Time to Turn Green

Industry forums are a dime a dozen (or a lot more if you're a member). You join up, pay your dues, and in return catch a ride on whatever marketing bandwagon is rolling by. But a newly formed group may challenge this timeworn routine.

The Green Grid is a newly unveiled consortium that's looking to save electrical energy in data centers. And it may just shame some of the bigger IT players into putting their money where their mouths are. (See Green Grid Addresses Efficiency.)

For months, the issue of data center energy consumption has been a pet marketing platform for vendors of storage gear. 3PAR, Pillar, NetApp, and others have peddled the idea that their wares somehow improve the profile of IT energy use. (See Power Problems Plague Users and Pillar's Power Pitch.) Power efficiency has also been a rallying cry for companies in the managed services business. (See 365 Main.)

Unlike these PR pitches, the Green Grid aims for specifics. The group hopes to establish a standard metric for determining how energy-efficient a data center is. They will also seek a consensus on best practices.

The Green Grid has already started work. Three white papers on its Website outline the problem and describe simple, straightforward ways to measure energy use. The language is refreshingly direct. Here's an example from one document: "Vendors commonly put inefficient power suppies in high-volume servers because they don't see a competitive advantage in putting in more efficient components."Language like that signals an industry forum that could just possibly – get something done, if only by separating the doers from the talkers.

Which brings us to membership. Right now, the founding members include AMD, APC, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Rackable Systems, SprayCool, Sun, and VMware.

Where is EMC? Where are Cisco, NetApp, Pillar, 3PAR... to name but a few? Surely they can't expect to hide behind the concept that blade servers are the real power culprits? (See Blades Still Too Hot.)

There's still time for them to join. We hope they do. To work well, Green Grid will need input from all kinds of data center suppliers, including storage players.

There will be few excuses not to join. Unlike some of the SNIA efforts, Green Grid's work won't require complicated caucusing that provides a built-in excuse for indifference, or inertia. There won't be the chance to hide behind complexity, proprietary IP, or PowerPoint theorems. Energy consumption is pretty basic. Either you're into improving it, or you're not.Will cost be an obstacle? For today's big storage companies, that's hardly likely. While contributing membership is $25,000, general membership, which does not include the ability to shape specs, costs $5,000.

But as of February 14, just 17 percent of 1,000 unique registrants on Green Grid's Website classed themselves as technology vendors. Another 16 percent described themselves as interested individuals; 49 percent as end-user organizations; and 17 percent as "other."

"We expect a significant number of new members," says Green Grid spokesman Richard Weber. He says the founding members hope end-user organizations – nearly half of the group's Website registrants – will swell the ranks.

If storage players want any credibility at all in their power pitches, they will show up as well. We're keeping score.

— Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch