Sustainability may be key to rising data storage costs, expert says

As data storage costs continue to be a pressing concern for IT teams managing their budgets, companies are trying to balance commitments to sustainability with rising energy costs.

Thomas Scheibe, Cisco VP of product management for cloud networking, told IT Brew in early June that data storage technology is evolving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach.

“It’s a journey,” Scheibe said during an interview at Cisco Live. “There’s no magic solution.”

Keep it simple. New data processing workflows present a more complicated picture to users in need of higher CPU processing power to manage the demands on their systems. That means power conservation is now more important than ever, beyond just the environmental benefits of sustainability.

Given the changing landscape of computing power and data management, and the lower cost of more sustainable energy solutions, optimization is key. Scheibe emphasized the need for getting to a point where power usage isn’t a fluctuating cost but one that is more predictable.

“There are a lot of levers I think that can be used for standardization around what different power levels to use,” Scheibe said.

Power up. The industry’s move toward cloud solutions for storage and management of data has pushed costs higher due to the necessary higher capacity; this in turn has led to questions about how energy pricing and costs will line up with sustainability goals.

Where the energy is coming from has one of the biggest impacts on sustainability goals and cost, Scheibe explained. How much you spend on energy can fluctuate depending on where the power is coming from and how the data center is managing its consumption—elements of the process which are largely out of the control of companies and organizations.

And times have changed.

“Most data center racks can get, maximum, eight to 10 kilowatts of power, which was more than enough probably 10 years ago,” Scheibe said.