1.  What is the Green Data Project?

A:  The Green Data Project is a joint effort of the Data Management Institute (DMI) and Archive Management.org (AMO) to advance standards and practices for improving the energy efficiency of contemporary data center operations.  We have identified a significant correlation between increased IT power consumption and the state of data mismanagement in organizations.  We hold that Greener IT requires Green Data (managed data) because only the latter, data management, can curb the acceleration of new equipment deployment.

2.  Aren't there other industry and business initiatives in this area?

A:  Yes, several.  Some focus on greening technology products, so that chemical compounds that are known to damage the ecosystem are reduced.  Others focus on tech product recycling or enhanced biodegradability of products that are at the end of their useful life.  Still other industry initiatives seek to green technology manufacturing processes so that they are more earth friendly and less power consumptive.  Less organized are efforts to develop best practices for greening data center operations.  We have seen considerable interest in this dimension of the green phenomenon, and unfortunately we have seen many vendor marketing departments endeavor to recontextualize their wares as "green" -- which they are not.  This is the void we seek to fill with a community site to discuss the issues of data center greening.

3.  Who is sponsoring this project?

A:  We are hoping to cajole some industry players to support the community through advertising and contributions.  For now, it is a grass roots effort with resources contributed by the Data Management Institute, Archive Management.org, Toigo Partners International, and TPI Technologies, a test laboratory that evaluates vendor claims about their technology products.

4.  How can people join?  Is there a fee?

A:  Anyone can join this initiative.  There is no fee of any kind but there is a simple registration process to keep out the SPAMbots and other ne'redowells.

5.  Do you need to be a member to participate?

A:  Green Data Project is designed to be accessible to everyone.  You can read our content without registering.  However, to add your insights, experience and comments, you must register.  We hope that many will elect to become active discussants.  The topics here are too broad for any one person to tackle alone.  In some cases, to paraphase Einstein, it is going to take a different kind of thinking to solve the problems of greening data center operations than the thinking that got us to where we are today.  Even people outside of the IT practice or industry should partcipate.

6.  How do you answer those who claim that strategies like data management, data archiving, and so forth are too complex and difficult to undertake and will not yield meaningful results in the near term?

A:  We think they have been listening to vendors who want to sell them silver bullet solutions.  There are no quick fixes here.  The industry is schizophrenic to a certain degree:  they want to help their customers with products that they need to put their data in order, but they also want to sell them more boxes of disk drives, more servers and more network switches.  It is no surprise that the solutions for data center greening being advanced by many vendors boil down to buying more equipment.  While ideas like bigger disks substituting for smaller ones at the same power consumption rate may sound greener, they really aren't.  Disk drives ultimately aren't the issue.  Unmanaged data is the issue.  We are storing a lot of junk data forever.  Without purging stale and contraband data and placing data that is not re-referenced but that must be retained nonetheless for reasons of business value or regulatory compliance into low power archival repositories, we just continue to buy more power hungry gear and consume greater amounts of high cost and increasingly hard to come by electrical power.  The way to reduce the carbon footprint of data center operations is to manage data.  It is a difficult job, but it must be done. 

 7.  What about technologies that compress data or de-duplicate data so it occupies less space on a disk drive?

A:  Short term, these are great technologies.  Just don't confuse them with green technology in the strategic sense.  They are tactical measures to get more use out of the storage capacity that you already own.  They can yield short term cost-savings for organizations by forestalling the need to purchase more capacity and perhaps buy business and IT planners time to soft through their data, clean out their junk drawers and put into place strategic plans for preventing data clutter from building up to the obscene levels where it is today in most shops.

8.  In some of the content on this site, GDP seems to be taking exception with vendor claims.

A:  And we expect this critique to become more vociferous as the community grows.  A lot of technology is being hailed by vendor marketing departments as a "green solution" -- which it is not.  Our critiques will not be leveled at vendors as a group or as individual companies, but rather at erroneous claims made in public statements, trade press interviews, and in press releases and marketing materials.  We want to chase some of the cynical misuse of the green message out of the discussion so we can focus on what really matters.  Disparaging vendors is not our goal, but we need architecture, not marketecture. 

9.  Won't criticisms of vendor products limit their interest in sponsoring the Green Data Project?

A:  That's like asking if there is no one with a soul or conscience in Silicon Valley.  Some vendors will be put off by what we discuss here.  However, I am sure that others are sincerely interested in helping their customers save money, improve operational efficiency and reduce risk -- all of which are the outcomes of data center greening.

10.  How can a vendor become a sponsor?

A:  The details are provided on the site:  we seek two levels of sponsorship -- official and partners.  The pricing for each is nominal and we expect that the exposure that the vendor receives from a well-trafficked site will more than offset their investment.