How to achieve 2026 Enterprise ESG Goals with Sangfor HCI

In today's market, both companies and consumers are prioritizing climate-friendly and sustainable products, a trend increasingly reflected in digital services. Measuring, analyzing, and reporting the full carbon footprint across all lifecycle stages (Scope 1, 2, and 3) is essential for multinational corporations and global brands. This includes IT infrastructures such as data centers.
Reference: Greenhouse Gas Protocol 101: What Are Scope 1, 2, and 3 Carbon Emissions? | Carbon Footprint Calculations for a Software Company – Adapting GHG Protocol Scopes 1, 2 and 3 to the Software Industry

Embedding sustainability into your organization's strategy requires widespread awareness, consideration, and acceptance from internal teams to stakeholders. A successful strategy should be straightforward, clear, adaptable, and easy to implement.

Currently, data centers are a relatively recent addition to the global energy system. Their electricity usage is estimated at approximately 415 terawatt hours (TWh), making up about 1.5% of the world's total electricity consumption in 2024. Over the past five years, this consumption has increased roughly 12% annually. This presents significant challenges, including environmental issues and rising operational costs for companies reliant on this infrastructure. As the world places greater emphasis on sustainability, organizations and companies are increasingly challenged to comply with environmental-friendly initiatives. This trend is driven by different factors. First one is scarcity, which compels us to achieve more with less. This approach benefits both companies and the environment through optimized resource utilization. For investors, the journey began over 20 years ago with the rise of socially responsible investing (SRI), which recognized the importance of environmental factors (Sparkes & Cowton 2004). Since then, SRI has developed into Environmental, Social and Governance (hereafter, ESG) investing, covering a wider range of environmental, social, and governance issues.
Reference: Lasse Kostiainen. The Standardisation of ESG. 2023

What is ESG Standards?

Over the last twenty years, ESG factors have become crucial in modern economies, aligning with ethical values and promoting harmony between companies, nature, and society. ESG was first introduced in 2004 when UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan initiated discussions on ethical investment practices. In 2005, 18 financial institutions from nine countries published the influential report "Who Cares Wins: Connecting Financial Markets to a Changing World" highlighting that financial institutions should consider ESG factors in their investments- marking the first formal mention of ESG. The UN established the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2006 to help investors recognize the importance of ESG and integrate it into investment strategies. The PRI describes ESG investing as a strategy that includes environmental, social, and governance factors, often called sustainable, ethical, or impact investing. By 2020, global sustainable investment across five major markets reached $ 35. 3 trillion.
Reference: Global Sustainable Investment Alliance. 2023

In this context, ESG practices influence how companies craft their sustainability strategies. Today, ESG encompasses internationally recognized standards for evaluating a company's non-financial impacts. These standards extend beyond financial metrics, providing a broad view of a company's community involvement, resource management, and ethical conduct. The environmental dimension assesses how companies address their ecological footprint, including carbon emissions, energy consumption, waste, and water use, as well as their role in combating climate change. The social dimension evaluates relationships with employees, customers, and communities, considering labor practices, workplace conditions, diversity, inclusion, and human rights. Governance focuses on leadership structures, business ethics, transparency, anti- corruption measures, and protection of stakeholder interests.

Role of a Software in Data Center Sustainability

Indeed, software plays a crucial role in advancing commitment within the context of data center sustainability trends through software-defined data center (SDDC) and AI-driven optimization. By separating hardware from software, software-defined infrastructure allows for dynamic resource allocation, enabling energy-efficient scaling and consolidation based on workload demands. Automated processes streamline operations and minimize energy losses. Meanwhile, AI enhances resource utilization, forecasts usage patterns, and optimizes cooling, power distribution, and workload placement. This synergy between software-defined infrastructure and AI automation maximizes server efficiency, reduces energy consumption, and lowers data center carbon footprints.

For progressive companies, sustainable software development isn't merely a technical issue; it's a key strategic asset. It integrates digital innovation with ESG objectives, boosts operational efficiency, and positively impacts the bottom line within the expanding eco-digital economy.

Sangfor HCI Platform for Enterprise's ESG Goals

Achieving software sustainability is a key focus in modern software engineering research. It aims to ensure that software remains functional and relevant despite updates, modifications, and evolution. We adopt the definition from the Software Sustainability Institute, which states,

Software You Use Today Will Be Available — And Continue To Be Improved And Supported In The Future.

Sangfor HCI platform aims to foster a lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with its stakeholders. Here are the key areas where Sangfor HCI has advanced its convergence of sustainable innovation:

1. Construction and Operational efficiency

Software sustainability should be integrated into overall performance management. Durable software reduces the need for retraining researchers on new tools, and continued use of the same software, whose operational capabilities are included in researchers' efficiency. Additionally, individuals tend to continue using software they have used for a long time rather than switching to a new one.
Reference: Software Sustainability: A Systematic Literature Review and Comprehensive Analysis. Asif Imrana, Tevfik Kosar. 2019

Sangfor Cloud and Infrastructure promote durable innovation within the ICT environment by providing a pioneering solution for sustainable cloud computing. It supports industrialization and infrastructure growth while tackling the environmental challenges of one of the fastest-expanding industries. At the core of this platform is Sangfor's commitment to its stakeholders, guiding them to recognize the importance of tangible green action without compromising their power market or abandoning ultra-innovative technologies. Indeed, the Sangfor framework aims to systematically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cloud computing operations, thereby supporting efforts to address climate change and its effects action without compromising their power market or abandoning ultra-innovative technologies. Indeed, the Sangfor framework aims to systematically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cloud computing operations, thereby supporting efforts to address climate change and its effects.

Lower costs are achieved by using x86 servers as core components and adopting a scale-out architecture for HCI. The affordable pricing of x86 servers helps reduce hardware expenses, while the scale-out design permits small initial deployments that can expand over time by adding more nodes to the cluster for computing and storage. In this sense, avoiding dedicated storage solutions and SAN switches further cuts expenses. Overall, these strategies greatly lower capital costs, enhance infrastructure utilization, and notably improve environmental impact.

In line with the above, Sangfor HCI introduces the world's first third-generation HCI solution, helping customers reduce data center TCO by 60% over five years and lowering operational costs. It offers unparalleled simplicity, outstanding agility, extensive scalability, and dependable performance, fostering innovative growth for customers' core businesses in the digital age.

2. Energy Efficiency

Recovering waste heat from data centers is essential for climate protection. As climate change accelerates and reduces reliance on fossil fuels like oil and gas becomes more urgent, utilizing waste heat gains is becoming increasingly important. Data centers can play a key role in this effort. So far, the electricity used by data centers has been released into the environment as unused heat. This was primarily because waste heat recovery from data centers was not economically viable.
Reference: Clausen, Hintemann & Hinterholzer, 2020

The Sangfor HCI platform enhances cloud computing operations by focusing on evaluating energy infrastructure, efficiency and supporting the development of cost-effective and environmentally friendly energy solutions. This helps decrease dependence on fossil fuels and encourages the adoption of renewable energy sources within digital infrastructures.

Many solutions are designed for quick deployment with minimal steps, targeting IT generalists or VM administrators. Automation is crucial for simplifying installation. Sangfor HCI provider also automate numerous storage functions within their products. Typically, Sangfor HCI solutions eliminate the need for LUNs and enable management and monitoring at the VM level. This improves management granularity and allows those without storage expertise to oversee storage using familiar constructs.

However, in the future, conditions are likely to change considerably, making waste heat from data centers increasingly important. This shift is driven by evolving energy supply frameworks, new technologies such as liquid cooling for servers, and the use of artificial intelligence to optimize heat recovery and distribution networks.
See More: Waste heat recoveries in data centers: A review. Xiaolei Yuan. 2023

3. Reduced Cost

If industries use sustainable software for daily tasks, they won't need to buy new software soon. This saves money unless better, more suitable software becomes available. Conversely, if the software is unsustainable and requires frequent replacement, users must spend on acquiring, installing, and training for the new software. This increases both capital and operational expenses due to the software's lack of sustainability. From a business standpoint, investing in sustainable software can lead to cost savings and long-term profit growth. The collaborative nature of the Sangfor HCI platform, involving various stakeholders in the ICT sustainability sector, aligns with efforts to revitalize global partnerships for sustainable development, particularly in the realm of technology and innovation.

Sangfor introduces the world's first 3rd-generation HCI platform. Security is a key focus for Sangfor HCI, given Sangfor's roots as a security company founded in 2000 and its extensive security and network expertise. This enables the deployment of virtual application firewalls, internet access management, SSL VPNs, and application delivery, creating a comprehensive, secure data center solution. Designed for ease of use, all resources on the HCI are managed through an intuitive web console. Sangfor HCI is well-known for this "what you draw is what you get" feature, which enables straightforward drag-and-drop network topology and visual management. As a software-centric platform, it will continuously evolve to help customers build a future-proof, business-oriented cloud platform. An overview of the core technologies in Sangfor HCI is provided as follows:

• aSV is a central part of the HCI platform, functioning as a hypervisor. With aSV, virtual machines are created by abstracting hardware resources from servers, which helps reduce the server hardware footprint. It is an enterprise-grade hypervisor that comes with built-in features such as backup, live migration, high availability (HA), and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).
• aSAN is a software-defined storage component that virtualizes disks within servers to create a shared storage pool. It uses SSDS for cache and hot data to enhance performance, while HDDS serve as the storage capacity disks to reduce costs. Designed with a distributed architecture, it can be easily scaled out as needed.
• aNET is the virtualization component that uses VxLAN technology to simplify network infrastructure management and operations in HCI. Its visualized approach provides customers with a consumer-grade experience for network management.
• NFV features various network security and optimization tools from Sangfor, which can operate as virtual instances on Sangfor HCI. These components support Sangfor's goal of developing a comprehensive data center platform powered by software

The scale-out design of these HCI solutions enhances agility by enabling IT departments to rapidly expand compute and storage capacity through adding more nodes to existing clusters, all without disrupting applications. Even optimizing performance management becomes easier with simpler deployment processes and greater automation, which helps decrease administrative overhead. Sangfor HCI significantly lowers TCO compared to traditional virtual servers plus physical storage setups. According to our R&D department, in over five years, it reduces TCO by 43%, and the reduction increases to 61.4%. Larger deployments benefit even more, with greater cost savings. The primary savings stem from reduced storage and personnel expenses, enabled by software-defined storage and an uncomplicated design.

Furthermore, integrating NFV with HCI enables a more streamlined data center architecture, resulting in additional TCO savings. Clearly, storage and personnel costs are the main areas where Sangfor HCI helps reduce expenses, thanks to its software-defined storage and straightforward design principles. When integrated with NFV on HCI, data center architecture can be further streamlined to enhance overall cost efficiency.

4. Desirable Sustainable Reputation of Software Product

To stay competitive, companies should prioritize innovation. A company's software should be both technically and environmentally sustainable, claiming durability and producing high-quality results. This effect also enhances the clarity of communicating the company's commitment to sustainability to the world. This makes consumers view the software as reliable and increases their trust in using it. As a result, the firm can enhance its reputation and attract more customers.

Sangfor Technologies is widely recognized as a global leader in IT infrastructure services and security solutions. It has been identified as a Sample Vendor in the Gartner Hype Cycle™ for Data Center Infrastructure Technologies, 2025, and is classified under Hyperconvergence, highlighting our strategy of delivering integrated, software-defined infrastructure that addresses key challenges faced by enterprise users. The report offers insights into the development of new technologies and helps infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders modernize their data centers to be secure, resilient, scalable, and cost-effective. It states that hyperconvergence "enables IT leaders to respond quickly to new business needs in a modular, incremental manner," making it especially advantageous for midsize enterprises that can standardize on hyperconvergence, as well as for remote sites of large organizations.
Reference: Gartner, A Guide to Choosing a VMware Alternative in the Wake of Broadcom Acquisition. Julia Palmer, Jeffrey Hewitt, Mike Cisek. 2025

Among other things, Sangfor has created a dedicated enterprise hybrid cloud that provides a unified, secure, and flexible platform for data centers, remote offices, and edge sites. Originally based on Sangfor HCI as a private cloud, this all-encompassing solution enables you to migrate your on-premises resources to a Unified Hybrid Cloud using Sangfor Managed Cloud Services (MCS).

A practical approach to Sustainability

The Role of Education and Culture in Driving Sustainable Business Practices

Moscardo et al. (2013) argue that sustainability requires a long-term outlook and a dedication to changing business practices to balance current needs with those of future generations. It is also crucial to understand that business functions within a complex system involving environmental, social, and economic factors. As part of strategic planning, employees should be trained to deepen their understanding of sustainability. This training should also include stakeholders and the community, increasing awareness of all sustainability issues, since business priorities must align with societal, economic, and environmental interests. Integrating sustainability into business strategy communication can increase revenue and improve market reputation both locally and globally. Given that sustainability is a dynamic and complex field, management and staff need ongoing education and up-to-date knowledge. All team members should understand the benefits and risks of sustainable practices, such as greenwashing, and the importance of shifting mindsets and cultivating a sustainability-focused company culture.
Reference: Sustainability in Australian Business: Principles and Practice. Moscardo, 2013

This approach, which uses real-time and forecasted data on carbon intensity and power consumption, aims to improve sustainability and energy efficiency in distributed computing infrastructures significantly. Its effectiveness will be evaluated against traditional static resource allocation methods that generally do not prioritize environmental metrics, demonstrating its ability to reduce environmental impact while maintaining or enhancing computational performance

Sangfor HCI is a VMware Alternative Solution: Combining high performance to a sustainable paradigm shift

Sangfor HCI integrates virtualization, storage, networking, and security into one platform and provides guided migration tools from VMware, aiming to simplify systems and lower costs.

With Sangfor HCI, you can run your virtual environment either on-premises using standard hardware or as a complete, integrated solution with full data sovereignty, defined role permissions, and centralized management. The platform streamlines setup and operation by combining key components into a single system. Its guided migration feature enables a smooth shift from existing setups, such as VMware, reduces dependencies, and offers clearer planning. For critical business operations, Sangfor HCI ensures high availability, built-in data protection, and disaster recovery, helping applications stay stable, secure, and high performing.

Indeed, businesses usually face serious challenges such as: elevated licensing and operational costs caused by numerous individual solutions; reliance on a single provider (vendor lock-in) and unpredictable pricing; complex management involving deployment, upgrades, patching, and diverse tools; security and compliance risks, including lack of segmentation; high availability requirements combined with the need for modernisation (containers, databases). It offers flexible deployment on standard hardware or as a full solution, with easy migration from VMware. Features include centralised management, quick setup, live VM migrations, snapshots, and automated load balancing. Security is integrated through EDR, vNGFW, distributed IPS, zero trust, and vulnerability management, with ISO support. It also provides built-in backup and disaster recovery, along with support for Kubernetes and managed services databases. More importantly, for businesses that a migrate from VMware, Sangfor facilitates your journey with a secure, step-by-step process that minimizes risks.

This approach safeguards your current investments and ensures a smooth transition, in three simple but consistent steps:

Concluding remarks

Therefore, sustainable software development involves creating, constructing, and managing software to minimize environmental impact while maximizing efficiency, maintainability, and long-term business benefits. Essentially, it focuses on coding and system design that use fewer computational resources - cutting down energy use, prolonging hardware life, and decreasing carbon emissions. This doesn't mean compromising on performance or scalability; in fact, sustainable software frequently exceeds traditional methods in resource optimization, cost-effectiveness, and resilience. It requires deliberate design decisions throughout development, such as selecting optimal algorithms, improving data management, appropriately sizing cloud infrastructure, and adopting carbon-aware deployment practices.

In line with the above, the Sangfor HCI platform is emerging as a transformative option for corporate data centers. Our internal research shows that by integrating computing, storage and networking into a unified, software-defined architecture, HCI enhances IT operations. This approach enables organizations to allocate resources dynamically according to demand, lower operating costs, and streamline processes. Additionally, Sangfor's Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) solutions support the reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions, contributing to climate-change mitigation. At the same time, they deliver cost savings and higher operational efficiency in the use of energy and other resources.

The effects on corporate data are quite significant. HCI enhances overall system efficiency, boosts data resilience, and helps distribute workload more quickly. Using software-defined datacenter SDDC - enables companies to achieve greater agility and responsiveness, helping them respond to changing corporate needs. Before starting the transfer, companies should carefully assess their current IT expenditure and workload demands. Companies contemplating HCI deployment must evaluate vendor bids, conduct thorough cost-benefit analyses, and confirm compatibility with their existing systems.

While sufficient training for IT staff can facilitate change, investing in robust networking and storage systems will maximize the benefits of HCI. Additionally, performance and flexibility can be enhanced by using HCI with hybrid or multi-cloud solutions. HCI is poised to become a central part of modern IT design moving forward. As technology advances, improvements in AI-driven automation, security, and edge computing will boost its value. Companies that adopt Sangfor HCI platform today will be better prepared for future innovation, ensuring a more reliable, scalable, and efficient data center ecosystem.
Reference: Green Cloud Computing: A Greener and More Sustainable Future . Sangfor Technologies. 2023

Additional References