling, footprint/floorpsace, budget or manpower constraints while improving on service delivery to remain competitive. (Learn more in "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) )

Regardless of if you are a eco-tech warrior or not, learning about and then closing the Green gap and how shifting a focus towards efficiency has both business economic and environmental benefits and helps to break down some of the perceptions about what Green is or is not.

One such activity is the U.S. EPA Energy Star program which is about as much energy avoidance as it is about energy efficiency You might be familiar with Energy Star logos on various consumer products around your home or office as well as for laptops, notebooks, desktop and workstations. Recently EPA released a new standard specification for Energy Star for Servers and is now currently working on one for enterprise storage. As part of the initiative, stakeholders or those with an interest in data storage are invited to participate in upcoming EPA working sessions to provide feedback and input on what is important to you.

Here’s the message received from the EPA via their mailing list this past week (in italics below):

Dear Enterprise Storage Stakeholder or Other Interested Party:

Provided below are additional details regarding the ENERGY STAR® Enterprise Storage Stakeholder Meeting scheduled for Monday, July 20, 2009 in San Jose, CA. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to use this opportunity to review feedback on the ENERGY STAR Specification Framework document and discuss initial plans for a Draft 1 specification. A conference call line will be provided to stakeholders who are unable to participate in person.

Date: Monday, July 20, 2009
Time: 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM Pacific Time (lunch will be provided)
Location: The Sainte Claire Hotel, 302 South Market St., San Jose, CA 95113, 408.295.2000, www.thesainteclaire.com
Conference Call Phone: Provided with meeting registration

EPA would like to thank the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) for providing lunch, refreshments, and logistical support for the ENERGY STAR stakeholder meeting.

For the convenience of meeting attendees, this event is being held in conjunction with the SNIA Technical Symposium being held July 20-23, 2009.

For more information on this event visit: ;

The Sainte Claire Hotel is offering a special room rate of $149/night for participants in the ENERGY STAR Stakeholder Meeting. Rooms can be booked by following the link to the SNIA Technical Symposium Web site.

Please note: Whether you plan to attend in person or via conference call, you must RSVP to storage@energystar.gov no later than Monday, July 13, 2009. Conference call information and a copy of presentation materials will be distributed to all registered attendees in advance of the meeting.

As a reminder, stakeholders are encouraged to submit feedback on the ENERGY STAR Enterprise Storage Specification Framework to storage@energystar.gov no later than this Friday, July 3, 2009.

The latest program documentation is available for download at www.energystar.gov/newspecs.

If you have any questions please contact Steve Pantano, ICF International, at spantano@icfi.com or Andrew Fanara, US EPA, at fanara.andrew@epa.gov.

Thank you for your continued support of ENERGY STAR!

Learn more at www.energystar.gov

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
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