Lower The Environmental Cost of IT Using Cloud Computing

Every organisation is striving to become more sustainable, but the areas in which improvements can be made are often very specific to each business.  Not every organisation runs fleets of vehicles or has a manufacturing process they can decarbonise.

There is however one common area which most companies can address, and that is their use of Information Technology.

It’s no surprise that the materials and energy required to manufacture, power and cool IT infrastructure is considerable with some estimates predicting the environmental impact hitting 14% of global carbon emissions by 2040.

However, the strategic use of Information Technology, and the appropriate selection of that technology, can lead to meaningful carbon reductions within businesses.

One of the easiest ways to lower the environmental cost of IT is to use Cloud Computing where possible.

The enormous data centres run by the public cloud companies do use vast amounts of energy, but they are delivering services to thousands of companies which would otherwise need to run their own infrastructure with a much greater combined impact.  A recent report by Microsoft claims that its cloud offerings are between 72 and 98 percent more carbon efficient than a private datacentre when taking into account these economies of scale and their use of renewable energy.  IDC has predicted that the adoption of cloud computing in conjunction with sustainability focused datacentres could save up to 1.6 billion tons of CO2 from 2021 through 2024!

So where do you start in terms of evaluating and moving appropriate IT systems to the public cloud?

Here are some key pointers.

• A good place to start is in measuring the carbon footprint of your current IT estate.  This will provide a good baseline against which to do a cost/benefit analysis of a move to cloud.  There are many good resources on TechiesGoGreen.com as well as signatories that can help with this.

• Next, evaluate what can possibly move to cloud.

  • The easiest wins here are in the areas of email and collaboration.  Cloud based suites such as Microsoft’s Office365 or Google Workspace are prime examples and make much more sense than trying to manage and run such systems on premise.  There is also the added bonus in terms of how they facilitate flexible and mobile working and the elimination of unnecessary travel through online meetings.

  • Backup is another no-brainer for smaller businesses.  Doubling up on servers and storage on-premises for backups when they should really be kept off-site just doesn’t make sense when backing up to cloud over readily available high speed broadband connections is much more cost effective (and sustainable).

  • Now could also be a good time to consider moving off any legacy on-premises line-of-business applications such as accounting systems, CRM, or ERP.  The majority of application vendors are putting their development efforts into cloud versions of these systems so migrating would ensure your business is not missing out on new functionality while also facilitating easy remote and timely access to critical business information and processes.

  • So far, we’ve talked about the systems and equipment in your datacentre or computer room.  What about all those laptops and PC’s?  There are proven sustainability benefits of moving those workloads to cloud too.  These benefits as well as how to go about it are covered in great depth by one of our talented signatories here: https://www.techiesgogreen.com/blog/whats-that-hiding-in-your-hardware

• Choose the appropriate cloud provider for each service you want to move.  Each will have their own pricing models and sustainability credentials so do your research.  The offering from a particular cloud provider may suit your business better than another and you don’t need to stick with one for everything.  Research shows that 93 percent of larger organisations are already a multi-cloud architecture.

• Finally, carefully monitor your new cloud usage for both cost and sustainability.  There are tools available to help here such as Microsoft’s “Emissions impact Dashboard”, Google’s “Carbon Footprint” tool and Amazon’s “AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool”.

In closing, I’ll leave you with a few do's and don'ts to consider.

Do:  

• Make sure to secure the access to any new cloud applications or data.  Multi-Factor-Authentication is a must as cloud apps are accessible from anywhere by default.  The cloud provider may be responsible for making sure their services are secure, but you are responsible for securing your data in the cloud.

• Engage the help of a trusted IT service partner in helping you plan and execute your migration.

Don’t:

• Assume cloud will be cheaper.  Anything “rented” will eventually prove more expensive over time than something “owned” so you need to weigh up all the benefits versus costs – sustainability and otherwise.  There are many other benefits to cloud computing, such as eliminating power and cooling costs and no infrastructure to purchase and manage so be sure to take these into account.

• Bite off too much at once.  Consider making the easier changes first and letting them bed in before tackling the rest.