SNIA forms green coalition

To complement its *other* green coalition

By Austin Modine in Dallas • Get more from this author

Posted in Storage, 17th October 2007 19:08 GMT

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SNW Trade organization SNIA, the Storage Networking Industry Association, has formed yet another eco-cause group.

The newly —ahem— minted SNIA Green Storage Initiative* will span all shared storage technologies, including disk and tape systems, server connectivity, storage appliances, fabrics, file services and storage applications. The newish group was revealed Tuesday at Storage Networking World in Dallas.

As par, the initiative includes vendors hoping to woo customers who a) want to cut energy costs and b) feel they owe nature a favor despite it providing terrors such as roving packs of wild dogs and brain eating parasites.

SNIA says they'll be developing tutorials and educational materials for green storage, as well as helping their member companies design more energy efficient products. They'll be looking specifically at data de-duplicaton, thin provisioning and tape-based archiving as environment helpers.

Joining the initiative ($5000 annual fee for voting membership, $2500 just to watch) scores members a haughty sense of eco-dedication as well as accesses to their activities and events. For instance, there's a special SNIA breakfast at SNW they won't let us into.

The initiative will also act as the SNIA representative to other green organizations such as the Green Grid and the EPA.

"Many government agencies worldwide have begun investigating data center energy consumption, and the SNIA is very interested in working with them to establish consistent best practices and ways to fairly measure and manage the energy consumption of shared storage technologies," said Vincent Franceshini, SNIA chairman.

Green is apparently the new black in the data center. Or at least that's what vendors are sure of.

Going green does involve buying lots of new gear - no surprise there. Although there may actually be some pressing need and demand from buyers when it comes down to it.

You can check out more information about SNIA's initiative here. ®

*Not to be confused with the SNIA Green Storage Working Group, which endeavors to develop metrics for storage energy use and to our knowledge offers no special breakfast at SNW.

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