Energy efficient storage

Jim Borendame speaks to FST about the various strategies financial institutions face when meeting the challenge of storing data efficiently, securely and cost-effectively.

“Green IT allows us to deliver better availability, simplify our environments and help us make the right investments, which is crucial as we execute on one of the largest financial mergers and technology integrations in financial services history.”
-Jim Borendame

Twentieth century British politician Herbert Samuel once remarked that 'a library is thought in cold storage', which is a phrase that succinctly encapsulates the challenge of organizing, compartmentalizing and enabling easy access to a vast wealth of information.

Here in the 21^st century, the challenges of delivering accessible storage to data have evolved in line with the explosion of technological advances and customer-driven demand for information, service and speed. There are vast quantities of data that carry an ever-growing weight of importance and sensitivity, particularly in the financial sector. The problems associated with storing such a wealth of information are manifold, not least the issue of cost and energy efficiency.

"Managing data centers for energy efficiency is one of the key efforts in helping Wells Fargo obtain its greenhouse gas emission reduction goal and operating efficiency requirements," says Jim Borendame, Wells Fargo's Executive VP of Enterprise Hosting Services. Wells Fargo has a goal to reduce its US-based greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 2008 levels for 2018, and has looked at a variety of ways in which to do so, starting with its data storage strategies. "To drive efficiencies in our data center, we take the approach to stabilize, standardize and optimize.

"We've successfully employed standardized service offerings and accomplished strides in server, storage and network virtualization, with over 10,000 virtual devices currently in place," says Borendame. A more efficient and optimized approach to data storage has proven beneficial on many levels, not least cost. "The benefits from these efficiencies are remarkable, including decreasing costs - up to $250 million in avoidance by negating the need to create a new data center alone - while increasing computer power and reducing energy consumption."

Longer Storage Life

Although cost is often seen as the key driver for optimizing data storage, there are a number of secondary benefits that result from reducing energy output and streamlining the data server environment. "We try to manage and extend the life of our data centers by increasing energy efficiency through our Service Life Extension Programs, 'right tiering' applications, consolidating and retiring less efficient or secure facilities, benchmarking data center operation and design to industry standards and continuing to optimize data center use and operations," says Borendame.

A service life extension program focuses on renewing and renovating existing data space in order to update and modernise pre-existing centers along the lines of current design techniques while simultaneously harvesting and recycling sections of the previous data center with newer technology. Wells Fargo is committed to maximizing the life cycle of its data centers as part of its future growth plans. "By leveraging size and scale, eliminating redundancy and inefficient processes in our data centers and focusing on standardization," says Borendame, "the infrastructure will be strategically positioned for continual increase in transaction volume."

Such streamlining is just one aspect of the innovation that has helped create a whole new way of thinking when it comes to data storage. Culturally, attitudes have shifted dramatically as technological storage needs have increased, accelerated by mobile computing, to levels never seen before. "By installing energy-efficient and virtualized servers we are combating the issue of under-utilization, which reduces energy consumption by as much as ten to one," says Borendame. "Through server virtualization we enjoy a simpler operating environment, which in turn reduces our power, support and maintenance costs.

"During this time of integration we are also making many optimization choices between our investments and the need to stay nimble and flexible - customizing where it counts, standardizing whenever possible. Our infrastructure is on the front line of the customer's experience and we continue to stay focused on the end-to-end picture, utilizing technologies that provide robust benefits of availability, time to market and energy efficiency."

Lean and Green

There are also green concerns too, which can have a huge impact on how customers view their bank. "Green technology is a factor in data storage and all of our IT initiatives," continues Borendame, "because it supports our customer experience and efficiency requirements. Green IT allows us to deliver better availability, simplify our environments and help us make the right investments, which is crucial as we execute on one of the largest financial mergers and technology integrations in financial services history."

Wells Fargo and Wachovia merged in late 2008 and were immediately faced with the challenge of ensuring that their data center power and space would be of sufficient standard, size and cost-efficiency in order to not become a drain on the new partnership's overall objectives and goals. Allied to Wells Fargo's pre-existing commitments to energy reduction and a greener future, a sizeable challenge now faces the bank, not least in terms of changing the culture of the IT department. "Wells Fargo's GHG reduction goal drove the need to increase server virtualization," explains Borendame. "One of the challenges we faced in first beginning this effort was addressing the change in culture that virtualization would bring. We had to alleviate any fears or doubts that our business partner had by eliminating exclusion reasons for virtualization.

"We have shown virtualization's positive impact on the infrastructure through our aggressive efforts in 2009. Last year, 70 percent of our servers used standardized shared service offerings with 41 percent leveraging virtualization. Today, we currently have in excess of 10,000 virtualized machines consuming less than six percent of the space and power of a physical server, allowing us to stretch the life of that data center and add capacity while reducing our resource strain."

Such impressive figures surely point the way to a virtualized future, yet Borendame is reluctant to countenance a complete shift to virtualization. "With more than 50,000 servers in production, we won't ever be 100 percent virtualized," he admits, "nor should that necessarily be the goal. However, our physical-to-virtual efforts will be an ongoing discipline and we'll continue to expand its footprint into other areas, to an extent whereby virtualization is seen as one of our standard approaches."

One such approach toward virtualization is the cloud, which is being leveraged by Wells Fargo on an internal basis in order to raise the bank's efficiency and agility, particularly when faced with the proliferation of mobile computing. "We see increased storage demand from customer web access for electronic records, such as check images, statements and the like," says Borendame.

Not all Virtual

As the need for greater capacity continues at such an impressive pace, Wells Fargo's efficiency, cost-effectiveness and environmental footprint will all come under greater pressure to perform satisfactorily. Borendame is aware of the challenges that lie ahead and is convinced that the protocols, procedures and plans that he has put in place will set the bank in good stead for the foreseeable future. "We will continue to focus on increasing our hardware efficiency, which includes our virtualization and storage density efforts, refreshing technology and next-generation mainframes.

"We are also seriously assessing product engineering in our energy labs, with power consumption and space as key design criteria in all products. Additional objectives include our commitment to continue to increase energy efficiency through thin-client provisioning, ATM enhancements, recycling and telecommunication."

In Minneapolis, Wells Fargo's water-side date center has been well-received; viewed as an efficient, sustainable and effective means for data storage, this is one arm of the organization that is most definitely non-virtual, but important and innovative all the same. "For five months or more each year," explains Borendame, "the free cooling for our air conditioning system provides water that is chilled sufficiently by outside air to directly feed the data center with cold air. This has resulted in a 15 percent energy-use reduction and a half-million cost saving annually."

While this water side economizing is nothing new, it has rarely been embraced by IT departments for the specific purpose of data center storage. "For Wells Fargo there were very few implementation hurdles because our engineering and operating teams had experience with free cooling," says Borendame. "Our primary focus has been to fine-tune the system with the cooling towers for use during extremely cold weather, although there is no particular technology out there that is enough to determine where we located our data centers; we consider many factors when making this decision."

A multi-faceted, long-term and carefully considered approach to data storage can not only help manage costs, but is also the ideal strategy to adopt when dealing with exponential growth, environmental concerns and energy efficiency - all factors that need to be addressed as the financial world continues to evolve.

Green is Good

How else are banks backing greener practices?

Customer Awareness: A number of banks, including Wells Fargo, have implemented green awareness programs designed to educate their customers on not only the need for going green, but also how to do so, such as switching to paperless mobile banking, receiving statements online, not printing out receipts at ATMs and even making deposits at ATMs where an envelope is not required.

Sponsorship and Donations: HSBC this year has donated $100 million to four environment groups - Earthwatch Institute, The World Wildlife Foundation, The Climate Group and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute - with the aim to "help some of the world's biggest cities and most important rivers respond to climate change, as well as fund research and recruit environmental leaders worldwide."

The Green Investment Bank: In the UK, the proposed Green Investment Bank (GIB) will help to finance renewable sources of energy and promote a green agenda, giving backing to large infrastructure projects such as wind farms and nuclear power plants, while also attracting conscientious account holders and depositors via tax-free savings accounts.

Green Stores: Both TD Bank and Wells Fargo have begun plans to build greener stores, which will reduce their energy consumption by as much as 50 percent through more innovative use of sunlight and solar panels.