Dictionary.com defines sustainability as ”Capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment.” In many cases this definition of business sustainability has led to the adoption of Green IT as a burgeoning market.
No offense to “being green”, but for small businesses I suggest re-phrasing it to read: ”Capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on an environment.”
I like this definition because it can be applied to almost anything from the big-picture environment (being green), to more close to home environments like your business, family, and friends. Sustainability is simply the “ability” to (sustain) to last, to endure, to thrive, to even grow over a long period of time.
As a rule, small businesses owners should ask themselves “is this sustainable” for nearly every aspect of their business. For example, ” is how I am servicing customers today or my existing cost structure sustainable?” Or, one more close to home: ”Is the technology I am using today sustainable over the long haul?”
Storage technology plays a key role in many aspects of your business sustainability from how you service customers to your cost structure to saving and protecting data. So do the storage processes you have in place provide you with the ability to last, to endure, to thrive over the long haul?
Sure, storage device manufacturers like Seagate continue to develop hard drives that consume less power – all good for enabling “greener” storage solutions. You know that with each new generation of hard drive the power utilization has improved, much like capacity has increased. My point is that companies like Seagate will continue to develop the technology that helps enable Greener IT. That part of sustainability for the big-picture is covered. You need to ask yourself what beyond power consumption will help you sustain your business?
What storage technology you choose to deploy can have a direct effect on your long term business sustainability. From capacity and power consumption, to interface, to features like encryption…storage technology plays a bigger role in you answering the question…”is this sustainable?”
If it ain’t sustainable, is it worth it?
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