Going Green

Why going to the cloud could reduce your carbon footprint

We all know that cloud-based computing can reduce IT capital costs, reduce labor costs, and enhance productivity. And a growing body of evidence shows the cloud is also remarkably efficient.

Last year Google released a paper on the energy savings from using Gmail instead of locally hosted email. Expanding on that analysis to nclude the cloud-based office applications of Google Apps™. Their estimates, which they support with a case study from a Google Apps client, show that migrating basic IT applications to Google Apps significantly reduces energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Based on analysis, a typical company or organization that migrates to the cloud could:

• Save an estimated 68–87% in energy for its office computing
• Reduce similar amounts of carbon emissions

These findings are consistent with a case study of the actual savings achieved by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a Google Apps client with approximately 17,000 users. By switching to Google Apps, GSA reduced server energy consumption by nearly 90% and

carbon emissions by 85%. The estimated cost savings from this reduction in energy use will be $285,000 annually (a 93% reduction).

Why is the cloud more energy efficient?

The chart above compares the energy needed to support two models of office computing: the standard model and the cloud-based model enabled by Google Apps.

The Full post on Google Apps: Energy efficiency in the cloud

Interesting Video from Google where they fund some worthwhile Carbon offsetting projects.