Re:How cloud computing impacts the environment
by Spooky23 on Monday December 16, 2019 @11:26AM
(#21804193)
When you consider the impact of "cloud computing", you need to consider the offsets as well.
Enterprise datacenters have much higher PUEs than a hyperscale datacenter, and the hyperscale folks have an incentive to use energy as efficiently as possible. Hyper-scale datacenters often tend to be placed in locales where space and access to electricity is better.
There is always alot of navel gazing about anything environmental, and it's easy to throw rocks at what's new, because the facts are known and easy to find. Ultimately, I don't think that what the author is suggesting that we all do (ie. developing with an eye on efficiency) could meaningfully happen without cloud computing, because the "old way" of making big capital purchases for infrastructure is too disconnected from the operational costs.
Enterprise datacenters have much higher PUEs than a hyperscale datacenter, and the hyperscale folks have an incentive to use energy as efficiently as possible. Hyper-scale datacenters often tend to be placed in locales where space and access to electricity is better.
There is always alot of navel gazing about anything environmental, and it's easy to throw rocks at what's new, because the facts are known and easy to find. Ultimately, I don't think that what the author is suggesting that we all do (ie. developing with an eye on efficiency) could meaningfully happen without cloud computing, because the "old way" of making big capital purchases for infrastructure is too disconnected from the operational costs.