Wikibon, the world’s first Web 2.0 technology research and advisory community, today announced Conserve IT, a new service designed to assist IT companies and their customers to qualify for rewards offered by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) for installing energy-efficient equipment.
Conserve IT is a first-of-its-kind service that accelerates the qualification of storage products for energy rebates and provides independent validation of energy efficiency for storage platforms from a number of leading vendors, spanning emerging Web 2.0 suppliers to the most recognized brands in the business.
As a leading storage player, Hitachi has a large installed base, making the PG&E incentive program more attractive for customers once its products get qualified in August 2008.
As an early participant in this program, Hitachi is demonstrating its commitment to reducing energy consumption in the data center, helping customers save money and improve the environment at the same time. Initiatives like this validate the company’s green marketing efforts.
Hitachi has one of the most aggressive and impressive global energy initiatives. Hitachi’s Harmonious Green Plan and Project CoolCenter50 corporate initiatives are aimed at reducing 330,000 tons of carbon emissions and cutting down power consumption by as much as 50 percent by 2012. No other company in the storage industry is anywhere near this.
This means that Hitachi will offset its carbon output from its production facilities by reducing emission during the product’s lifecycle and disposal…and Hitachi will implement other techniques such as eco-friendly facilities.
Translated this means Hitachi is developing energy efficient products and is committed to carbon neutrality.
A main factor in Hitachi’s energy efficiency storage strategy relates to the way its products efficiently utilize storage. The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform™ V for example virtualizes storage and also offers thin provisioning. These innovations allow customers to achieve higher utilization and thus use less spinning disk—thereby saving energy costs.
Hitachi also offers intelligent spin-down functionality on its mid-range storage products so less frequently accessed data can be placed on drives that are spun down and consume very little or no energy.
“As enterprises continually look for ways to reduce power and cooling costs, Conserve IT is accelerating the qualification process for our energy-efficient storage arrays with utility companies so that our customers can reap additional benefits for implementing their Green IT initiatives,” said Hu Yoshida, vice president and CTO, Hitachi Data Systems.
“With Conserve IT, Wikibon has demonstrated industry leadership to help the user community maximize their return on investment. We are proud to be a part of this program, which is closely aligned with the pioneering vision and activities implemented across all Hitachi Ltd. companies for enabling greener data centers.”
