Is Cloud Computing Good for the Environment?

A recent study from IDC predicts that by 2021, at least 60% of all enterprise IT spending will be on cloud services and infrastructure. You might be wondering if this is good for the environment, but in fact, it’s very good news. Cloud computing offers many benefits to both businesses and the environment alike.

Cloud computing is environmentally friendly in a number of ways. First, it is more efficient than traditional computing. Traditional computing uses hardware to perform operations, but with cloud computing, you can rent hardware from data centers and use it as long as you need it. This means that there is no need for you to purchase and maintain the hardware yourself since this will be done by someone else at an offsite facility or location (a “data center”). You also don’t have to worry about upgrading or replacing your own computer every time new software comes out because everything happens on the server instead of on your local device!

The second way that cloud computing is environmentally friendly relates to how energy consumption varies depending on how frequently tasks are executed within an application running either locally vs remotely (i.e., when accessing information through the Internet). For more information on how cloud can impact your business energy consumption, please refer to IT Support Atlanta.

One of the biggest benefits of cloud computing is that it allows you to use hardware more efficiently. Because you’re not required to purchase and maintain your own hardware, your IT team will be freed up from spending time on maintenance. Instead, they’ll be able to focus on other areas of your business that could use an upgrade—like improving productivity or growing sales. This could also potentially reduce the total amount of hardware in usage as each business no longer needs to buy and maintain their own hardware and can even share resources in a public cloud.

The cloud also helps reduce energy consumption by using less space than traditional data centers. In fact, according to IBM’s study referenced above, “the amount of power needed for one server in a public cloud facility is about one-tenth the power required for the same server located in a conventional data centre.”

The cloud enables a higher utilization rate, which means that less hardware is required to get the same job done. This means that less energy is needed to power the infrastructure and no carbon emissions are generated in the process.

This feature is particularly beneficial when you consider that a typical data center uses 30% of its electricity just to cool down its servers. If your business has an on-site server farm, this could mean a significant increase in electricity costs if you’re not careful.

You can refresh hardware more often in the cloud. That means you’ll have to buy new computers less often, which means less waste. This is a huge environmental benefit of cloud computing: because you’re not tied to an expensive and hard-to-repair machine for years on end, your organization can get out from under its old equipment faster than ever before. Not only does this save money by reducing your capital expense expenditures, but it also keeps chemicals from being used up in production and transportation. Managed IT Services New Jersey offers additional resources on this.

In a traditional on-premises data center, you have to run air conditioning to keep all of your servers cool and properly ventilated. When you use cloud computing, however, the heat produced by your servers isn’t trapped inside a building: it disperses into the atmosphere. You don’t need air conditioning units or fans because servers are located in large warehouses where they’re able to dissipate excess heat more easily than they would in an office building. As a result of this reduced electricity use, there are fewer O2 emissions associated with cooling and ventilation systems—which is an environmental benefit that can be quantified using standard carbon footprint calculations.

While the cloud may not be environmentally friendly at the moment, it can reduce climate impact. Cloud computing reduces the need for new hardware and power plants.

Through virtualization and automation, cloud computing makes it possible to share resources among users who are using different applications at different times of day. Without this capability, each user would have their own dedicated computer (a physical server). With virtualization, multiple users can share a single machine by sharing only their operating system and software applications instead of having their own separate copies as well. This means fewer computers need to be manufactured which reduces energy use from mining raw materials needed for production.

This approach also reduces electricity costs because there is less power used overall. Fewer machines mean less electricity consumed per unit time since each one uses less juice relative to what you’d expect when running locally instead of remotely through the internet connection connecting them all together. For more information, please refer to Cloud Services New Jersey.