Partnership between the Utilities and IT Industries Accelerates
the Adoption of Green Technologies
MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(Business Wire)--
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 & 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.
Conserve IT was launched on behalf of IT customers in the Wikibon
community who wanted to take advantage of the excellent programs PG&E
and other utilities have put in place to conserve energy. The
community felt that it could help to dramatically increase the
participation of storage technologies which are major consumers of
power and cooling in data centers. PG&E responded to Wikibon by
allocating resources to help qualify additional storage technologies
and providing guidance to the storage industry at large.
Conserve IT is a new Wikibon services designed to:
-- Obtain the qualification of IT products from utility companies
such as PG&E
-- Enable IT vendors to rapidly secure incentives for end
customers;
-- Widely distribute customer best practices on energy efficiency
via Wikibon case studies.
Conserve IT significantly speeds the time-to-qualification,
provides independent validation of energy savings, results in cash
incentives for customers and enables the sharing of techniques for
reducing energy consumption in data centers. Seven storage suppliers
have signed on for Wikibon's Conserve IT and have achieved, or are
actively seeking qualification of their technologies with PG&E and
other utilities. Those committed to validating the energy efficiency
of their storage platforms include 3PAR, Compellent, DataDirect
Networks, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, Nexsan and Xiotech.
"These seven leading companies recognize that creating energy
saving technology is a starting point and helping customers realize
the benefits of applying green technologies is the next step," said
David Vellante, Co-founder and Principal Contributor at Wikibon. "This
partnership between the utilities and IT industries will accelerate
the adoption of green technologies and this program will help
customers and vendors directly connect green products to business
value."
PG&E incentives are based on the amount of energy savings achieved
by datacenters through the installation of energy-efficient storage
technologies such as MAID, virtualization and thin provisioning. In
addition, Wikibon and its technology clients are seeking qualification
of tiered storage management, high density storage arrays, flash
drives, intelligent spindown, data de-duplication and other
innovations. To qualify for these financial incentives, Northern and
Central California PG&E customers must apply for and be accepted into
the incentive program prior to deploying new storage technologies.
Participant Comments
Suppliers participating in Wikibon's Conserve IT had the following
comments:
"Wikibon was able to secure qualification from PG&E for our InServ
line of utility storage arrays within sixty days," said Craig Nunes,
Vice President of Marketing at 3PAR. "Wikibon's knowledge of the PG&E
process combined with a terrific understanding of storage
virtualization dramatically accelerated our qualification and reduced
the workload on our internal team. We're enthusiastic about the
partnership with Wikibon in the future to secure incentives for
customers both inside and outside of California."
"Conserve IT will help Compellent's customers qualify for energy
incentives by employing innovations like virtualization, thin
provisioning and automated tiered storage to reduce the drives needed
to manage data, further lowering costs, power consumption and space
requirements," said Larry Aszmann, CTO and co-founder, Compellent.
"Working with the Wikibon community, we are helping end-users
experience tangible economic and environmental benefits by delivering
next-generation storage tools and resources that extend the
performance of their data centers."
"The Web 2.0 data explosion creates a requirement for storage
technologies that are exceedingly energy efficient," said Paul Bloch,
President, DataDirect Networks. "Our S2A architecture allows the use
of ultra high capacity SATA drives without compromising on
performance. Together with Dynamic MAID, this translates into fewer
spinning disks and lower energy consumption. We're excited about
teaming with Wikibon and the utilities industry to provide added
incentives for our customers to conserve energy by adopting these
advanced technologies."
"EMC is committed to innovative technologies that promote energy
efficiencies and to helping customers achieve optimal utilization of
their IT infrastructure, reduce operational costs and their
environmental footprint," said Dick Sullivan, Director, Enterprise
Marketing, EMC. "EMC is delighted to collaborate with Wikibon to
effectively enable its customers to receive incentives from utilities
for implementing energy efficient products and processes."
"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."
"Nexsan strongly supports Conserve IT," said Bob Woolery, senior
vice president of marketing for Nexsan. "Rebates and other incentives
are a key part to market transformation and driving more energy
efficiency into the marketplace. Nexsan goes one step further by
integrating our energy savings AutoMAID technology as a core feature
of our solutions. Leading organizations realize that energy savings in
storage is quickly moving from a nice-to-have to must-have."
"For Xiotech, the Conserve IT program helps us definitively
demonstrate the energy efficiency of our new ISE technology," said
Mike Hoch, vice president of Marketing at Xiotech. "And for our
customers, it's the opportunity to add to their energy savings with
additional incentives from utilities. This is a win-win program for
everyone."
About Wikibon:
Wikibon is a next generation research and advisory community
combining Web 2.0 software technologies, global expertise and open
advisory knowledge to enable customers to connect with peers and
better manage technology portfolios.
About Conserve IT:
On behalf of its community members, Wikibon launched Conserve IT,
an initiative designed to accelerate the participation of storage and
IT suppliers in programs such as PG&E's high-tech incentive offering.
Wikibon enables IT suppliers to quickly obtain utilities qualification
and ensure third party validation of energy efficiency. Wikibon also
assists customers to properly apply for energy incentives and, through
its case studies, widely shares best practices with practitioners
interested in improving data center energy efficiency.
About PG&E's High-Tech Incentive Programs:
PG&E offers a comprehensive portfolio of programs and service
offerings for the high-tech sector, including financial incentives for
customers who pursue energy efficiency projects in their data centers.
PG&E customers in northern and central California who are interested
in earning financial incentives for storage and other data center
efficiency measures must apply prior to implementing projects and can
find more information about the company's programs and service
offerings at www.pge.com/hightech.
(C) 2008 Wikibon. All rights reserved. Wikibon is a trademark of
Wikibon. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
Wikibon HQ
David Butler, 774-463-3400
david.butler@wikibon.org
http://wikibon.org
Copyright Business Wire 2008
