Cloud computing reduces energy use by 30%

A study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by WSP Environment & Energy (WSP) and Accenture reveals that businesses choosing to run their applications through 'cloud computing' can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by a net of 30% or more, compared to using traditional on-site server rooms.

Various studies have shown that energy used by data centres and office-based IT servers makes up in the order of 1-2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The study focused on three widely deployed and commonly used Microsoft applications for email, content sharing and customer relationship management. It then assessed the carbon footprint of server, networking and storage infrastructure for three different deployment sizes - 100, 1000 and 10,000 users.

The results of the study revealed that the smaller the organisation the larger the benefit of switching to cloud computing solutions. When small organisations (100 users) move to the cloud instead of using their own servers, carbon emissions are likely to be 90% lower. For larger corporations the savings are typically 30% or more.

"This represents one of the industry's first quantitative studies of the environmental impact of cloud computing," says Andrew Armstrong, Vice President at WSP Environment & Energy. "While the benefits are clear for organisations, at a broader industry level, the systemic impact that cloud computing may have on driving down ICT carbon emissions is significant. It reinforces the opportunity of ICT in our transition to a low-carbon economy, and highlights that it can be done in a way that can also enhance business productivity and the services you and I experience," says Armstrong.

There are a number of key factors that enable the cloud concept to deliver lower energy use: larger data centres, such as those run by Microsoft, benefit from economies of scale and operational efficiencies beyond what can be achieved by corporate IT departments.Large public cloud environments can serve millions of users simultaneously, sharing the infrastructure between all parties. Innovation and continuous improvement can drive data centre efficiency to minimise energy use.

WSP developed a framework methodology aligned to the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) and carried out modelling to compare the energy use and carbon emissions per user for Exchange Server 2007, SharePoint server 2007 and Dynamics CRM with their cloud-based equivalents: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Dynamics CRM Online. The results suggest that for widely deployed and commonly used applications such as email, content sharing and customer relationship management, the cloud can enable a significant reduction in carbon emissions.

Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist with Microsoft, said: "The benefits of cloud computing are clear: increased productivity, reduced costs and lower management overhead of products. Now add environmental benefits as Microsoft's cloud can help reduce energy use and carbon emissions by at least 30% per user. The cloud has the ability to deliver business value for customers in an age where corporate responsibility is critical to business success."

"The environmental benefit of cloud computing compared to an on-premise environment is similar to that of using public transport compared to driving your car. The shared environment and larger scale result in a smaller environmental footprint for each user. In addition, there is greater incentive for efficient infrastructure as the size increases," said Tim Parker, General Manager of Energy and Climate Change at WSP Environment & Energy in Australia.