Topics In Demand
Notification
New

No notification found.

Sustainable Computing, With an Eye on the Cloud
Sustainable Computing, With an Eye on the Cloud

159

2

One of the most pressing needs in our world today is sustainable economic development, where the impact on natural resources is minimized. As organizations move towards the cloud to meet their computing needs and centralize their computing storage and networking, I see an excellent opportunity to optimize the complete energy consumption lifecycle on the cloud by making the process more sustainable. We are in a position today to create a true win-win situation for the environment, cloud service providers, customers, and consumers.

There are two parts to sustainable goals:


1. How do cloud service providers make their data centers more sustainable?
2.  What practices can cloud service customers practice to better align with the cloud and make their workloads more sustainable?

Let us first look at the question of how businesses should be planning for sustainability. How should they bake in sustainability aspects as part of their migration to the cloud? The first aspect to consider, of course, is choosing the right cloud service provider. It is essential to select a carbon-thoughtful provider based on its commitment to sustainability as well as how it plans, builds, powers, operates, and eventually retires its physical data centers.

The next aspect to consider is the process of migrating services to an infrastructure-as-a-service deployment model. Organizations should carry out such migrations without re-engineering for the cloud, as this can help to drastically reduce energy and carbon emissions as compared to doing so through an on-premise data center. In fact, migration to the cloud itself guarantees a reduced carbon and energy footprint. Re-engineering for the cloud can be the next step.

Let’s now talk about managing data-based services—an area that has been seeing a lot of developments of late—and the latest advances in the storage technology space, as a lot of money and energy is being used to store data, which is increasing exponentially all the time.
The constant growth in data-based services owing to AI, supercomputing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the constant increase in the data being captured today calls for technological solutions to limit energy consumption. When it comes to storage, there are emerging technologies like quad-level cell (QLC) SSD that would be great candidates to replace the hard disk. QLC SSD, for instance, offers a higher capacity at a lower cost
. It typically consumes 20 times less energy and takes up 10 times less space.

On the green data center front, we are seeing a lot of new advances today in cooling technologies, including using platforms to run data centers that are immersed in the cold waters of the northern and southern oceans. Data centers use up to 50% of their energy for cooling and backup power alone. New wide-bandgap technologies such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) play a crucial role here. They allow for greater power efficiency, are of smaller size, less weight, and lower cost.

At the more operational level, I would like to highlight that it’s important for development teams to act locally to create more efficient applications that consume less energy. Organizations should look closely at how to use more sustainable engineering practices, including choosing the right programming language and using efficient data structures for a task, which can help to drastically reduce energy consumption. Additionally, applications could be optimized to the fabric of the cloud by configuring them to take advantage of cloud services such as on-demand computing and event-driven computing.

It is also important for organizations to look closely at its fin-ops practice, which seeks to bring financial accountability and cultural change to the variable spend model of the cloud. A good fin-ops practice can optimize cloud resource consumption and save money for the organization.

All of these are some ways in which organizations can elevate their business using sustainable cloud practices. As the proverb goes, “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.” If you are not evolving, you are dissolving.

Given the pace of change and development around us, the digital future looks bright and full of possibilities.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The author is VP and India Regional Lead, Fidelity Application Architecture (FAA) at Fidelity Investments

Views expressed are as of the date indicated and may change. Unless otherwise noted, the opinions provided are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Fidelity Investments.

Links to third-party web sites may be shared on this page. Those sites are unaffiliated with Fidelity. Fidelity has not been involved in the preparation of the content supplied at the unaffiliated site and does not guarantee or assume any responsibility for its content.


That the contents of third-party articles/blogs published here on the website, and the interpretation of all information in the article/blogs such as data, maps, numbers, opinions etc. displayed in the article/blogs and views or the opinions expressed within the content are solely of the author's; and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of NASSCOM or its affiliates in any manner. NASSCOM does not take any liability w.r.t. content in any manner and will not be liable in any manner whatsoever for any kind of liability arising out of any act, error or omission. The contents of third-party article/blogs published, are provided solely as convenience; and the presence of these articles/blogs should not, under any circumstances, be considered as an endorsement of the contents by NASSCOM in any manner; and if you chose to access these articles/blogs , you do so at your own risk.


© Copyright nasscom. All Rights Reserved.