Storage industry Hulks up with green efficiency ratings

SNIA Europe The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has unveiled standardised storage product power efficiency ratings at its SNIA Europe event.

The Emerald Power Efficiency Measurement Specification was developed under the Green Storage Initiative (GSI) by more than 25 SNIA member companies to provide a vendor-neutral power efficiency measure. A website provides more information and a place from which to download the specification, user guide, and test report form for inputting – or if you are a supplier, your own product's test data.

The test metrics produce an idle activity rating and an active state measurement. The SNIA says the Emerald Program is "available to the industry at large, without requirements of membership. Upon public unveiling of the SNIA Emerald Program website, both SNIA GSI members HP and IBM will have submitted test results for their respective storage systems commonly found deployed in data centres around the world."

The website is live now and the results are being processed.

The user guide "provides step-by-step guidance on how to setup a test and measurement environment for a storage system under test, and then submit measured test results to the SNIA Emerald Program. Once submitted, test results are approved for public posting, manufacturers will obtain a SNIA Emerald Program logo to highlight their program participation."

The SNIA thinks that, with data centre energy usage projected to increase by 19 per cent in 2012 (according to Data Center Dynamics 2011 Census Report), having a standardised way to compare storage products' power efficiency will be useful.

The US EPA Energy Star program is supportive of this SNA effort, and why not: it spreads the green message. ®