Cloud computing's "green" credentials

By R. Edwin Pearce

The market for cloud computing has expanded quickly over the past few years, largely driven by its ability to deliver impressive economic benefits to cash-strapped organizations. But a new study finds that not only can cloud computing keep operations in the black, it also can help them be "green."

Pike Research reports that the growth of cloud computing will have important implications for both energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In fact, by 2020 cloud computing will lead to a 38 percent reduction in worldwide data center energy expenditures, compared to a business-as-usual scenario, Pike Research reports.

“The growth of cloud computing will have a very significant positive effect on data center energy consumption,” says Pike Research Senior Analyst Eric Woods. “Few, if any, clean technologies have the capability to reduce energy expenditures and GHG production with so little business disruption. Software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service are all inherently more efficient models than conventional alternatives, and their adoption will be one of the largest contributing factors to the greening of enterprise IT.”

To be sure, cloud computing's "green" credentials and environmental impact aren't the top reasons for organizations to deploy the technology. But they are certainly key incremental benefits, particularly for organizations that list environmental sustainability among their strategic objectives.

R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a leading provider of hosted document management solutions. Pearce can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.

Pressure is rising for data center managers

By R. Edwin Pearce (epearce@egisticsinc.com)

Just when data center and IT managers assumed things couldn’t get any worse, along comes a report from Gartner predicting that the critical issues facing data centers – namely, technology, space and energy challenges – will worsen in 2010. Coupled with the tremendous cost pressures brought on by the economic downturn, the Gartner report provides a heightened sense of urgency for data center and IT managers looking for pragmatic ways in which to deal with their operations issues. In its report, Gartner provides several tips for helping reduce data center costs:

• Eliminate those systems that are underutilized or old
• Consolidate multiple sites
• Better manage energy and facilities costs
• Better manage people costs
• Delay the procurement of new assets

To be sure, these are all sound strategies. But savvy data center managers already have implemented (or at least considered) these strategies in response to the economic downturn. In other words, many data centers may have already squeezed as much savings as possible from their infrastructure.

However, the following challenges still remain:

• Finding ways to implement a variable expense model to take advantage of reductions or slowdowns
• Improving security and regulatory compliance
• Staffing to support multiple hardware/software environments
• Reducing excess capacity while maintaining the ability to grow
• Managing the increasing need for backups and redundancy

None of this is new, of course. These are the normal and continuing requirements for doing business, perhaps "heightened," as Gartner says, by the subdued economy. 

How are you responding to your own data center information management challenges? If you had your way, what would you have your company do differently than they are doing today?