All posts tagged: computing

Is Cloud Computing Green?

Cloud computing, sometimes boldly called “Green” Cloud computing, is utilising offsite computing power from large datacentres and servers to replace infrastructure servers in business. The issue is, we “all pay so little attention to the resources used by “the cloud” (Notley & Reading 2013). Cloud computing uses less power to the achieve the same results as regular servers. So much, that the “Smart 2020 report by the Climate Group estimates energy consumption of these and other cloud data centers to be 330 billion kilowatt hours per year” (Newton 2010). The green savings, is often attributed to the power savings the consumer will benefit from utilising cloud computing. But the power savings required to power the server is often invested back into more servers, as Samsung proudly remarks that replacing regular servers with thier Green DDR3 servers will reduce power consumption by 86% which can “add 55 more servers to your data center in just one year”.  Samsung’s “green” vision is undermined by statements like this and their reports never state how much CO2 emissions are reduced from …