Green Cloud – What does it Mean?

While companies are still questioning its security and privacy issues, cloud computing has some properties that are undeniably beneficial. These properties are the reason why it is sometimes referred to as – green cloud. Though the green color is not likely to be associated with real clouds in the sky, here it can be applied to cloud computing for two main reasons: energy efficacy and cost-benefits.

English: Cloud Computing Image (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many people would probably say that the green color is mostly reminiscent of nature and health. When associated with cloud computing, the green refers to the positive impact it has on the environment. Several studies have been conducted to examine this impact and all have reported interesting findings. Namely, implementation of cloud computing is found to significantly reduce carbon emissions footprint related to the IT sector. Companies that have adopted it reduced their carbon emissions by 50%.

Even though cloud services are already an integral part of most of the businesses, there are still those that are not able to easily make a decision about moving to the cloud. They need incentives other than environmental protection as not all the companies (unfortunately) care about the nature as much.

However, they probably do care about the costs.

This leads to the second important benefit of cloud computing and another association with the green color. The leading businessmen of our time would probably first recall the dollar bills when talking about the color green. Indeed, most of the companies reported that their IT costs were significantly lower, even up to 70% in some cases. The monetary value of cloud computing probably sounds like a stronger motivation for businesses that hesitate to adopt it.

By gathering all the servers onto a single place, the cloud service providers are saving on space and money. As the physical IT equipment is structured somewhere else, the companies have more space to use and less hardware maintenance costs to worry about. This not only makes the business more efficient, but it also provides opportunity to save valuable energy. Work might pile up in the offices, but it doesn’t necessarily have a bad impact on the environment. As all the equipment is located at a single site, it is possible to use its capacities to the maximum.

Besides this, cloud computing also speeds transactions, which is significant for both the environment and the work efficiency. Employees are able to use the same software applications and access the data in the cloud without using additional hardware equipment.

The fact that it is cost-beneficial and environmentally friendly is probably a good enough reason for companies to move to the cloud. It still might be difficult to choose an appropriate provider as the issues of privacy and security are still questionable with most of the providers. However, as more companies are entering the market the features of cloud services are constantly getting better. Even though certain companies take much longer to move to the cloud, those that are already there report that the shift has been significantly beneficial.

Bojana Dobran is a blogger and a cloud computing enthusiast. She is helping her friend Neebo Cumulonimbus to jump-start his cloud computing blog.