Extending the Life of Data Centers with an Energy-Efficient SAN

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As IT departments work to keep pace with business growth, the cost of scaling and supporting a growing data center can be substantial. These costs extend far beyond the price of hardware and software. Data center expansion requires planning for adequate floor space, power distribution, backup generators, cooling requirements and more. And, as any IT manager will tell you, that's no easy feat.

According to analyst estimates, up to 50 percent of data centers will have insufficient power and cooling capacity this year. This leaves many companies scrambling for more efficient solutions that reduce both the total cost of ownership and the environmental impact of running their data centers, and are scalable enough to grow along with the company and its data needs. To meet rapidly changing business needs, IT departments need to consider more than just adding equipment or expanding functionality and look for long-term solutions.

Getting Started

So what does a company need to consider when it is first constructing its data center, or executing a massive redesign? Below are a few major physical resources that need to be accounted for:

• Square footage required
• Cooling equipment requirements
• Utility power needed for power distribution equipment -- Size or number of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)

This doesn't account for the fact that all of the estimates for these items need to be doubled when disaster recovery is implemented. In the past, the "rip-and-replace" method -- literally ripping out the old storage area network (SAN) and replacing it with a new one -- was something many IT managers found themselves having to consider when planning an expansion.

Obviously, this is not the most environmentally friendly, or budget-friendly, solution. Careful consideration needs to go into each element of planning for limited physical resources, as data centers are major expenditures that will directly impact a company's bottom line if not planned for appropriately.

Fortunately, for companies considering an overhaul of the data center or faced with the need for more space, there are technological advances that can remove the burden from resource constraints.

Energy Efficient Storage

"Energy-efficient data storage" may seem like a complete oxymoron, but more and more green technologies and solutions are being developed not only for their environmental impact, but also due to the technological advancements being offered. New critical technologies include storage virtualization (think VMware for your storage), Thin Provisioning, Automated Tiered Storage and space-efficient snapshots.

Storage virtualization -- Virtualized data centers help companies increase efficiency and decrease the need for new equipment, therefore minimizing the costs associated with powering, cooling and housing data equipment. By merging all disks into a single pool of storage, companies allow a volume to use all disk drives simultaneously to access data. Separating applications from physical storage devices can be used to get the same performance with fewer drives compared to a non-virtualized storage environment.

Thin Provisioning -- This is a must-have for a cost-effective, "green" data center. With traditional storage solutions, administrators must dedicate storage space upfront for an application or end-user, a process known as allocating storage. Conventional, or "thick," storage provisioning methods lock out other applications from using this pre-allocated capacity and consume disk space even if no data is actually written by the application. Thin provisioned systems use actual physical capacity on the drives only when data is written by the application.

By increasing the amount of utilization -- the percentage of the drive that is taken up by actual data, not just the pre-allocated space -- Thin Provisioning will lower the number of overall drives required. Advanced thin provisioning technology can also convert data previously stored in a "thick" provisioned storage system into thin provisioned volumes.

Automated Tiered Storage -- The industry is increasingly adopting tiered storage management techniques -- distributing data across tier-one storage, which is typically the highest performing and most expensive drives, to a lower tier of storage comprising energy-efficient, higher-capacity SATA drives. Automated tiered storage continually tracks data usage and automatically moves data between storage tiers based on predefined rules. Using automated tiered storage, companies can greatly reduce the number of energy-sapping drives and thereby reduce the cost of powering the storage system.

Space-efficient continuous snapshots -- Using a multi-tiered storage system enables storage of read-only data such as snapshots on cheaper disks. If the snapshots are space-efficient -- storing just one copy of the data with pointers to subsequent changes instead of complete duplicates -- the storage within that volume becomes read-only, meaning it does not need to be written again.

Companies can commit to reducing their data center-footprint by implementing data storage solutions that reduce CO2 emissions per usable terabyte. By researching and implementing these new technologies, companies can actually reduce the overall number of disk drives needed -- and ultimately reduce the physical space and energy needed, which all contribute to major long-term cost savings and decreased environmental impact.

Putting It All Together

While commitment to energy-efficient, environmentally responsible technology is certainly a consideration for companies today, cost savings and the company's bottom line will always be at the forefront of IT planning.

Technology vendors that develop scalable solutions that offer both green and storage cost savings, like Compellent has with the launch of its Storage Center 4.0, simplify the decision making process for everyone. Compellent Storage Center 4.0 employs features focused on reducing overall storage costs, automation, performance and green enhancements to promote energy efficiency.

Green advantages are coming to the forefront of data center planning, and choosing a solution that fits data center needs for today and tomorrow and cuts back on the environmental impact of doing business is becoming more and more important. Choosing green is no longer a "nice" benefit to have; it is quickly becoming a must-have in the face of an energy crisis, limited space and an unpredictable economy. As businesses commit themselves to corporate social responsibility at every level of the company, we will see more and more companies choosing green -- and, in the end, saving a little green, too.

Lawrence E. Aszmann is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Compellent, a provider of enterprise-class network storage solutions.

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