Energy efficiency in cloud computing – your options explained

In a world of rising energy bills and global temperatures, making your systems eco-friendly has gone from a nice-to-have to downright essential. A major way that companies are looking to do that is by moving to the cloud.

One of the many touted benefits of moving to cloud computing is energy efficiency. That’s because you don’t need a basement full of servers sucking electricity 24 hours a day. You don’t even need just one machine in the corner constantly keeping the electricity meter (and bill) spinning. Of course, moving to the cloud puts the burden of energy consumption onto the provider. But when it comes to energy consumption, ‘out of sight’ certainly doesn’t mean ‘out of mind’.

How the big firms are approaching energy efficiency in cloud computing

Today, most organisations have published a dedication or policy surrounding sustainability, or to offset their carbon footprints. Often these schemes are supported and promoted by regulators or governments, with many internationally recognised designations, such as B Corp available. Creating global standards for environmental sustainability is a challenge we all face. However, the IT industry seems to be united in its approach.

The ‘Big 3’ players in the world of cloud computing (Microsoft, Amazon and Google) all have teams dedicated to making cloud computing as green as possible. They’ve also all got their own native apps that can deployed on customer tenants to paint pictures of their individual carbon footprints and environmental impact.

Cloud providers’ data centres are energy-intensive, and the electricity used to run them often comes from fossil fuels, which generates greenhouse gas emissions: primarily carbon dioxide, which is tied to global warming. With the current tide of AI tools coming in, particularly large language models, consuming eye-watering amounts of computing power and energy, considerations have to be made.

In his paper ‘The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence’ (Joule, October 2023), Alex de Vries from the VU Amsterdam School of Business and Economics cited research from SemiAnalysis that to support ChatGPT, OpenAI required 3,617 servers with a total of 28,936 GPUs, implying an energy demand of 564 MWh per day. This compares with the estimated 1,287 MWh required for training the GPT-3 model.

So, what steps can be taken? How can cloud computing become green? We’ve looked at both the public and private cloud markets to drill down on three categories.

Optimising the facility

The large cloud vendors use AI and machine learning (ML) to monitor and optimise energy use, which can include optimising the architecture, layout and geography of the data centre. They’ll also use the excess heat produced to warm nearby buildings and build data centres in cooler climates, underground or even underwater.

Optimising the infrastructure

Cloud infrastructure is a core element in energy consumption. Public and private cloud providers use modern, more energy-efficient hardware. They also apply different techniques to maximise resource use, including virtualisation and containerisation – which results in fewer servers being needed and a lower energy consumption.

Optimising the workflow

Similar techniques to optimising infrastructure can be transferred to workflows. Cloud providers will smartly divide workloads across different servers to streamline resource usage and optimise network routes to reduce traffic. They’ll also use portable storage and server caching to reduce network calls and automate routine tasks to save time and energy.

Is public or private hosting better for you and the environment?

There’s no simple answer to whether public or private hosting is better for the environment, as it depends on the specifics of your requirements and hosting setups. If you don’t need advanced enterprise-level cloud services, with AI features like Microsoft Copilot running on your systems, you may well not need the full power of an enterprise-level public hosting setup like Microsoft Azure.

These public hosting setups may overprovision resources, especially to deal with the massively increased drain from AI tools, and if you’re not needing this, it could be wasted – which is bad for both the planet and your wallet.

Private hosting setups on the other hand can be more easily right-sized to your business needs, meaning you could save energy and money.

How Thinc Cloud offers an eco-friendly alternative

As companies explore multi and cross-cloud infrastructure there are natural progressions taking place. Organisations looking to fill data lakes and build large ML data warehouses are gravitating towards the Big 3. But, as more AI and ML requirements are surfacing, this is putting a greater strain on their eco-friendliness.

As a result, many companies are exploring private cloud options, specifically for infrastructure and hosting requirements. If we look closer at our own Thinc Cloud offering, we find technologies that are good for both customers and the environment. Our data centre partner has previously been awarded the Data Centre Energy Efficiency Project of the Year Award (DCS Awards).

Thinc Cloud uses the only provider to have implemented 2MW battery storage with voltage optimisation. This allows us to store energy from the National Grid at times of low demand and discharge it when it’s most needed. That means that we waste far less energy and pass on the cost savings from increased efficiency to the customer.

We’re also proud that we only use 100% renewable energy with a full carbon offset to power our data centres. The backup generators are powered by sustainable HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil), which is renewable and has lower emissions than fossil fuel alternatives.

Because of our ongoing commitment to sustainability, our data centres have been awarded the following environmental accreditations:

• ISO 14001: 2015 for Environmental Management
• EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres
• ISO 50001: 2018 accreditation for Energy Management
• GRESB rating (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) – Four

IT that’s better for the planet and your bottom line

Moving to a more eco-friendly IT setup doesn’t have to be at all expensive and could even end up saving you money. By working with a private cloud partner that puts the planet first, you can a system that’s the perfect fit for your business, without any wasted energy or excess emissions.

If you’re curious about making the switch in your hosting but are worried about the disruption this could cause to your business, we’re here to make the switch as smooth as possible. Our cloud hosting experts are on hand to talk you through the whole process, answer any questions you’ve got and help come up with the perfect tailored solution for your business.