The storage industry proudly displayed its green credentials at this year's Storage Expo event. Sponsored by The Green Technology Initiative, the show took place at London Olympia's National Hall, which was flooded with 147 exhibitors, showcasing products, giving demos and promoting the benefits of green IT to 4,390 visitors over the course of two days.
Chris James, marketing director for EMEA at vendor Overland Storage, said: "We had a great show. At any one time there were four to five meetings on our stand from when the show opened to when it closed. We were also very pleased with the reaction we got to the Overland robot, which we are sure will be a memorable part of the show.
"The green theme at Storage Expo this year is not a new issue, nor one that will go away overnight. People have become fanatics and the environment is almost seen to be as important as religion."
Despite the England vs Russia football match being aired on the afternoon the first day, many felt the first day was busier than the second. Thomas Barrett, Northern Europe regional director for FalconStor, said: "Storage Expo could be done in one day - two are not really needed."
It was a good event for Steve Murphy, UK managing director at Hitachi Data Systems (HDS). He told CRN: "We found this year's event to be invaluable for relationship building with potential customers. The quality and relevance of the sessions along with the calibre of attendees will ensure our continued association with Storage Expo."
HDS also ended the show on a green theme by auctioning off the olive tree on its stand and pledging the £400 raised to charity.
However, Storage Expo did not impress everyone. Neil Evans, UK regional sales director for HDS, said: "Storage Expo has lots of vendors, but the visitors are mostly industry people instead of end users. There should be two shows, one for end users and one for channel partners instead of including them all in the same day."
However, Marco Dottarelli, managing director of sales for EMEA at storage vendor LSI, disagreed.
"The atmosphere of the show is good," he said. "If the show was split for end users and channel partners, then that atmosphere may be lost."
A sense that green IT is driven by the incentive to generate stacks of greener products instead of keeping the planet green, also seemed to prevail throughout the show.
Dottarelli said: "There was a lot of green at the show this year - green is a popular colour and many companies are going with the fashion. The real issues, however, are power consumption, heat generation and the energy needed to cool down systems. The products LSI showcased are virtualisation offerings. Virtualisation is a more efficient and greener way to run applications."
He added that LSI is a member of The Green Grid - a non-profit global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in datacentres and business computing eco-systems - launched earlier this year.
Nick Broadbent, European director for vendor DataCore, said: "Many firms over allocate and use more power than is necessary. Through thin provisioning the power is pooled and easier to manage."
Hamish Macarthur, chief executive of analyst Macarthur Stroud and the key speaker for Copan's datacentre issues presentation, said: "Copan's massive array of idle disk technology, when complemented with data de-duplication, can deliver disk storage at 25 per cent of the cost.
"All IT people should make a contribution to the environment. For the channel it is the financial benefits that will make the change."
As well as a presence in green IT, Plasmon used the event to demonstrate its archive products, including Enterprise Active Appliance.
Steve Tongish, marketing director EMEA at Plasmon, said: "There are huge power savings to be made in the datacentre by migrating static data from power intensive magnetic disk storage to Plasmon's ultra density optical archive solu tions."
Pillar Data Systems' staff were kitted out in bright green t-shirts to convey the green message.
Adam Sharp, marketing director for Pillar, said: "When it comes to green IT the industry should be challenged to adopt it. Is green IT altruistic or pragmatic?"
Bob Maness, vice president at Pillar, agreed with Sharp. "Green is driven by operational costs and then saving the planet," he said. "The whole idea happens to fit with the partner and their requirements to better use what they have."
Andy Brewerton, technical director of EMEA for software vendor BakBone, said: "The issue of green is more relevant to hardware vendors. Hardware creates the problem and software solves it. Green will evolve naturally and move to virtualisation. It is going to happen because it's more cost effective. Slapping a green label on products does not always help as vendors are jumping on the green bandwagon and end users are becoming wise to this."
Summary
*There was an overall theme of green IT at the show.
*Many delegates believe the financial benefits of going green will inevitably drive the change.
*Opinions were split as to whether the Storage Expo should be aimed at either channel partners or end users, instead of at both.
Contacts
Hitachi Data Systems 01753 618 000 www.hds.co.uk
Overland Storage 0118-989 8000 www.overlandstorage.co.uk
The Green Grid 001 503-619-0653 www.thegreengrid.org
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