Actual work where 2 students given their post on this:Many believe that cloud computing can reduce the total cost of computing and enhance “green computing” (environmental friendly). Why do you believ

               We discussed in the last week discussion that the importance of migrating the data to cloud is about its reducing costs and scalability. From the technical standpoint there are several advantages to migrate to cloud computing when compare to on-prem data centers. But if we look at the larger picture using the cloud computing also helps the environment in a big way. As we all know, on-prem data centers are so power hungry which consumes a lot of electricity which is not good for environment by leaving a carbon footprint. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that data centers in the United States use 61 billion kilowatt-hours, or 1.5% of all electricity consumed, which is estimated to double within five years (Basso, 2010). There are also some companies using Energy-Star certified servers which are designed to use less power to save some electricity, but the percentage of savings not exceeds more than 20%(Basso, 2010). One of the main objects of cloud computing is also to save the energy by reducing the power consumption of the data centers.  

               For example, a seasonal business which operates in selling their products only in a seasonal time in a calendar year thorough their e-commerce website demands extra servers to maintain the load. Considering the amount of time and money involved to purchase and configuration of the servers is very high and keeping the servers and maintaining them through out the year is waste of money and resources. Instead if they go for cloud computing they can easily commission and decommission the servers to increase and decrease their capacity. This saves a lot of money in consuming less power, no servers to repair in the absence of the hardware and with less labor costs. Carbon Disclosure Project’s report has stated that organizations that have adopted cloud-based software have reduced their energy consumption, carbon emissions and IT resources by saving $12.3 billion in US alone (Bailey, 2016).

Pay-as-you-go based cloud computing infrastructure encourages the organizations to only use what they needed and when they needed. This concept also helps in saving resources and energy directly and saving money indirectly. One of the other benefits is the ability for the employers to work from anywhere and anytime. There is also an environmental benefit by allowing the employees to work remotely which doesn’t require the daily commute of the employees which reduces the fuel emission by their cars. Which also encourages the organizations to go with less office space which means lessen power consumption which helps the environment by going green. I believe development of cloud computing to improve green technologies is very essential. Based on these facts, cloud computing is very scalable and cost-effective infrastructure for all types of businesses.

References

Bailey, D. L. (2016, September 3). How Green is Cloud Computing? Retrieved from https://medium.com/@DavidB_L/how-green-is-cloud-computing-1b50cfffc746

Basso, J. (2014, July 14). Cloud computing is green computing. Retrieved from https://sdtimes.com/cloud/cloud-computing-is-green-computing/