May 2008

As far as ‘green’ computing is concerned, the IT industry does not have a particularly good record. In the past, it has been poor in a whole range of ‘green’ areas, including power consumption, the use of toxic substances, over-packaging, air conditioning and product life cycle.

However, customer demand is now causing ‘green’ issues to become increasingly important in IT. Companies are looking more and more at implementing ‘green’ policies, both in their use of IT systems and in the design, manufacture and disposal of computer equipment. Those responsible for securing IT networks are also beginning to look at whether the solutions they choose live up to ‘green’ principles.

The first step is to look at suppliers and their approach to ‘green’ policies. Typically, a ‘green’ supplier would implement ‘green’ issues throughout the company and in product design and manufacture.

Does the supplier create designs that reduce materials usage and waste, minimise packaging, increase recyclability, lengthen life cycles, and minimise energy consumption, in all aspects of distribution and operation? Are the company’s products designed to comply with specific environmental directives and legislation?

IT security staff might also consider the use of UTMs as a ‘green’ component of their security. According to IDC, the minimum requirement for a UTM is a firewall, VPN, antivirus and intrusion detection/prevention. UTMs have, however, evolved from this to incorporate additional capabilities which can include URL filtering, spam blocking and spyware protection, as well as centralised management, monitoring, and logging capabilities.

UTMs integrate several security functions into one single appliance and this fact alone could qualify them to be ‘green’. One single UTM appliance can replace up to five or six separate security appliances or servers. So a single UTM appliance saves space in the office and significantly reduces power consumption.

This reduction in the power needed is felt both in the rack and in the air conditioning necessary to cool multiple products. Indeed, in smaller organisations, it can completely remove the necessity for 24×7, year-round air conditioning.

A UTM could also be considered ‘green’ if it can easily upgrade to add more functionality and performance, such as solutions from companies like WatchGuard and Check Point. These facilities would allow the UTM to grow and change with a company’s needs, rather than having to be wastefully ditched when it fails to cope with a burgeoning business.

The ability to increase performance and function is particularly relevant for companies with less than 200 users, where it is often difficult to predict traffic volumes, usage patterns, or indeed numbers of users, more than a year ahead.

Other ‘green’ considerations, when looking at security solutions, are recycling, disposal and whether or not the solution contains toxic substances. There are two legal requirements which cover these areas. The first is WEEE, the European Community directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment and the second is the RoHS Directive.

WEEE sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods, including computer equipment. The RoHS directive restricts the use of certain substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and two flame retardants - PBB and PBDE) in electrical and electronic products sold in the European Union after July 1, 2006.

Computer equipment purchasers should be aware that there are companies which, for manufacturing reasons, were granted RoHS exempt status rather than RoHS compliant status, and you should be careful you choose solutions with the ‘compliant’ label.

Conclusion
Considering and implementing ‘green’ issues is increasingly important in IT and IT security is no exception. Choosing suppliers who implement ‘green’ policies, considering solutions such as UTMs, and selecting products which conform to WEEE and the RoHS directive are all ways in which IT security can be ‘greener.’

Bio – Ian Kilpatrick
Ian Kilpatrick is chairman of Wick Hill Group plc, specialists in secure infrastructure solutions. Kilpatrick has been involved with the Group for more than 30 years and is the moving force behind its dynamic growth. Wick Hill is an international organisation supplying most of the Time Top 1000 companies through a network of accredited resellers.

Kilpatrick has an in-depth experience of computing with a strong vision of the future in IT. He looks at computing from a business point-of-view and his approach reflects his philosophy that business benefits and ease-of-use are key factors in IT. He has had numerous articles published in the UK and overseas press, as well as being a regular speaker at IT exhibitions.

For further press information, please contact Annabelle Brown on 0191 252 8548, email abpublicrelations@btinternet.com. For reader queries, please contact Wick Hill on 01483 227600, web www.wickhill.com.

Located in Yokohama, Japan, the new state-of-the-art data center brings together the collective product innovations of the Hitachi Information & Technology Systems Group (ITSG) companies including industry-leading storage systems, server and networking equipment. This sophisticated architecture is designed to offer the highest levels of energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent, while also lowering IT management costs.

Optimized to deliver even greater power efficiencies, the facility also features cutting-edge products that take advantage of Hitachi’s world-famous R&D expertise in other key areas of technology. Thermal hydraulic cooling devices, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and highly advanced power supply converters are designed to work in concert to contribute significant power, cooling and space benefits throughout. Leading-edge patented Hitachi Finger Vein authentication and other RFID technologies have also been integrated into the facility for state-of-the-art security.

"Within the IT industry, the Wikibon community believes that Hitachi, Ltd. has the most comprehensive and fully implemented corporate green plan in place," says David Vellante, president and CEO of IT Centrix and co-founder of the Wikibon Project. "Hitachi's progress on its emission neutral strategy is impressive and genuine. Initiatives such as the collaboration of various Hitachi groups for a new datacenter design in Yokohama underscore the firm’s commitment and are great drivers for change. Within storage the USP V controller re-designs and the implementation of virtualization, thin provisioning and support for external devices that spin down, have helped improve utilization and reduce power consumption by 63% over previous generations, a substantial milestone that sets an example of leadership for the industry."

Environmental issues continue to escalate IT budget discussions, impact data center designs, and shape corporate social responsibility. Today’s announcement showcases the combined vision of Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi Ltd. for enabling a greener data center through the use of Hitachi technology—and curbing the significant environmental burdens these facilities have been known to create for customers of all sizes. Furthermore, the new data center marks another chief milestone in support of Hitachi’s Harmonious Green Plan and Project CoolCenter50 corporate initiatives which are aimed at reducing 330,000 tons of carbon emissions and cutting down power consumption by as much as 50 percent by 2012. It is the company’s charter to apply these targets to the product development process across the entire IT solutions portfolio—chief among which include Hitachi Data Systems’ services-oriented storage solutions.

“In today’s climate, we have found that the cost of energy and power has quickly emerged as a growing concern, driving companies to take a deeper look at the efficiency of their data centers,” said Hu Yoshida, vice president and CTO, Hitachi Data Systems. “IT organizations need to take a holistic approach and carefully examine how every facet of their data center can play a role in improving their environmental impact—and lowering escalating power consumption levels. By leveraging Hitachi green technology, this breakthrough data center architecture provides a best practices approach for driving better efficiencies and utilization in customer environments now and in the future.”

Hitachi the Green Giant: Over 30 Years of Eco-Friendly History

Hitachi Data Systems, along with Hitachi, Ltd. has enjoyed a long history and proven track record for supplying environmentally friendly storage solutions to companies worldwide—a legacy that spans from the supply chain through to the manufacturing process. It is this core competency and heritage in storage system and technology design that has enabled Hitachi to not only infuse eco-friendly innovation across the entire line-up of storage products, but to also cement its position at the forefront of the green data center movement.

The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V and its modular version, the Universal Storage Platform VM, are the only services-oriented storage platform that can equip customers’ existing heterogeneous storage assets with important capabilities they were never designed to deliver in the first place, such as external storage virtualization and thin provisioning. Not only does the combination of Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning and virtualization provide significant improvements in capacity utilization, but it also lowers customers’ power and cooling consumption rates. Organizations therefore require fewer storage devices and ultimately, less electricity and space, which results in immediate improvements to overall storage economics.

The Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage and Workgroup Modular Storage midrange systems deliver breakthrough Power Savings capabilities that enable disc drives to be powered up and powered down as needed—creating a 20 percent cost of operation advantage against competitors. Additionally, the Power Savings storage service also reduces the number of kilowatt hours (KWH) a storage array consumes which contributes to reducing cooling costs within a data center or distributed computing environment. The Hitachi AMS and WMS systems complement the Hitachi USP V and USP VM systems as tiered or archive storage, especially when configured with SATA disk for lower costs.

Helping customers manage explosive growth of data volumes, the Hitachi Content Archive Platform is a sophisticated active archive solution that provides an archive tier of storage that meets customers’ scalability, data retention and protection requirements. Furthermore, customers benefit by being able to leverage existing storage infrastructure and consolidate the number of footprints in order to achieve a decrease in heat emissions, a reduction in power consumption, while also simplifying management.

For more information on Hitachi Data Systems green storage, please visit http://www.hds.com/green.