The exponential growth of data has led to significant business challenges and environmental concerns for organisations to address. As data fuels the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), managing its environmental impact becomes crucial. Data sprawl and redundancy increase storage requirements, consuming vast amounts of resources and energy. Poor data management further exacerbates this issue, with up to 90% of backed up data deemed redundant.
Furthermore, data centres account for a substantial portion of power consumption, adding to the global carbon footprint. Additionally, rising energy costs and tightening regulations intensify the need for sustainable data management solutions.
A new approach to data
Given that data is the lifeblood of the modern world and touches practically every area of our current existence, we cannot stop it from being generated. In fact, as 4IR continues to gain pace, the number of connected devices generating data will only increase. The strategy of keeping everything forever is not feasible and wastes energy and resources, and the typical approach of having many copies of redundant data stored in silos all over the enterprise exacerbates this challenge.
In addition, the way data is stored contributes to the problem. While storing data on disk improves data availability and protection (for meeting service level agreements, compliance regulations, backup and recovery processes, business continuance and disaster recovery plans), storage systems consume a significant portion of data centre space and power. Electricity costs alone have increased 20% or more over the last few years and storage is estimated to command 35 to 40% or more of data centre power. Data management software point products, just like hardware point products, exacerbate enterprise inefficiency. Software point products necessitate additional server requirements, additional disk and/or tape storage hardware, more power and additional IT manpower requirements.
Toward a greener future
We need to look at data management practices through a lens of environmental awareness. This means that to adopt greener practices and reduce the carbon footprint associated with data, we need to be smarter about storing and managing information. Applying energy efficiency principles to enterprise data management ultimately reduces equipment and associated labour requirements, saves companies money in the near term, and minimises additional spending and risk in the longer term.
The first step in achieving this is to audit enterprise data populations and assess enterprise data storage capacity utilisation, and then establish a strategy to maximise data resources and capacity management, and to minimise associated consumption and costs. Organisations need to consider tools that reduce data redundancy and streamline storage capacity utilisation, as well as target solutions offering measurable cost efficiencies. It is also essential to evaluate IT infrastructure, labour spending reductions and associated data centre energy demand reductions.
Best-practice enterprise data management – using the right enterprise data management software – improves storage utilisation, drives efficiency into the data centre and produces measurable results. Only when this has been addressed will green energy solutions like using renewables to power data centres become viable options, as consumption must first be optimised before any alternative power options can be effective.
The difference
By reducing data centre energy consumption and associated costs through intelligent technology that maximises existing IT investments and minimises raw storage, organisations can find a better way to manage data while also reducing power, cooling and space requirements within the data centre. Effective enterprise data management solutions enable efficiency by addressing multiple data needs with a single, unified approach.
The reality is that data centres are the factories of the 4IR, and they significantly contribute to the global carbon footprint, often without visible pollution. However, the challenge lies in the resources they consume. While we cannot eliminate this consumption entirely, we can take steps to mitigate its impact. Effective data management is foundational to data centre sustainability, as it enhances visibility, reduces complexity and supports more efficient solutions.
In fact, industry recognition for excellence in data management underscores the importance of a comprehensive vision and execution capabilities in this domain. Companies can trust in the ability to deliver sustainable practices that not only improve operational efficiency, but also align with broader environmental goals.
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