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.