Cloud computing is an exciting area which can and will revolutionize the way IT is delivered to the university.   There is an assumption that cloud = green and in part that is true, the scale and efficiency of large scale cloud providers mean that they should be able to run efficient operations with minimal wastage.  However when looking beneath the headlines and actually analyzing exactly how green cloud computing is colleagues are finding that the actual picture is incredibly complex.  An Excellent blog post by Paul Miller looks into this area and is well worth a read http://cloudofdata.com/2012/07/crunching-the-numbers-in-search-of-a-greener-cloud/

There is no concrete recommendation here just an analyses of how complex the area is, a default cloud = green position is probably not credible.  For instance while cloud vendors will very likely be more energy efficient than on campus provision they may well use dirty coal power while the university sources it’s electricity from a green provider.  The balance of energy efficency against energy sourcing is not an area that has seem much thought or research.

It’s good to see that the approach outlined by JISC in the latest JISC inform issue agrees with our Green ICT strategy. To quote from the article:

“Essentially it is about providing more granular data on what’s being consumed and where it is being consumed, ultimately to try to identify why it is being consumed, and then to provide something in the system to encourage people to want to do something about it,” 

This backs up our approach of using measurements and informed estimates to populate the SusteIT  spreadsheet. This has then given us the granular data needed to understand where energy is being used in the ICT estate and which priority areas to address. We are now working on the 3 key priority areas of desktops,  networks and servers.    Incentivisation is harder in a a university with a centralized energy bill be we are working on a variety of approaches to ensure that those who control each are of the ICT estate are aware of it’s energy cost and include them in any forward planning.