Assessment Reveals Dramatic Carbon Reduction Impact of SoftIron HyperDrive® Storage Platform

For Every 10PB of data storage shipped by SoftIron, an estimated 6,656 tonnes of CO2e is saved by reduced energy consumption alone.

LONDON, May 24, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- SoftIron, the leader in purpose-built and performance-optimised data centre solutions, today announced that an assessment conducted by Earth Capital, has affirmed SoftIron's status as a global leader in energy-efficient data infrastructure solutions for core-to-edge data centres. Earth Capital is a growth equity asset manager focused on deploying capital to sustainable technology solutions across the themes of energy, food and water. As a member of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, which aims to galvanise the asset management industry to commit to a goal of net zero emissions, Earth Capital produces assessments on all of the companies in which it invests, including SoftIron.

Now available, the assessment highlights SoftIron's leadership in sustainable IT solutions through its design and manufacturing initiatives. The report demonstrates how SoftIron is helping its customers reduce their carbon footprints through the use of its highly integrated HyperDrive storage platform that dramatically reduces space and energy footprint, highlighting that the energy usage of the platform "is up to five times smaller than that of equivalent appliances on the market."

Highlighting the impressive carbon reduction results that SoftIron's HyperDrive storage platform enables its customers to achieve, the assessment states, "how can SoftIron help reduce their customers' carbon footprint? In comparison to similar data storage and processing appliances available on the market, SoftIron's product has a greatly reduced carbon footprint mainly on account of comparably low energy usage during operation." (1) The report states that for every 10 PB of data storage shipped by SoftIron, an estimated 6,656 tonnes of CO2e is saved by reduced energy consumption alone (2). This is the equivalent of taking nearly 1,500 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles off the road for a year (3).

The report also calls attention to the reductions in heat that SoftIron's appliances are able to achieve through their reduced energy consumption, noting that "SoftIron appliances produce up to 80% less heat than the standard, thereby radically reducing emissions pertaining to cooling of data centres."
While reduced emissions related to the cooling of data centres is one carbon reducing benefit, the extension of the lifespan of SoftIron's solutions is another critical factor that the report highlights. "Typical datacenter servers have a lifespan of 3-5 years. As SoftIron's products use less power and therefore generate less heat during operation, they place less stress on the server (and hard drives) than that of an industry standard appliance, reducing the likelihood of system failure." The report notes that because SoftIron solutions only contain the components necessary for its specified function, there is less likelihood of a system fault, thus extending the lifespan of the appliance. The report deduces that "it is reasonable to assume that SoftIron's products have a minimum lifespan of 5 years."

The report highlights that the industry is actually moving in the wrong direction where energy consumption is concerned, lauding SoftIron's approach to creating optimised solutions, that challenge industry norms. "Many of the industry-standard products adopt a generic model, capable of numerous functions while SoftIron appliances are fully integrated and task-specific such that each appliance only contains the components and processing power necessary for its specified function. Many market-leading data centre suppliers acquire commoditised, off-the-shelf hardware which use the latest iteration of central processing units (CPUs). Research indicates that each iteration of CPU requires more power than its predecessor. Therefore, the industry standard data centre appliances are in fact becoming less energy-efficient, thereby creating more financial and environmental costs for data centres. Meanwhile, SoftIron's task-specific and fully integrated design means that every aspect (from the hardware to the software) is optimised to make the most energy-efficient product possible. This enables SoftIron to deliver industry-leading performance while using less power-hungry CPUs."

In addition to highlighting the industry-leading performance metrics that SoftIron is achieving, the Earth Capital report also highlighted how SoftIron is tackling the reduction of carbon footprints through its own efforts, including standardising the product design, reusing/recycling at manufacturing facilities, reducing software configuration time, installation of a Hot Aisle Containment (HAC) system in its manufacturing facilities, reducing plastic packaging, and its clean supply chain pledge.

The report also highlighted SoftIron's unique "Edge Manufacturing" approach, which uses the most modern technologies available, including digital twin technology, to bring new efficiencies to IT manufacturing. "SoftIron is moving towards a model of operation (known as "Edge Manufacturing") which involves locating manufacturing sites closer to the customer, thereby enabling greater use of local supply chains and reducing emissions pertaining to transportation," the report explained.

"When we founded SoftIron in 2012, we did it recognising that the industry's path for manufacturing IT solutions was fundamentally broken for the requirements of the future, both in the core data centre and especially at the edge," said Phil Straw, CEO and Co-founder of SoftIron. "In essence, SoftIron has completely reinvented and modernised how data infrastructure is designed, manufactured and delivered in virtually every regard. The results are solutions that are superior in virtually every way possible, from power draw and heat emissions, to density, and to eliminating vendor lock-in through our use of open source - the list goes on. We've designed a platform for IT solutions that is centred around the modern needs of our customers, enabling them to flexibly scale their IT solution wherever it is needed without the constraints and limitations of traditional commodity hardware-based solutions."

SoftIron will be hosting a webinar titled "Power at the Edge: the role of the data centre in sustainability". To attend this webinar, please register for free on BrightTALK softiron.ltd/Webinar_PowerAtTheEdge

For more information on SoftIron's sustainability efforts, please visit the following URL: https://softiron.com/choose-softiron/sustainability/

The Earth Capital "SoftIron Carbon Footprint Report 2022," can be found directly at the following URL: https://softiron.ltd/SoftIronCarbonFootprintReport

About SoftIron®
SoftIron makes the products that underpin the next evolution of IT infrastructure.
Our blueprint is radical. Taking full control over design and manufacture of platforms optimised for selected open source software, our highly integrated products reduce space and energy footprints while delivering extraordinary performance. Challenging traditional IT manufacturing and organisational strategy, we've developed a model that enables us to create a more resilient and connected business for the customers we serve. A commitment to openness, transparency, and simplicity helps address emerging multi-faceted threats while eliminating the vendor "lock-in" so common elsewhere. IT leaders mindful of the pain of proprietary technologies, increasing cloud and energy costs and growing skills gaps understand that solving these challenges needs a holistic approach that only an integrated technology company can achieve. For more information, visit softiron.com

(1) Earth Capital, "SoftIron Carbon Footprint Report 2022," April 2022.

(2) This is assuming industry-standard data storage appliances use 4.08 GWh per PB and are averaged from: Supermicro, 2022; DELL EMC, 2019 & HPE, 2018. SoftIron data storage uses 1.2 GWh per PB (Huntridge, 2020). The calculation uses the UK electricity carbon conversion factor.

(3) US EPA, 2021. Greenhouse Gases Equivalencies Calculator - Calculations and References. [Online]
Available at: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references [Accessed 24 February 2022]

About Earth Capital
Earth Capital is the growth equity investment manager co-founded by Gordon Power and Stephen Lansdown, co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown. Earth Capital invests in sustainable technology solutions across the climate change nexus of energy, food, and water. Investment sectors include energy efficiency, energy generation, agriculture, waste, and water.
Earth Capital measures Sustainable Impact through their award-winning Earth Dividendtmtool, which provides an annual measure of an investee company's contribution to Sustainable Development. The Earth Dividendtm has been developed by Earth Capital's in-house Sustainability specialists following a detailed benchmark of international best practice approaches to the assessment, reporting and assurance of impact and ESG issues. For more information, visit earthcapital.net or follow the company on LinkedIn.

Media Contact

Camaryn Berry, SoftIron, 1 (650) 887 6676 Ext: 226, [email protected]

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