Trends of businesses migrating their functions to cloud, is reaching its epitome with eco-friendly aspect coming into consideration. Delving deep, this blog showcases right into the prime aspects of cloud configuration, energy usage, and new innovative technologies. Cloud Computing is an online service that helps in computing various remote services such as operating capabilities, data storage as well as many kinds of applications over the web. Instead of relying on locally hosted servers or personal computers these services are facilitated by cloud service providers. As the availability and authenticity of internet increased, the concept of delivering services using the web became more and more achievable.
Just like any other advancements, there are several pros and cons regarding its impact on the environment associated with cloud computing. As for the positive side, it has the potential to provide environmental sustainability by using the best asset optimisation and energy regulation. Contrary to it, there are also some negative impacts on the environment due to the data centres, which produce huge amount of electronic waste. Some crucial facts to consider. Positive Environmental Impacts include resource optimization, where Cloud services can acquire improved optimisation of assets and offer more efficient services than single firms, resulting in overall reduction in energy consumption. Another one is energy efficiency, where we see huge data centres often employ advanced strategies for energy efficiency, such as productive coolers, power management systems, renewable power sources. Other includes server virtualization which provides online servers executable on physical servers, with improved utilisation of hardware assets as well as greatly reduced energy usage. Economies of Scale is another advantage, where cloud services benefit allows economies of scale to expend in energy-utilising frameworks and innovations that may be economically not viable for smaller firms. Lastly, dynamic scaling is another attribute of Cloud services which enable users to modify assets on demand. This freedom allows greater efficient resource consumption and reduced energy wastage during periods of low requirements. Concerns and Negative Environmental Impacts include energy consumption concerns for Data Facilities. The energy usage of data facilities, especially large production units, can be rigorous. The need for computing output and storage can impact on the carbon footprint if not examined and managed. Another major concern is Carbon Emissions. Data Facilities use energy sources which alter their carbon footprint. If non-renewable sources are used significantly, a great amount of this energy will amplify carbon emissions. Obviously, not to mention, electronic waste. The rapid generation of hardware and innovative concepts in the cloud computing sector will lead to increased electronic wastes being generated. Adequate waste handling and recycling of old instruments are essential to decrease the environmental harm. Another indirect negative impact includes manufacturing Impact. Hardware sub-component productions, like servers and communication equipment, impact the environment considerably. The uprooting of raw components, as well as manufacturing procedures and conveyance contribute to the main environmental effect.
One of the mainstream environmental sustainability buzzwords today is “Cloud Sustainability”. In today’s business world every business that has a digital presence is opting for cloud solutions. If any organisation is moving towards net zero emissions, then eliminating the IT operations related emissions is a major part of that. Although for many firms cloud computing is already a cleaner and improved. Working with less hardware and running less workloads results in the less consumption of energy and resources. But the data centres still need huge amount of electricity to run them. And there comes in the Green Cloud technology which eliminates the fossil fuel-based energy consumption and replaces it with the renewable energy resources.
Below are the strategies needed to be followed to achieve sustainable cloud computing:
- Opting for Green Cloud: In today’s world organisations don’t need to go for physical hardware, they can simply opt for hassle free cloud solutions. If they need onsite server, they can go cloud without worrying about the power consumption and maintenance. Cloud servers will do the job in a much efficient way.
- Green Coding: To minimize the environmental impact green coding plays a vital role. It means optimizing the coding process for better performance. Which will be more efficient while considerably reducing the overall carbon footprint. Adoption of green coding practices might lead to a more sustainable IT industry while cutting the down the energy costs and mitigating adverse environmental impacts.
- Energy & Resource Management: As moving towards cloud adoption there is no need to have reserved capacity for future usage. With cloud services, organizations may opt for the resources as per their requirement. It can be increased or reduced according to the demand. In this way there would be minimal wastage of energy and resources and most optimum utilization can be achieved.
- Smart Cloud facilities: Emphasize locating the cloud data centers on the ocean floor or underground facilities or in cold climatic conditions to save energy and resources by naturally cooling down the cloud servers.
- Smart Infrastructure: Using Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) also helps to ensure optimal use of energy resources for efficient power consumption. Also, smart hardware can be deployed to establish an infrastructure that can minimize power consumption.
- Workflow Management: Utilize multiple different strategies for optimal workflow at different levels, which includes application modernization, workloads shifting, and storage optimization.
- Carbon Measurement & Reporting: Use different tools available with cloud services which can report cloud energy spendings and carbon emission metrices. E.g.: Azure Sustainability Calculator, Etsy’s Cloud Jewels.
- ESG Reporting: More organizations are now focusing on environmental, social and governance goals. Cloud migration can enable better ways to assess and manage the organization’s ESG initiatives. Cloud providers like Microsoft and Google are offering tools like sustainability dashboards for better ESG reporting.
4 Pillars of Sustainable Cloud Optimization
Below are the pillars of sustainable cloud optimization. By following these steps and reducing the wastage of resources energy efficiency and lower carbon emissions can be achieved.
- Energy Source: Reduce dependency on fossil fuel emissions. Run data centers on renewable energy resources like solar and wind energy. Increasing the battery storage capacity. Also, by taking advantage of the weather patterns.
- Energy Efficiency: Increase energy efficiency by placing the data centers in cold places like underwater or cooling them with cold water pipes. Also cloud providers are now implementing AI driven cooling systems to get the most efficient performance.
- Number & Size of Servers: Reducing the number of servers that are not required can optimize the performance of applications and storage.
- Number & Size of Requests: Reducing the amount of data being transferred and optimized caching.
Benefits of Sustainable Cloud Computing
- Power & Cooling Efficiency: Cloud Computing resources can be scaled dynamically to maintain the server capacity as per the demand. By aggregating demand with different cloud service providers, the resources can be shared for more efficient operations.
- Server Utilization: Virtualization in cloud computing enables servers to run at maximum optimal utilization.
- Hardware Efficiency: Hyperscale cloud computing data centres have the potential to efficiently use the power capacity which helps to achieve sustainability goals. Cloud service provides can deploy their hardware, servers, and other resources efficiently as per requirement.
- Renewable Energy Procurement: Cloud service providers use optimal renewable energy mix like solar, wind and hydroelectricity to minimize the carbon footprint by using green energy.
References:
https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/cloud-sustainability
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-04-21-gartner-says-three-emerging-environmental-sustainability-technologies-will-see-early-mainstream-adoption-by-2025
https://isg-one.com/articles/can-cloud-computing-reduce-carbon-emissions
https://www.techtarget.com/sustainability/feature/Cloud-computings-real-world-environmental-impact
https://upcloud.com/blog/esg-and-cloud
