A new report by analyst research firm Verdantix predicts several encouraging, positive outcomes for the current and increasing interest in cloud computing.
According to the report, Cloud Computing: The IT Solution for the 21st Century, this IT technology, in addition to providing significant cost-saving potential to organizations, can also achieve significant non-monetary benefits, including business process efficiency and increased organizational flexibility. The report was sponsored by AT&T, and provides an analysis of the potential impact of cloud computing on firms with revenues of more than $1 billion.
Cloud computing is in its early stages and has garnered a large and diverse set of players, service providers, large companies and small, offering to deliver a range of cloud-based services, ranging from full-blown applications to storage services and spam filtering. And while the old utility-style infrastructure providers are included in the list of providers of cloud services, so are SaaS (software as a service) providers, among others. Currently, information technology (IT) departments must plug into cloud-based services on an individual basis, while integrators are getting their acts together to offer real cloud computing.
In-depth Interviews with Major Users
Eleven multi-national firms from diverse business sectors, were involved in the Verdantix interviews, including Aviva, Boeing, Citigroup and Juniper Networks. One criteria – in diverse sectors. All study participants had adopted cloud services for at least two years. Verdantix also interviewed experts from three cloud computing providers; and performed financial, economic and carbon reduction modelling.
Verdantix found that companies plan to accelerate their adoption of cloud computing from 10 percent to 69 percent of their information technology spend by 2020. Many of the firms interviewed reported cost savings as a primary motivator, with anticipated cost reductions as high as 40 to 50 percent.
According to the report, benefits of the switch to cloud computing include:
- Helping users avoid costly up-front capital investments in infrastructure
- Improving time-to-market, as a new server can be created or brought online in minutes
- Providing greater flexibility, as clouds allow firms to pay for excess capacity only when they need it
- Avoiding the continual maintenance of excess capacity needed to handle spikes
- Improving automation that helps drive process efficiencies
The prediction that cloud computing could cut data center energy use by 38 percent by 2020 is one major impetus for the adoption of cloud computing, but not the primary driver,” said Paul Stemmler of Citigroup. “The primary driver is time to market. Developers used to take 45 days to get new servers, but in the internal cloud infrastructure that we operate in our own private network, it takes just a couple of minutes.”
According to Verdantix senior manager Stuart Neumann, the study also analyzed the impacts of transferring human resources to the cloud, and found that such investments could give a payback in under one year.
Major IT Players Focusing on Cloud
As for previous technological developments, all the key players are focused on trying to best each other in the game of IT one-upmanship. Players include, but are not limited to the following well-known organizations: Amazon, Google, Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.
There is a good business reason for these companies to be 'pursuing the cloud.' Industry research firm IDC is forecasting that spending worldwide on cloud technology will reach almost $60 billion (US) by next year. Surveys of chief information officers (CIOs), indicate that most of them intend to consider cloud services for any new technical rollout, despite the fact that it may ultimately become an unworkable technology.
A large percentage of global GDP is reliant on ICT – this is a critical issue as we strive to decouple economic growth from emissions growth,” said CDP executive chairman Paul Dickinson. “The carbon emissions-reducing potential of cloud computing is a thrilling breakthrough, allowing companies to maximize performance, drive down costs, reduce inefficiency and minimize energy use – and therefore carbon emissions – all at the same time.”
Downside of Cloud Computing
One organization is concerned about the impact of cloud computing on the environment, is Greenpeace. which believes that cloud computing could lead to an increase in green house gas (GHG) emissions through the increased use of data centers. This environmental organization, known for it aggressive approach to exposing environmental issues, has released a report which suggests that over the next few years, data centers will become "a large source of pollution," by increasing the release of GHGs into the atmosphere.
This prediction is based on the concern that the increased use of cloud computing in a range of areas, such as electronic gadgets, social networks, and video streaming, could produce considerably more GHGs than previously estimated. New estimates indicate that the 1963 billion kilowatt hours of electricity will be required by 2020, a number three times greater than today. According to Greenpeace, either coal-fired or renewable energy sources will be needed to provide this energy, a supposition which ignores other more traditional sources, such as hydro-electric and natural gas.
The Greenpeace Solution
In its consideration of companies responsible for this forthcoming deluge of pollution, Greenpeace is asking a number of major companies (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Facebook, etc.), to combine the implementation of cloud computing into theri data centers, with the use green energy, in efforts to control carbon footprints.
Singled out in their report as 'emblems' of the impact of the enhanced requirement for energy which will result from the implementation of cloud computing is the Apple iPad, Facebook’s recent decision to use power from a coal-fired generator to run its data center in Prineville, Oregon, neglecting the opportunity to use renewable energy sources.
Sources:
Verdantix
Greenpeace
Environmental Leader PRO
Duane Sharp - I am a retired professional engineer (electronics), with over 40 years of writing experience in technology topics, with a focus on the IT ...
