Martin Courtney

Last month’s Storage Expo show was keen to highlight its green credentials, with almost every storage vendor in attendance waving their environmental cards around like there was no tomorrow (which, if you believe Al Gore, there might not be).

A special Green IT Zone provided salesmen from the likes of Brocade, IBM, Plasmon and Pillar Data Systems with a soapbox to proclaim the sustainable benefits of their wares. No rotten eggs were thrown, but something did not smell too good all the same.

Some of the speakers boasted they were members of Greenpeace and talked convincingly about the need to make better use of the earth’s scarce natural resources. But one or two were ready to drop the façade and admit that gassing on about reducing carbon footprints in the datacentre is more about saving money through improved operational efficiencies than it is about saving the planet.

Because let’s face it, how many IT managers would be rushing to install more environmentally friendly networking and storage equipment in their premises if they thought for a minute that it would cost them more, rather than less, money to run it?

The whole impetus for jumping on the green bandwagon stems from the pressing need to increase energy efficiency ­ either because the monthly utility bills are spiralling out of control, or because firms are simply finding it impossible to get their hands on enough kilowatts to power the stuff they already have.

For most, being green is nothing more than a by-product of doing everything they can to build datacentres that provide increased storage capacity while also being less costly to run. As one punter said, it’s a cynical attitude, but then it’s a cynical world.

According to a survey by archiving firm Plasmon, IT professionals are evenly split in their motives. Half said they are adopting greener systems to help save the environment, while the other half said they just wanted to save money. What is interesting is that attitudes differ markedly across industry sectors. For instance, the financial sector appears more concerned about enhancing its image by appearing environmentally friendly, while manufacturing is happy to admit it is focused very much on improving its bottom line.

And let’s not forget that if the need to reduce that electricity consumption is so acute now, the fact that vendors did not give a second thought to power efficiency five years ago has a lot to do with it. Was nobody bothered about saving the planet when there was enough electricity to go around and the utility companies were not putting their prices up?

‹ martin.courtney@incisivemedia.com