Green Storage, Smart Grids, and Wireless Spectrum for Utility Providers

Earth2tech has an excellent article on smarter storage -- how data storage can account for up to 40 percent of the energy consumed by a data center. GigaOm's Tom Trainer offered data de-duplication and thin provisioning as technologies that were helping the greening efforts. 3Par is a leader in thin provisioning, which is a "mechanism that applies to large-scale centralized computer disk storage systems, SAN's and storage virtualization systems". 3Par recently helped Mary Kay save 50% in storage capacity and 60% administration time with 3PAR Utility Storage and six InServ storage servers.

Last week Vint Cerf had a Google Public Policy blog post titled Where the smart grid meets the Internet. Vint has some awesome insight (as always) into building the smart grid and how it is essentially a nascent energy Internet. He stresses open protocols, open standards and free access to all of the energy information generated.

Finally -- Earth2tech also has an article today about American Electric Power (AEP) telling the FCC that a dedicated licensed spectrum is sorely needed by utilities. AEP is saying that as more smart grid services are rolled out, more and more network bandwidth is needed.