Cloud computing is the new mantra in the business world.
For many, it represents the platform for the next generation enterprise, promising low total cost of ownership (TCO), high scalability and an easy pay-as-you-go cost structure. These advantages and more are driving its adoption across businesses around the world and are causing leading IT companies to focus their energies on the cloud and the applications that can be derived from it.
It is imperative to embrace cloud computing, sooner than later. It is good for your business and good for the planet.
A recent study conducted in US reveals that cloud computing offers solutions for businesses to be greener and cut costs along the way. Some of the key findings include:
1. US Companies plan to increase their investment on cloud computing from 10% of their overall IT budget today to almost 70% of the same budget in the near future.
2. Cloud computing reduces carbon emissions by almost 86 millions metric tons per year by 2020.
3. Annual economy-wide energy savings could be more than $12 billion/year by 2020 – that’s in the US alone!
Large companies adopting the cloud can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent. The better news is, small businesses even save more energy than the larger counterparts – up to 90 percent.
Access to the networked resources provided by ‘clouds’ enables companies to enter markets without having to meet the capital costs of building their own computer infrastructure. This is especially significant in the present sluggish market scenario, at a time when we are seeing an explosion in the number of portable devices with limited storage capacity. Access to clouds enables them to transcend that limitation and provide a level of functionality and cost effectiveness which would normally be associated with much larger machines.
Here is the bottomline: Cloud computing allows higher hardware utilization. Applications can be run on less equipment; less equipment means less energy to power and for cooling the equipment. Less energy means a lighter and happier mother earth.
1,000 cloud servers cut 50 percent of carbon emissions, equaling to carbon emissions produced by 261 homes or removing 444 cars off the road or planting 5,810 trees to offset carbon footprints. With the cloud will become mainstream in less than 5 years, the contribution of cloud computing to the environment is huge – so, you can now go cloud and go green at the same time!
Send your feedback to sharad@go-green.ae