Achieving a green cloud means optimizing, reducing waste, and smart engineering. Focus on green sourcing, efficient resources, and retiring legacy systems.
Utilizing advanced technology in ultramodern data centers is not enough to reap the green benefits of the cloud. You must also focus on optimizing smart engineering principles and adjusting your continuous consumption model to reduce the environmental impact of your cloud-based IT operation.
Sustainability parameters have supplemented the functional and operational benefits of turning off legacy systems and switching to the cloud. With advanced cooling techniques, energy-efficient hardware, automation tools, and the utilization of renewable energy sources, hyperscalers have made the cloud journey green.
At least on paper.
To realize the green potential in the cloud requires substantial organizational efforts. A 2024 report states that 27% of the cloud spend is wasted. Companies are spinning up cloud servers that no one is using. Or they are overspending on cloud resources. A company can, for example, build a new application based on cloud technology and run it in a hyperscaler’s certified green data center. But if the company does not decommission its old application simultaneously, they end up with double functionality, additional cost, and a larger environmental footprint.
We need to address wasted and overspent cloud resources from a financial and environmental perspective.
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The next step on the cloud journey
With hyperscalers doing an excellent job of offering cost-efficient, scalable, and environmentally friendly IT resources, we believe the next step on the cloud journey is for companies to apply a green mindset to software development and cloud consumption.
Heads of Development, Platforms, and CIOs must make conscious choices and implement technologies and practices that reduce their company’s environmental impact while maintaining or enhancing cloud services’ performance and efficiency. To that end, we are seeing a new level of awareness evolve around Modern Engineering and emerging tech disciplines.
We can call it the four levers of green cloud strategy:
Strategy #1: Companies can use a green sourcing lens to focus on key requirements and select which hyperscaler should run their cloud computing services and systems. Which hyperscaler has the greenest profile? Begin there.
Strategy #2: Companies can focus on ongoing optimization and reduction of virtual or real servers needed to run their technology landscape. They can also use serverless computing and autoscaling features to ensure that resources are used only when needed. Automation, tools, and analytics can support these efforts to help users optimize their cloud resource usage dynamically, including FinOps.
Strategy #3: Companies can focus on sunsetting legacy systems, platforms, and infrastructure because double capability means double footprint—and not least double cost.
Strategy #4: Companies can use frameworks and guidelines prioritizing sustainability in software development and IT operations. This is also known as Green Software Engineering. Green Software Engineering generally aims to optimize new and existing applications and data storage to use less energy and resources. Several tools can scan and analyze the code to determine how to optimize an application, resulting in reduced computational load and, consequently, less power and cloud consumption. Likewise, software specialists should adjust accordingly if an application has different settings ranging from basic to super advanced, and the company only needs basic capabilities.
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The cloud is unicolor. It can be green, but it can just as easily take on darker nuances if a company that uses cloud resources does not make the effort to reduce its IT operation’s environmental impact. Applying a sustainable cloud practice requires scrutiny, smart engineering to keep track of consumption and a do-more-with-less mindset.
Advice for this next step? Just get started, gain experience, and correct the course.
