Users Search for Power Solutions

Posted by James Rogers on September 29, 2007

Tags: Infrastructure,  Other

Channel: Data Center, Other

Despite a flurry of recent activity from vendors, there is no one technology capable of solving data center power problems, according to users at the Storage Decisions conference in New York today, who cited the need to juggle an array of different products and solutions.

"There's no silver bullet," warned Ron Richards, a consultant and business continuity planning coordinator at the New York City Department of Corrections. "No one vendor has the best-of-breed for everything when it comes to hardware and software for power management."

Speaking during a presentation this morning, analyst Greg Schulz of the StorageIO Group attempted to debunk the "myth" that some emerging technologies, such as MAID, can solve users' data center power problems at the flick of a switch.

A number of vendors, including Copan, Nexsan, Fujitsu, and NEC, have championed MAID technology as a way for users to reduce their power costs by using a number of spinning disks that serve as a cache for a set of non-spinning, passive disks. If a data request is not found in the cache, the appropriate passive disks are powered up.