Data storage innovation: saving electricity, water and space

Data storage innovation: saving electricity, water and space

ESG adoption has reached a critical tipping point, and companies are facing the challenge of balancing environmental initiatives with business goals and broader digitalization initiatives.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives have become ubiquitous across industries, regions and companies large and small. As consumers and investors demand higher standards for sustainability and corporate responsibility, and as the impact of climate change continues to grow, companies are planning to invest more resources in ESG-related initiatives. In fact, 92% of S&P 500 companies have published some form of ESG report, and more than a quarter of global investors say ESG is core to their investment considerations.

However, while ESG adoption has reached a critical mass, balancing environmental initiatives with consumer demands and business goals with the broader digitalization agenda is clearly not an easy task. The key lies in the data center. Cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), streaming services, and more are generating increasing amounts of data. Look at home security systems with WiFi cameras that are constantly capturing and uploading footage, and high-definition video games that use advanced software and hardware. Don’t forget that the healthcare industry is currently generating up to 30% of the world’s data in order to advance new medical discoveries, improve treatments, and make healthcare more affordable.

All data requires more natural resources and space to store and manage. Although the full impact of such rapid data growth is still unclear, the foreseeable result is that it will increase the power consumption of data centers, directly impacting companies that have already set emission reduction and zero carbon emission goals in their ESG plans.

How much energy is needed?

Data centers that support the continued growth of digitalization currently account for about 1% of global electricity consumption. In order to reduce energy usage, many companies are moving from older on-premises data storage to the cloud and hyperscale data centers because they are inherently more efficient.

However, moving data storage to the cloud is not a panacea for environmental problems. Hyperscale and colocation data centers also use a lot of natural resources. It is also important to note that smaller, less efficient data centers still account for a large part of all data center energy use. All of these factors have led to data center electricity consumption growing at an unsustainable rate.

This problem is perhaps most evident in Europe, where the data center market has expanded rapidly over the past few years, coupled with unprecedented energy shortages in the region. In Ireland, data center electricity use has more than tripled since 2015, accounting for 14% of the country's total electricity consumption in 2021. This share is expected to grow to 27% by 2030, making data centers the largest energy consumer in Ireland. However, similar proportions are common throughout Western Europe.

In order to reduce the possibility of power outages, the Irish state-owned electricity company has issued a ban on companies building new data centers, and other countries are also planning to follow suit. Although the temporary suspension of construction can effectively curb the growing energy consumption, it cannot solve the problem of explosive growth in data. True sustainability requires optimizing the efficiency of data centers.

Water and electricity demand

Outdated technology and rigid architectures that lack flexibility have become a burden for enterprises, so more efficient technologies are needed to keep up with the growing data demand and achieve sustainable goals, that is, more efficient data storage and related cooling equipment. Today, up to 50% of the electricity used in data centers is consumed by cooling technology.

Water is another important consideration. A normal data center uses about 3 to 5 million gallons of water per day for cooling, which is equivalent to the water consumption of 30,000 to 50,000 people per day. As the amount of data continues to grow, advances in cooling technology will become the most important factor in improving energy efficiency and reducing water consumption. In addition, AI will gradually be used to build accurate models of the complex relationship between temperature control and energy consumption, thereby more effectively managing the cooling operations of data center infrastructure.

However, power and cooling are only part of the problem; the actual space occupied by the data center is another important consideration for improving data center efficiency.

space

It’s clear that traditional large data centers are becoming increasingly impractical for enterprises from an IT, business, and environmental perspective. As enterprises adopt more as-a-service applications, there is less and less need to keep infrastructure on-premises. A 2017 IDC study found that data centers typically use less than half of their allocated space, with resources sitting idle 55% of the time. As the need to improve sustainability continues to grow, retaining traditional data centers will become an unjustified burden because they don’t use space efficiently or can’t scale with data volumes.

How All-Flash Can Help

When we think about how to improve data center efficiency, it is clear that there is no single solution to the problem. Instead, it requires a multi-pronged approach that combines technological innovation with strategies to reduce water, electricity and space usage.

All-flash is increasingly part of the solution. As a pioneer in flash technology, Pure Storage® products are purpose-built from the ground up to deliver measurable environmental benefits to the data center.

How big is the benefit?

• Saves 84.7% of energy compared to competitors’ all-flash solutions.

• Save 96% of required space compared to hybrid disk storage.

• Increase storage density by 1,000% by reducing the number of storage units per rack.

All of this will translate into operational and energy efficiency, as well as reducing carbon footprint and electronic waste and improving utilization.

One example is UK car insurance company Admiral, which was unable to keep up with growing workloads and data and turned to Pure Storage to solve its growing storage needs. After deploying 12 FlashArray//X™ systems, Admiral was able to quickly consolidate and automate its VMware environment, support new products, and increase capabilities to enable its ambitious growth and development plans.

By adopting Pure, Admiral has reduced the size of their data center fourfold and cut power and cooling costs by 74% annually, putting them on track to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Read the full story.

Like Admiral, businesses across all industries are faced with the challenge of having to improve data center sustainability as data volumes continue to grow. Moving forward successfully means exploring opportunities to improve energy efficiency, including technologies that can move you toward a more sustainable future. See how much you can save with Pure.