The Storage Economist

We have been showing clients for years how Storage Virtualization and Dynamic (thin) Provisioning saves money by producing higher utilization rates, and thereby reducing current and future capital expenditures. Better Utilization = Better Return on Asset (ROA). Your CFO will love that message.

Reclaiming space (30-50% is what we are typically seeing these days) means more headroom for growth WITHOUT purchasing new disk. This goes in line with the Symantec CEO stating earlier in the year to “stop buying disk.”

Besides the CAPEX savings, there are other green savings too, primarily Green House Gases (GHG). This will be an increasing important data center metric as many countries start negotiating and signing the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty. CO2 emissions are a problems with countries needing to expand, and if that expansion is your data center then you need to get planning on reducing your current and future CO2 emissions. Storage can be a significant part of the data center GHG effect.

This latest Wikibon report validates the HDS notion (that we have had for years) that virtualization and thin provisioning can and will reduce GHG as utilizations are improved, and the cost of data growth can be done without adding CO2. This is an excellent article to add you’re your business case on investing in the right architectures now to reduce money (green) and green house gas (also green). These 2 points will play a major role in IT spending and planning in 2010 and 2011.