Key Highlights
- Cloud sustainability is a deployment-specific issue, and new ideas are emerging.
- Cloud computing is a complex, distributed set of systems, and nothing will be simple around defining any of the perceived benefits.
Cloud computing is complicated because each deployment is different and includes various technologies. The total carbon footprint is based on a complex array of factors determining how much power is needed. Is the cloud a sustainable technology? The answer is that “It depends.”
All the hyper-scalers boast that their clouds are green and are moving to zero emissions today. However, it is deployment-dependent when it comes to the greenness of specific cloud deployments for specific enterprises.
Public clouds are a greener option compared to more traditional computing approaches. But the cloud may not be green depending on how the company explicitly uses cloud computing.
However, cloud sustainability is a deployment-specific issue, even though it is not painted that way in the press and by cloud providers. Indeed, new ideas are emerging.
The Efficiency of Cloud Architecture
The efficiency of the overall cloud architecture is explained here with an example. If we can solve the same problems with 300 fewer technologies, then that architecture drives the cloud deployment to be truly green. In many instances, a poorly designed cloud deployment running on a green public cloud provider generates more carbon than a fully optimized architecture running within a traditional data center.
A cloud provider may have a data center in the United States tied to a wind or solar farm, which is excellent. However, cloud services, applications, and data may not be using that data center. For example, the company’s data center may be in an area, state, or country that uses a coal-fired power plant.
Optimized workloads don’t require allocating as many cloud resources, run fewer power-consuming physical servers, and bill you for fewer resources.
It is even more helpful for traditional, owned hardware deployed in traditional data centers. If power-optimized application development uses fewer resources by design, companies may delay the purchase of new hardware that will need to be plugged into the wall.
Cloud computing is a complex, distributed set of systems, and nothing will be simple around defining any of the perceived benefits, of which there are many. Cloud sustainability is one of those things and involves a complex array of concepts to consider.
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