I'll try to maintain some dignity here by not quoting Kermit the Frog on the subject of green, but it's not beneath me to paraphrase him: It's not easy being a storage manager. Not too long ago, the only green storage vendors seemed interested in was the kind with pictures of Benjamin Franklin on it that they carried around in their wallets. But now even casual observers of the storage industry know that power consumption and air conditioning are cool issues, and green is definitely the "in" color.

So what should you do when everyone agrees that a problem exists but few, if any, good solutions have been offered? Form a committee, of course. And that's exactly how the storage industry has responded. What better way to come up with valid, practical solutions than to get a bunch of rowdies together in a room (real or virtual), choose a catchy dot-org name and maybe have a secret handshake? It doesn't even matter that every group member not-so-secretly hopes that others will fail miserably at this green thing so as to stand out as the most eco-friendly in the crowd.