Green will be the third or fourth priority when making a storage consideration. Solutions that provide some power efficiencies also will need to do more than just be power efficient. An example of an optimization project might be implementing a real-time compression tool like Storwize's solution or NetApp's Deduplication (or both) can claim greenness because they reduce the amount of storage you need, but the primary reason you buy a solution like these is it can significantly delay future storage purchases. Another example might be that the primary motivation to use an efficiency solution like Tek-Tools' Profiler suite to truly allow you to do more with less. Then with the solution in-house you can use it to identify underutilized servers and storage, rebalance those loads and power off unneeded equipment, but the cost justification is primarily increased efficiency. In short it is all about instant ROI.
While green is not dead its role has changed; for the next few years it is a nice to have, not a have to have. Products need to be selected by their ability to deliver immediate cost savings and efficiency improvements.
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George Crump is founder of Storage Switzerland, an analyst firm focused on the virtualization and storage marketplaces. It provides strategic consulting and analysis to storage users, suppliers, and integrators. An industry veteran of more than 25 years, Crump has held engineering and sales positions at various IT industry manufacturers and integrators. Prior to Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest integrators.