The old saying, “They don’t make them like they used to,” implies newer products just aren’t built to last. On the other hand, does anyone want to keep old technology that can’t handle today’s challenges? Fortunately, choosing between old and new are no longer the only two choices. We can transform “old products” into “new products,” so that the original products never become out of date. It’s sustainable, affordable, and less disruptive to businesses. We can accomplish this “evergreen” approach to product development—as with our Evergreen products—because better science means better products. As enterprises tackle ambitious digital transformation and ESG initiatives in the coming years, it’s clear there’s an opportunity to make strides toward both—with the right technology.
Digital Transformation and the Human (Global) Experience
Modern IT infrastructures are key to digital transformation overhauls. They’re necessary to power the data-hungry apps and tools that embody transformation, but they’re also huge when it comes to human experience—the ultimate driver behind digital transformation. Modern technology can phase out old headaches, inefficiencies, and issues with each new generation, allowing people to do less low-level work, get creative time back, and focus more on what matters.
And what increasingly matters is taking care of our planet.
Today, enterprises are working with a new set of priorities tied to both business and the human condition: environmental sustainability. Companies that believe they have a responsibility or regulatory obligation to reduce their carbon footprint are looking for solutions that give them more capacity to do so.
Modern Stacks Are Doing Double Duty in IT
Digital transformation and ESG are overlapping objectives, and at their epicenter is IT.
Some of the best modern technologies might not have been designed with ESG in mind, but they were built from the ground up to be incredibly efficient: smaller, more powerful, and easier to use. This improved efficiency and resilience can help offset power utilization and costs in growing data centers, too.
It’s impacting both procurement and vendor decisions, and decision makers are looking to strategic infrastructure modernizations to address both concerns at once.
Growing Data Centers Are Prime Opportunities to Improve
When it comes to sustainability in the data center, IT has an opportunity to be a trailblazer.
As data volumes grow, requiring more power and cooling from data centers, change will become even more necessary. According to a Gartner report, organizations will have a serious need to invest in next-generation storage technologies and heat-removal technologies to avoid a corresponding growth in energy use from a 23-fold increase in enterprise storage capacity through 2030.
When it comes to closing the deal on IT investments, most organizations prefer that all the boxes are checked. They want the technology to:
- Provide an intuitive experience for setup and upgrades
- Work without vendor lock-in
- Enable robust security against ransomware
- Future-proof for ESG objectives
- Offer the scale and performance needed for the most innovative and demanding applications
And, Efficiency Is Not Just about Cost
A study conducted by Pure Storage and Bredin Research of 500+ IT decision makers revealed that ESG initiatives are at the forefront in mission statements, supply chain decisions, operations, and more. It isn’t just to adhere to new regulations or curb costs from power utilization—it’s to align with what customers and employees care about and to do the right thing.
The survey found that 61% of respondents see sustainability initiatives as critical to the IT investment choices they make. If the choice is also tied to cost savings, however, almost half of those respondents (47%) will prioritize those sustainable investments.
As-a-Service Models Promote Sustainability in IT
According to the Pure/Bredin survey, IT decision makers are looking at as-a-service IT procurement as a way to improve sustainability because it allows them to procure only the infrastructure they use and avoid e-waste. Procuring infrastructure through this method delivers two key environmental benefits:
- Reduction in wasted energy of underused equipment: Upgrades in place avoid migrations that last months or years, during which both old and new arrays are consuming energy.
- Reduction in e-waste: Continual upgrade of array components only as needed eliminates the traditional standard of replacing (and junking) entire systems.
At Pure, we’ve applied the philosophy of e-waste reduction to all of our products, in addition to the Evergreen solutions. The Evergreen architecture allows for upgrades in place—reducing e-waste, avoiding years-long migrations during which both old and new arrays are consuming energy, and allowing customers to evolve products as their needs change without having to replace them.
In addition, Evergreen//Flex™ allows users to optimize capacity at fleet level, reducing the need for over-provisioning and therefore reducing energy consumption and waste. And our Evergreen//One™ solution delivers the ultimate benefits in energy efficiency by allowing customers to procure only the capacity that they need and expand it on demand as their needs grow. This way, customers can completely eliminate the need for over-provisioning.
Prioritize ESG and IT Digital Transformation with Pure Storage
IT leaders need to keep sustainability top of mind in both procurement and transformation decisions. Anything less than this combination locks complexity in and also defeats the purpose of actual transformation that’s truly future-proof.
At Pure, sustainability isn’t an attribute; it’s an architecture. We’re committed to helping organizations achieve ESG and sustainability goals with an architectural design that makes a significant and immediate environmental impact in the data center. Our tech is designed from the ground up to streamline energy consumption through extended service lifetimes.
Learn more about how Pure Storage can help IT promote ESG through data center modernization.
