Amazon Web Services` Efforts toward Green Computing |
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The benefit of using cloud computing services was that firms could avoid the upfront costs and difficulties of owning and maintaining their own IT infrastructure, and pay instead for just what they used and when they used it. The growing demand for cloud services indicated that companies were letting go of their own data centers and moving their application workloads to the cloud. Customers used AWS to lower costs, become more agile toward research, and innovate faster...
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| Green computing or Green IT referred to practices and technologies for designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated devices such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communication systems to minimize impact on the environment. As of 2020, Information Technology (IT) related activities were believed to contribute to about 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases.. |
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| There was no doubt that AWS enabled its customers to become green and reduce their carbon footprint. According to AWS, a typical large-scale cloud provider achieved approximately 65% server utilization rates versus 15% server utilization rates for the on-premises servers of companies. This meant that when companies moved to the cloud, they typically functioned with less than one-fourth of the servers they operated with on their company premises. .. |
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| Observing the urgent need for green computing, top global IT companies like Google LLC, Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Intel Corporation, Dell Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., and Cisco Systems Inc., etc. had adopted several green computing processes (See Exhibit VI). Many of them took steps to secure renewable sources of power, which was expected to keep investors happy as it demonstrated the companies’ commitment to reducing carbon emissions and tackling climate change... |
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| An industry expert, Jonathan Koomey, mentioned three metrics to assess the relative greenness of different clouds, namely, the efficiency of a data center’s infrastructure (lights, cooling, and so on), the efficiency of its servers, and the source of its electricity. .. |
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| A critical measure of a data center’s greenness was the source of its energy. AWS provided a map illustrating which of its data centers ran on green energy and which did not (See Exhibit VII). AWS entered into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with power companies to procure green energy to power its data centers.. |
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| AWS put special focus on environmental considerations at its data centers, right from site selection and construction to operations and sustainability. It took utmost care to choose its data center keeping in mind environmental risks such as flooding, .. |
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| AWS focused on efficiency and innovation in its data centers to develop operational quality and reduce the negative impact on the environment. It implemented different initiatives to improve water use efficiency and reduced the use of drinking water for cooling the data centers. AWS developed a water utilization strategy by analyzing climate patterns for each AWS region.. |
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| Despite its best efforts, Amazon was subjected to criticism from various quarters. In October 2017, a report by Greenpeace evaluated different IT companies on the basis of renewable-energy sources; transparency; renewable-energy commitment and policies; energy efficiency and greenhouse-gas mitigation, and renewable-energy procurement. .. |
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| Amazon launched a website called https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/ to track progress and report on its sustainability commitments, initiatives, and performance. The site included information on Amazon’s carbon footprint and other sustainability metrics that shared the progress of the company... |
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Exhibit I: Important AWS Services
Exhibit II: Comparing Compound Annual Growth Rates (CAGRs) of Worldwide Public Cloud Service Revenue Segments, 2018-2022
Exhibit III:
Amazon.com, Inc. Results of Operations (Amount in US$ Million)
Exhibit IV: Application Workload on Each Cloud Platform – 2019
Exhibit V: Integrated Carbon Aware Green Cloud Architecture
Exhibit VI: Information about Major International IT Companies
Exhibit VII: AWS Regions and Kinds of Energy Used
Exhibit VIII: Company Score Card in Greenpeace Green Computing Report
Exhibit IX: Companies’ Renewable projects Vs Data centres Capacity, as of 2019
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