Solving the Looming Energy Crisis In Your IT Backyard
- By Winston Thomas
- April 12, 2023
IT is taking the rap for carbon emissions. From the energy hogging crypto industry to inefficient legacy infrastructure, companies are zeroing in on IT to solve their energy inefficiency.
It’s not just what investors and customers want. With the prevailing economic uncertainty, increasing regulatory scrutiny and the pandemic making the world more digital, IT sustainability is now a significant operations question.
Yet, we are going about it all wrong when it comes to solving IT sustainability.
“I get concerned when organizations are too focused on just offsetting their emissions such as buying ‘carbon offsets’, planting trees, etc.,” says Mark Jobbins, vice president and field chief technology officer for Asia Pacific and Japan at Pure Storage.
Instead, Jobbins believes companies “should focus on reducing the underlying generation issue.” It means maximizing your current technology investment, cutting down waste and reusing components where possible.
Reframe the question
While all these focus areas sound apparent, the approach to achieving them seems clouded by insufficient data, misconceptions and a traditional IT procurement mindset.
Take data, for example. Jobbins believes it is a crucial area when addressing IT sustainability. But it is also where many overlook or underestimate.
“This might sound like an obvious area of focus. Yet little attention has so far been paid to it in major Western economies,” says Jobbins.
We know data has a massive impact on carbon emissions. “It is estimated that data centers alone contribute to as much as 1.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions,” says Jobbins.
So, why are we so far off the mark when looking to arrest data’s contributions to GHG?
“In a report, Pure commissioned in the U.S. and Europe in 2022, we found that while the vast majority of company sustainability managers agree that companies cannot reach their sustainability goals without significantly reducing their technology infrastructure energy usage, more than half believed sustainability was likely to be overlooked in the selection of data center vendors,” he explains.
For Jobbins, the report exposes a missed opportunity. With data and its use following a sharp upward trajectory, we will never have less data. So instead of trying to find ways to reduce the technology footprint, a better way is to ensure you have the proper infrastructure that minimizes the carbon footprint.
Find out the unknowns
One reason why companies have traditionally overlooked data is, well, because of the lack of it. That’s because there were no suitable tools to measure its impact, especially Scope 3 emissions.
This has changed. Hyperscalers have long seen energy efficiency through an operating revenue lens and created better tools to benchmark and measure emissions. These tools allow today’s companies to take measurable and proven initiatives to reduce CO2 from data generation, storage and general use.
Such a data-driven approach has companies implementing a raft of new measures. They include building data centers in colder climates, deploying durable and reliable hardware in the case of temperature spikes, and utilizing up-to-date metrics systems to evaluate energy capacity per watt and performance per watt.
Still, Jobbins feels companies must do more to choose the right technology for their data centers. For example, while flash-based storage systems have long been, at a minimum, 80% more efficient than hard disk-based storage, many compare it purely on near-term capital expenditures. Yet, using long-term cost-benefit calculation, flash-based storage makes more economic sense.
“Of course, this is not to say that the path to reducing data-led carbon emissions is simple. There are no easy fixes regarding sustainability strategies, even with data,” says Jobbins.
However, over time, these measures and others can cut running costs, simplify and cool their data centers and reduce energy consumption. It is why Jobbins thinks data is “a good place to start.”
Forget old habits
Another reason why IT sustainability is an issue today is because of the way we procured technology in the past. Companies tend to err on caution and overprovision to avoid expensive, high-risk upgrades.
The problem is that many companies still need to work on these approaches when buying and assessing technology. “Unfortunately, this can perversely increase technology debt and their environmental impact while missing the point around sustainability,” says Jobbins.
Pure takes a different approach to sustainable technology innovation. It does this through green IT-focused innovation and its Evergreen architecture, allowing companies to scale using “cloud-like behaviors.”
The Evergreen architecture sits at the center of its sustainability value proposition. “It is part of the core ethos of Pure, simplicity, choice and fairness for our customers,” says Jobbins.
It is also designed to answer questions that today’s sustainability-minded IT buyers will ask. They include:
- Can I purchase the platform with the business needs for day 1 and then scale non-disruptively to add capacity, new features, and technology updates (major and minor)?
- Can you scale components separately? i.e., The compute layer vs. storage
- Are all software services included, or must I purchase additional licenses?
- How much power, cooling and space do I need? Will this increase as I scale the product?
- What is the reliability of the product and services? What is the ARR of components?
- How do I gain visibility and management of the platform? Is management proactive? Is it an additional cost or included?
- Can I consume the portfolio as a service? Should I adopt the CAPEX model, a true OPEX (consumption model – not a lease), or a mix of the two financial models?
- Can the platform be managed through industry-standard APIs so I can automate the management of the environment and get on with creating new services and business value?
Walking the talk
Pure Storage is also rethinking its approach to sustainability with innovations from within.
Jobbins points out that the company is single-minded on simplicity, using fewer components for better reliability, reducing power, cooling and rack footprints, eliminating e-waste and creating a circular economy for its components.
Such a focus passes the benefits to Pure’s customers. They have experienced incredibly low power, cooling and data center footprints, 3-4x reliability in components leading to greater uptime and lower e-waste, claims Jobbins.
“All with the ability to start with the resource levels they need and upgrade, non-disruptively, at any time to meet new business demands,” he adds.
Pure1, Pure Storage’s observability suite, also adds much-needed clarity and more data points. It allows customers to manage their entire Pure infrastructure, from proactively managing platforms, managing support cases, capacity and “what if” planning, and self-service support upgrades to seeing actual power consumption stats.
“It’s pretty cool that a customer via a web portal can see how much power an array is consuming! You can look at your fleet and see GHG emission data, and we will continue to add more services via Pure1 as part of our digital experience platform,” says Jobbins.
Pure Storage is not stopping there. It now offers its customers an SLA for Energy Efficiency on Evergreen//One. It guarantees to deliver a service at no more than the specified watt per tebibyte (TiB) of effective used capacity. This helps companies balance their energy equation.
Change the conversation
The strange issue with IT is that while it is part of the sustainability problem, it can also be its answer.
Companies need to broaden the IT sustainability conversation to have a more significant impact. It should be seen as a business matter, not a technology issue.
“In my conversations with organizations, it often seems that IT is treated as an easy place to ‘push’ the problem to. IT can and does play a vital role in ensuring resources are best used and run, but it is only part of the plan,” says Jobbins.
He notes that visibility, education, and a committed leadership team to drive change are critical. It also allows everyone across all parts of the business to tackle sustainability from a holistic perspective.
For CDTOs, CTOs, CIOs and sustainability officers at the frontlines of IT sustainability, Jobbins has this advice. “Be bold, inspire and drive change — just be relentless in that goal!”
Winston Thomas is the editor-in-chief of CDOTrends and DigitalWorkforceTrends. He’s a singularity believer, a blockchain enthusiast, and believes we already live in a metaverse. You can reach him at [email protected].
Image credit: iStockphoto/Wavebreakmedia
Winston Thomas
Winston Thomas is the editor-in-chief of CDOTrends. He likes to piece together the weird and wondering tech puzzle for readers and identify groundbreaking business models led by tech while waiting for the singularity.