Sustainable Computing in the Cloud
There isn't many win-win situations concerning the environment when it comes to computing but the solutions and services we offer is clearly one of them.
Since day one we have been limiting our clients' carbon foot print by pooling their computing needs in the cloud. By virtue of virtualization technology our servers load balance resources by supplying processing time to the clients that need it and scaling back those who don't thousands of times a second. Unlike the fixed resources provided by dedicated hardware our process is extremely efficient, elastic and can scale up or down depending on your needs.
How to Calculate Energy Savings in the Cloud
Calculating your energy savings by moving servers and their applications to a cloud-based solution provider is not a exact science nor can it be without a detailed usage analysis. However, this doesn't mean reasonable estimates cannot be calculated using known energy consumption averages.
You should have little to no difficultly estimating your computing energy consumption using the charts below. For example, a typical business that has eight desktops and five servers eligible for migration to the cloud could ultimately save $1,212.00 a year in energy consumption costs.
| Terminology | |
|---|---|
| Watt(W) | A unit of electrical power |
| Kilowatt(kW) | One-thousand watts of power |
| Kilowatt Hour(kW-h) | The multiplication of power in watts and time in hours |
| Typical Wattage | Average Use* | Average Monthly kW-h Usage | Average Cost per kW-h** | Estimated Monthly Cost | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laptop (50W) | 24 hrs per Workday | 25 kW-h | X | .10 | = | $2.50 |
| Desktop Computer (150W) | 24 hrs per Workday | 76 kW-h | X | .10 | = | $7.60 |
| Tower/Rack Mountable Server (225W) | 24 hrs a day | 162 kW-h | X | .10 | = | $16.20 |
Limiting our Impact
In the future, the technology currently being developed by our partners will be able to deliver much more considerable power savings for our server environments. Our goal is to decrease our power consumption 10%-20% per user over the next few years while supporting continued growth and scale-out.
The ultimate goal of this initiative is to decrease our carbon foot print and insure the quality of service and availability of our data center. In the end, programs of this nature will help reduce the pressure of increasing energy prices and bolster the attractiveness of our services.
* 21 Day Work Week
** Electricity rates (kW-h) can very. For demonstration purposes we utilized the Department of Energy's 2009 National Average Retail Price for commercial customers.
"Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State" U.S. Energy Information Administration.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
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- What exactly is Cloud Computing? The worst buzzword ever. - While the "Cloud" maybe one of the worst buzzwords ever the technology it describes is not.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
- We are upgrading equipment at our Lancaster City Colo tmw 4/30 between 9AM & 10AM. Cloud Apps, Win & Mac Desktops will temporarily offline.
299 days ago