Going Green: Political Hype Or VAR Opportunity?
When it comes to technology, we are drawn to buzzwords and phrases. For instance, terms such as enterprise, virtualization, and consolidation are examples of words that oversimplify technical concepts, but are effective nonetheless. The latest buzzword to catch my attention is the term "green." Until recently, green meant recycling my beer bottles and not starting any tire fires in my yard. However, the term green has been expanded to encompass other topics including energy savings. Regardless of your political persuasion, there are opportunities for VARs to increase sales by selling their customers on the business case for going green.
The Energy Problem Is Real
Gartner predicts that within the next two to three years, half of the world's data centers will become obsolete because of power and space restrictions. According to a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the IT industry consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006 — about 1.5% of the total consumed in the United States — at a cost of about $4.5 billion. The EPA also estimates that power consumption in the industry could nearly double by 2011. This makes perfect sense. Most estimates of data growth fall in the 60% to 70% range, and one of the biggest energy hogs in the data center is storage equipment. As storage grows, it uses more energy and requires more cooling. Unless your customers have their own power generation plants, it means that their operational costs are rising in proportion with their data storage needs.
"We know from conversations with our customers that data center power consumption amidst the exorbitant growth of data is a key concern for CIOs and other IT professionals," says Bob Miller, CEO of ONStor, a company that provides enterprise NAS (network attached storage) solutions. ONStor recently performed a survey of IT decision makers regarding the status of the "greening" of their data centers. Sixty-three percent of the respondents reported that their data centers had run out of space, power, or cooling capacity without warning. Sixty percent reported that they had a green initiative in place, would have one in place in the next two years, or had at least talked about it with management.
"What we find most interesting from this survey is how many executives aren't implementing solutions to address these challenges," says Miller. "There's a disconnect between having an awareness of the need to lower power consumption in the data center and doing something about it." That disconnect is where you, the trusted advisor, can help.
Sell Storage Based On A Payback
Power consumption in data centers has become such a problem that many storage vendors such as ONStor have used this as a major marketing point for their storage systems. Pillar Data is another example of this. Pillar promotes the environmental benefits gained by saving energy; however, it also makes a strong business case for data center efficiency. Pillar's efficiency quotient calculates a utilization percentage by multiplying capacity and performance and then dividing that result by power multiplied by space required for the equipment.
If your storage solution will provide 50% to 90% more efficient operation than your customers' old storage solutions, it will be an easier sell for you. This will help move you to a position of selling storage based on operational cost savings, not just as a commodity.
I can't think of many sales pitches that are more compelling than saving your customers money. Is it irresponsible to profit from a noble-intentioned, environmentally friendly concept such as going green? No. Resource conservation is going to happen regardless of what business you're in. If you are lucky enough to be a VAR that addresses data center products such as storage, why not add sales while helping to save Mother Earth with green products?