The keynotes at Storage Expo reflect this change in the data storage landscape, with one of the keynotes being dedicated to The Green IT Debate.

Handling data uses vast amounts of energy – and this unequivocally already has a massive environmental impact.  The Green IT Debate is an issue that everyone is discussing at the moment, with Storage facilities and data Centres consuming vast amounts of power, some claim its as much as the aviation industry. 

With storage capacity requirements projected to continue to increase by over 50% per annum for the medium term, you only have to move a decade into the future to predict that Data Storage will increase by a factor of 60 fold.

A further survey of 100 companies carried out by Green Technology Initiative and Storage Expo discovered that 65% are turning off systems that are not in use in order to reduce the IT carbon footprint, with just 39% of these companies buying specific products that require less energy to achieve the same process. However, although server virtualisation is all the rage it appears that only 23% of these companies are actually reaping the benefits.

The same survey from the Green Technology Initiative has revealed that 98% of companies believe that IT suppliers should improve their products in order to match the government’s target of 20% reductions on CO2 emissions by 2010. Amongst whom a staggering 86% think this bar should be moved up to 30% by 2010.