Innovations by NetApp address skyrocketing energy costs

NetApp®, a global, cloud-led, data-centric software company, announced new ways for businesses to monitor, manage, and optimize their carbon footprints across hybrid, multi-cloud environments. The company also stated its intention to achieve a 50 percent intensity reduction in Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (produced by an organization’s value chain) by 2030, as well as a 42 percent reduction in Scope 1 (controlled or owned by an organization) and Scope 2 (electricity, heat, and cooling purchases) GHG emissions through the implementation of a science-aligned target. 

“The unparalleled environmental challenges we face require everyone to be a part of the solution. We are deeply integrating sustainability into the strategy and operational priorities of our business,” said George Kurian, Chief Executive Officer at NetApp. “It’s our belief that the world’s ongoing energy challenges require innovative solutions and we’re steadfastly committed to continuing to develop energy-efficient technologies and solutions that allow our customers to greatly reduce their carbon footprint. We’re also committed to expanding sustainable practices within our own business by setting a bold, but achievable target of a 50 percent intensity reduction of Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2030.”

Organizations can more effectively achieve their carbon reduction goals while meeting their own customer demands with new tools and resources announced at NetApp INSIGHT:

• NetApp BlueXP delivers a unified experience across hybrid multi-cloud environments to bring all application and data storage services into a single control plane. BlueXP provides power-consumption reporting with dashboards that allow companies to make decisions about moving critical data to balance business needs with carbon efficiency. 
• NetApp Cloud Insights Dashboard is a new feature that reports on power usage and temperature for ONTAP storage. NetApp Cloud Insights provides visibility and reporting of an organization’s use of compute and storage across all on-premises and cloud environments to find and address waste and inefficiencies, which helps customers make informed decisions that can reduce costs and waste, including those around reducing emissions.
• Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) carbon footprint reports leveraging the Product Attribute Impact Algorithm (PAIA) methodology. NetApp was the first storage-focused provider to join PAIA, a consortium of information and communication technology peers, sponsored by MIT. The PAIA consortium allows NetApp to produce a streamlined LCA for its products that is aligned with leading standards including EPEAT, IEEE 1680.1 and the French product labeling initiative Grenelle.
• NetApp’s 4:1 Storage Efficiency Guarantee for SAN workloads is NetApp’s promise that companies can store more data with less storage, which reduces energy usage and GHG emissions. The guarantee covers all ONTAP all-flash systems including AFF A-Series, AFF C190, All SAN Array, and FAS500f.

NetApp’s entire portfolio of products and services enable customers to build out the hybrid multi-cloud environments that meet their business and sustainability objectives and provide a holistic, comprehensive approach to creating a more sustainable IT structure. 

• NetApp Cloud Tiering allows companies to automatically and seamlessly move infrequently used data, often 60 percent or more of a company’s total data estate, from on-premises ONTAP storage to the cloud. For data that must remain in the data center, Cloud Tiering reduces the amount of raw storage needed through deduplication, compression, and compaction. With Cloud Tiering, over a five-year period, NetApp’s midrange storage customers reduce their emissions by up to 56.3 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e).
• NetApp Cloud Data Sense is a data catalog and classification solution that uses artificial intelligence to map and classify all cloud and on-premises data. Understanding the data can help IT organizations reduce storage costs and improve sustainability through better decision-making, for example by identifying cold data that resides on-premises and may be moved to the cloud to reduce energy used in the data center.
• NetApp Active IQ (AIQ) is an AIOps engine that tallies the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for frequently used and accessed data stored on-premises, and NetApp’s Cloud Tiering TCO tool calculates the savings generated by moving to the cloud. 
• NetApp Harvest 2.0 and Grafana Dashboard for ONTAP provide real-time insights into the power consumption of NetApp hardware while NetApp Fusion, a sizing and configuration tool, provides environmental specifications by specific configuration. 

“Companies need visibility into, and insight on, the sustainability and efficiency state of their hybrid, multi-cloud environments to better understand where they can make changes to reduce their carbon footprints,” said Cesar Cernuda, President at NetApp. “NetApp’s ongoing commitment to innovation in our product portfolio, combined with the company’s decarbonization efforts, provide organizations with the tools and resources they need to reduce costs, run more efficient operations, and enable emissions-based decision making in order to achieve their own sustainability goals.”

External experts have recognized NetApp’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitment and leadership, including EcoVadis, which recently awarded NetApp a Gold ranking. This evidence-based ESG rating agency assigns supplier ratings based on environmental, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement criteria. NetApp’s Gold ranking places it in the top 7% of all companies rated by EcoVadis.

NetApp is a founding member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program for data center storage, with multiple storage systems, including NetApp AFF, FAS, and E-Series data storage systems, certified as ENERGY STAR 2.1 products.

NetApp’s third ESG Impact Report will be released later this year. NetApp’s ESG strategies, activities, progress, metrics, and performance for global operations for the fiscal year ending April 30, 2022 are covered in the report.