How green is cloud computing?

How green is cloud computing? Is cloud computing energy or energy efficient compared to a data center built and transported by the enterprise? Is there a higher energy efficiency ratio than host-hosted mode? What about the Advanced Data Center hosting service (ideally, the power usage efficiency-PUE 1)? What is more energy-efficient than buying services from cloud computing service providers and the enterprise's own private cloud (building services and applications, under the protection of the enterprise's firewall)?

Most CIOs can't answer this question because they don't care about the energy efficiency of cloud computing. But for CIOs who want to think of cloud computing as an energy-saving opportunity, they shouldn't ignore these issues.

Because of the resilience and automation features provided by cloud computing, CIOs have begun to use it to speed delivery, avoid upfront investment in infrastructure, and rely on it to improve efficiency. For cloud computing, CIOs focus on security, reliability, vendor lock-in, and the lack of typical business cases. For financial firms, for example, the use of public clouds is particularly constrained by data security regulations. Technology and pharmaceutical companies are concerned about the protection of intellectual property. Telecoms companies have long started exploring private clouds to prove to potential customers the capabilities of their cloud services. In short, energy conservation has not become the focus of attention.

All of this comes from a survey of CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project, a nonprofit agency that helps companies track their carbon emissions). The survey, led by independent consulting firm Verdantix, conducted extensive research on 11 international companies to assess the potential economic and ecological benefits of cloud computing.

Moving to Cloud computing: reducing 5.7 million cars and saving 12.3 billion dollars

Now we're back to how much energy-efficient the cloud computing is. Research shows that by 2020, companies with more than $1 billion trillion in U.S. revenue will invest 69% of their IT budgets (mainly in infrastructure, platforms, and software) on cloud computing services – That would cut the cost of 12.3 billion of billions of dollars and the equivalent of 200 million barrels of crude (enough for 5.7 million cars a year) to emit carbon. Moving a human resource application to the public cloud could save 12 million dollars for businesses in 5 years and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30,000 tonnes (equivalent to a 5,900 reduction in the number of cars in 1 years). Private clouds can save 5 million of billions of dollars in 5 years and reduce emissions by 25,000 tonnes (equivalent to a 49,000 reduction in the number of cars in 1 years).

So how attractive is the energy-saving effect of cloud computing to companies? "Cuts in carbon emissions are certainly a driver, but certainly not the most important thing," said Paul Stemmler, president of Engineering and integration at the project. "This is also a popular view in the industry.

The environmental benefits of cloud computing are harder to quantify than the data centers built and transported. But at least from the surface, the operation of the data center by large cloud computing service providers has great advantages in both energy consumption and cost. John Stanley, an analyst at 451 Research, which is responsible for data center technology and it eco-efficiency, says: "Cloud computing is indeed more energy-efficient if the conditions are met." "Here are the two requirements:

Starting with the design of the data center, the latest technologies in energy consumption and refrigeration are considered.

The devices in the data center need to be more efficient. In many data centers, servers are only 5% to 10% utilization, but power consumption is still 60% to 70% of the maximum-although virtualization technology has been used. "Equipment utilization is still far from our expectations." Stanley said.

Of course, the enterprise's own data center can also do above two points. But for the vast majority of industries (except banking), data centers are not the core of the business, while cloud computing providers are able to keep improving. As CDP has pointed out in its report, cloud providers provide computing resources, customer transactions and e-mail services not only at low cost, but also in energy efficiency that the highest level of enterprise data centers cannot achieve. Stanley provides a two basis for this:

Cloud computing service providers will be able to carry out a variety of customer workloads, making it easier to use the equipment efficiently. The enterprise data center, regardless of whether the virtualization technology is adopted, only hosts a relatively single workload.

Cloud-computing providers can place data centers in cooler and easier to use green energy. For example, large service providers have the ability to sign contracts to use wind power.

"There is no mystery in the Green data center."

Cloud service providers can easily benefit from economies of scale (for the general public and the larger sectors). But Stanley believes that service providers must also pay attention to the technology and ideas mentioned above. Cloud providers, for example, may be torn between meeting customer needs and increasing system utilization, or using clean energy sources such as coal and nuclear power in data centers. There is nothing mysterious about the solution, which has been basically covered in the previous section.

Can cloud computing bring energy efficiency? What's the benefit of a self-built datacenter? If CIOs are interested in these issues, Stanley's advice is to direct cloud service providers to demonstrate these expected benefits.

It is still a matter of controversy whether CIOs should dominate the energy-consuming aspects of the enterprise. We can see the controversy from our recent series of topics on energy saving technology. Positive people believe that CIOs ' familiarity with cloud computing and big data makes them irreplaceable in the corporate energy-saving strategy. The ubiquity of sensors links the real world with software, and cloud tools for energy measurement and analysis enable companies to track, adjust, and even predict their own carbon emissions. Besides CIOs, who else is more likely to dominate?

However, other people we visit, including IT experts, believe that the CIO's role in saving energy is being misjudged. Cutting corporate carbon emissions is not limited to data centers and technology itself. Companies that have substantial action on energy-saving emissions are determined to come from the board of directors and CEOs. As the global climate worsens, companies cannot evade their responsibilities, and their commitment to energy conservation is almost equivalent to a political statement. and any company-level emission reduction policy is likely to be accompanied by a major marketing campaign. All this proves that energy-saving matters are by no means CIO-led.

Of course, CIOs can certainly lead by using cloud services to reduce the carbon footprint of it and telecoms services themselves.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)