Anyone responsible for managing a data center understands the increasing importance of power efficiency. This is especially the case in data centers where consolidation and higher-density equipment have packed more and more devices into less floor space.
Although many companies have already consolidated their storage and server environments, they could benefit further by consolidating their storage-area-network (SAN) environments. In fact, some data centers have reached or are nearing the maximum power allotment for their facilities, meaning they have no choice but to consolidate and deploy more power-efficient devices.
I.T. managers already know that servers are putting a strain on the world’s power grids, but what is often overlooked is the energy consumption of storage environments. The environments are expanding rapidly to accommodate the explosive growth of digital data. IDC calculates that 161 billion gigabytes of digital data were generated in 2006 alone.
According to Gartner, servers account for 40% of a data center’s power consumption, but storage comes in a close second, with 37%. What’s more, storage-related devices — including SAN devices — can consume 1,000 watts or more. The lesson? If you’re attempting to contain your data center power use (and costs), you can’t afford to neglect your storage or SAN environments.
What can you do to lower your data center’s power consumption? To understand some of the issues better, it helps to consider the analogy of transportation and fuel efficiency. Vehicles such as electric, hybrid or compact cars obviously are more fuel-efficient than larger, petroleum-fueled vehicles.
But a larger vehicle, such as a bus, can provide a highly efficient mode of transportation because it can accommodate many passengers, making for a low fuel-per-passenger ratio.
This concept reflects what is occurring in today’s data centers: consolidation of multiple devices into a larger, shared resource. If the shared resource happens to…