What is Cloud Computing ?
With the phase that our technological world is evolving and the number of new ideas surfacing, Cloud Computing could be one of the most useful to surface thus far. In fact just three years ago in 2009 a CIO Technology report showed that Cloud computing was the leading technology of interest among IT professionals by 11% more than its competitors. So what is this amazing cloud computing all about?. (Wyld, 2009,p9) Cloud Computing enables a third party to provide basic and advanced services over the internet, for a small or no fee. This eliminates the need to save and install applications on your own laptop and/or other physical devices. This means that the space and resources an organization uses up are greatly reduced which also reduces the carbon footprint of an organization, in turn reducing their over all costs sharply. Another plus point to Cloud Computing is that it consists of three components, Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (Paas) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) that fit in to every niche an organization might need.
How is it related to sustainability and efficiency ?
With the growth of high-speed networks, Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo are operating huge datacenters around the world emitting more and more carbon in the atmosphere. The reasons why moving from traditional model of computing to Cloud Computing are mentioned above. But it is not only for economic reasons that Cloud Computing is being adopted. Diversity Ltd reports “…industry, as of 2007 accounted for 2% of total global carbon emissions.” Cloud Computing forms part of the variety of innovations used to reduce our carbon footprints left in the environment. In the fact of all the calamitous effects on the environment, we need to reduce our impact on earth. “Today, most internal company data centers run their servers at around thirty per cent capacity. In contrast, the servers in a large cloud data center typically run at eighty per cent capacity or more”. Therefore, wastage of energy is reduced and carbon released of each unit of computing power is deducted. This is how Cloud Computing enables us to obtain ‘the environmental benefits of virtualization’. Consequently, this promotes sustainability, which means being more efficient and being more environmentally friendly. Both Cloud Computing and sustainability are rising up as transformative tendency in businesses and societies. Most people (whether they are aware or not) are nowadays using Cloud Computing services such as emails, social media, online gaming and mobile applications. Businesses are using this software to reduce costs and improve IT and business efficiency. Organizations are mostly concentrated on developing long-term strategies to reduce the harm caused to the environment through more sustainable operations and products. ‘’The goal of this architecture is to make Cloud green from both user and provider’s perspective.’’
How is it related to sustainability and efficiency ?
With the growth of high-speed networks, Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo are operating huge datacenters around the world emitting more and more carbon in the atmosphere. The reasons why moving from traditional model of computing to Cloud Computing are mentioned above. But it is not only for economic reasons that Cloud Computing is being adopted. Diversity Ltd reports “…industry, as of 2007 accounted for 2% of total global carbon emissions.” Cloud Computing forms part of the variety of innovations used to reduce our carbon footprints left in the environment. In the fact of all the calamitous effects on the environment, we need to reduce our impact on earth. “Today, most internal company data centers run their servers at around thirty per cent capacity. In contrast, the servers in a large cloud data center typically run at eighty per cent capacity or more”. Therefore, wastage of energy is reduced and carbon released of each unit of computing power is deducted. This is how Cloud Computing enables us to obtain ‘the environmental benefits of virtualization’. Consequently, this promotes sustainability, which means being more efficient and being more environmentally friendly. Both Cloud Computing and sustainability are rising up as transformative tendency in businesses and societies. Most people (whether they are aware or not) are nowadays using Cloud Computing services such as emails, social media, online gaming and mobile applications. Businesses are using this software to reduce costs and improve IT and business efficiency. Organizations are mostly concentrated on developing long-term strategies to reduce the harm caused to the environment through more sustainable operations and products. ‘’The goal of this architecture is to make Cloud green from both user and provider’s perspective.’’