Cloud Hosting Companies and The Environment

Global warming has become a serious issue in recent years, so much so that, it is speculated that by 2040 the temperatures will rise up to 1.5 degrees. It doesn’t sound so much, but it will have drastic effects on life, to say the least. With our rapidly advancing technology, it is not far that we cut CO2 emissions to zero. If at all any measures to hinder the process are to be implemented, they are met with reluctance. If we continue this way, we might end up in a rather irreversible and serious situation in the near future. The green data center initiative has already been helping cut-off toxic emissions. In the face of the current environmental crisis, efficient use of data center resources helps in increasing the environmental sustainability of IT. Data centers are also more energy-efficient than individual servers opted by companies for themselves. Cloud service providers in possession of huge facilities will see significant gains in efficiency as compared to small scale service providers. For even mid-scale service providers the gains from small changes are negligible. Data centers run by giants like Microsoft will also see huge cost efficiencies with even small changes. Datacenter owners are now looking to exploit more renewable energies to make their facilities environment-friendly. According to a source we found out that as of 2017 Google had adopted 100% renewable energy for its data center and office operations. We could denote solar chargers for cell phones as a green technology that helps reduce electric usage on individual levels. Considering the staggering numbers in our population, even a chunk of our population adopting such technologies will have a huge impact. As per a report issued by Amazon, customers experienced a 88% reduction in carbon emissions after using cloud against their own data centers. Also in another report from Pike research, it was stated that inclusion of cloud will reduce 38% data center energy consumption by 2020. According to a report by DCD, Amazon recently invested in a 23.2MW wind farm in Ireland’s cork and 45MW solar farm in the USA. The two sites will reportedly generate 68,000 megawatts and 100,000 megawatts respectively. These farms will be fully functional by 2020. The end idea is that, sooner than later, turning towards renewable energy options completely will be the best bet for saving the environment. At the moment renewable energy sources such as solar panels are costly. But at the demand increases, we might see a reduction in prices. The future generations might have a better chance of implementing and harnessing from renewable sources of energy is we lay the foundation for the same today.