From Guest Blogger Jenny Richards: Examining the Eco-friendly Aspects of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing services have been around for a while, and there’s much discussion about their benefits for organizations of all sizes. Top on the list is that cloud technology has the ability to save small as well as large organizations a lot of time and money, and also reduce the risks inherent in other storage methods.

Very few people have actually approached cloud computing as a way to save the environment, and that’s what we’ll be discussing in the next few paragraphs.

In recent times, a number of organizations have become actively involved in reducing the carbon footprint of corporate activities, popularly known as ‘going green’. This provides an avenue for organizations to embrace changes resulting in environmental preservation, no matter how drastic, and it also leads to an improvement in the organization’s corporate image among stakeholders.

Cloud computing is green!

Businesses that provide cloud computing services may also not be aware of the green aspect of cloud computing, but this is the real picture, and here are a few environmental benefits that cloud computing affords, making it a real green solution:

1. Using fewer machines

For a small business or standalone corporate organizations, each server is roughly utilized at the rate of 5-10%. This means that more servers will be needed in order to get all your work done in the company. Compare this with the 60-70% utilization rates realized by the shared servers of cloud computing service providers. Much fewer servers in the shared data centers will be utilized to carry out a similar amount of work.

Of course, fewer machines translate to fewer costs in the purchase and maintenance of the machines. Servers are typically one of the more expensive IT hardware in the range, and maintenance, even when using remote DBA experts rather than an in-house team, doesn’t come cheap either. Add to that the low utilization rate per server, and what you have is a clear money-guzzler right there.

This is also because you have to purchase as many servers as you need to handle your peak data loads, but these loads only happen at certain times, meaning the rest of the time you’re paying for and expending energy on machines that are mostly sitting idle.

2. Climate control

The environmental conditions around a server must be carefully controlled in order to achieve peak performance. The temperature and humidity in particular need to be kept within certain ranges, which translates to additional costs for organizations.

Cloud computing service providers have many servers under their care, which makes it economical for them to implement these conditions. They can also take advantage of positioning and layouts to gain maximum benefit, which can be difficult for server centers within organizations.

By taking your data to a cloud services provider, you completely eliminate the cost of energy required to maintain a constant internal environment within the server room. This not only translates to large savings on energy consumption and thus reduction in the carbon footprint, it is great news for the organizational bottom-line as well!