It's a good thing the rise of cloud computing is essentially unstoppable: New research shows just how much energy companies can save from a migration, even while the same research shows even wider business benefits from cloud computing.
A study just published by CSC asked more than 3,600 IT decision makers across eight countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia about how and why their companies migrated to remote computing options. While the top-level findings, especially around green IT, were not surprising, the broad array of benefits businesses accrued from the cloud chart some new territory.
The survey found that 64 percent of organizations cut their energy use and reduced waste as a result of a shift to cloud services. That finding is certainly in line with other studies, including one from the Carbon Disclosure Project published this summer that showed how cloud computing can lead to $12.3 billion a year in energy savings by 2020.
Beyond that, the CSC study found a number of other benefits to the cloud:
- Nearly all businesses boost improvements in IT performance after cloud adoption: 93 percent saw at least one area of improvement in their IT department since adopting cloud; 52 percent reported increased data center efficiency and utilization, and 47 percent of companies said they witnessed lower operating costs after cloud adoption.
- The majority of organizations save money with cloud, although the savings are often small: 35 percent of U.S. organizations reported savings of $20,000 or less, while 23 percent of U.S. organizations and 45 percent of U.S. small businesses (fewer than 50 employees) reported no savings; Brazilian organizations reaped the most cost benefit with 92 percent saving money.
Many other studies and companies have also documented the green and business benefits of shifting to cloud services. Google earlier this year raised the curtain on its cloud operations, showing why large-scale computing is inherently more efficient.
Forrester's Chris Mines, writing for GreenBiz.com this summer, laid out four reasons why cloud computing is green as well as efficient, and Verdantix's David Metcalfe, in his regular column for GreenBiz, offered up five rules to make the right cloud computing decisions.
More details about the cloud usage survey can be found at the CSC website.
Cloud computing photo via Shutterstock.
"Cloud Computing Roadmap in
"Cloud Computing Roadmap in Malaysia and Singapore : An Analysis"
Both Internal Cloud Computing(ICC) and External Cloud Computing(ECC) options are being considered and implemented in Malaysia and Singapore for security reasons.
The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) Cloud Computing Roadmap is being studied at both the Malaysian and Singaporean platforms for modification at national levels.
Not all the strategic thrusts and terms as drafted in the NIST are conducive for national implementation in Malaysia and Singapore.
On a related discussion, the Open Cloud Computing system is being studied and redefined to see whether in the event of a cyber catastrophe, both the ICC and ECC or any other form of Cloud Computing technology and system could cope with the meltdown. The results are inconclusive from a Legal Analytic Perspective.
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Jeong Chun Phuoc
Strategic Advocate in Data Protection and Policy Re-engineering (DPPr)
He can be reached at Jeongphu@yahoo.com
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I never really considered how
I never really considered how cloud computing would also benefit the environment. Good article.
Our company switched to mostly cloud in early 2011. We love it.
The cloud model has been
The cloud model has been criticized by privacy advocates for the greater ease in which the companies hosting the cloud services control, thus, can monitor at will, lawfully or unlawfully, the communication and data stored between the user and the host company.
Instances such as the secret NSA program, working with AT&T, and Verizon, which recorded over 10 million phone calls between American citizens, causes uncertainty among privacy advocates, and the greater powers it gives to telecommunication companies to monitor user activity. While there have been efforts (such as US-EU Safe Harbor) to "harmonise" the legal environment, providers such as Amazon still cater to major markets (typically the United States and the European Union) by deploying local infrastructure and allowing customers to select "availability zones."
Cloud computing poses privacy concerns basically, because the service provider at any point in time, may access the data that is on the cloud. They could accidentally or deliberately alter or even delete some info.
William