Telehouse Green: How Green Is My Cloud?

UNDERSTANDING THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF CLOUD-BASED COMPUTING

Forrester estimates that worldwide spending on Public Cloud computing services will grow to $160 billion in 2020, a 22 percent annual growth rate from just five years ago. And it’s not just Public Cloud that is experiencing a spike, but Private and Hybrid Cloud usage too.

Among enterprises with 1000 or more employees, Private Cloud adoption increased from 63 percent to 77 percent, and Hybrid Cloud rose from 58 percent to 71 percent from 2015 to 2016, according to RightScale’s 2016 State of the Cloud survey. Enterprises that use the Cloud are, on average, leveraging three Public Clouds and three Private Clouds, each.

Businesses are increasingly opting to switch from internal resources to cloud-based computing to enjoy benefits such as faster scalability of capacity, pay-as-you-go pricing, and access to cloud-based applications and services without the need to purchase and manage expensive on-premises infrastructure.

But whether you’re considering a Public, Private or Hybrid Cloud configuration, as-a-service computing offers another distinct advantage over on-premise alternatives: It’s comparatively greener. A study by Accenture found that for large enterprise firms, Cloud adoption can cut energy use and carbon emissions by 30 to 60 percent in comparison to on-premise IT infrastructures. And for mid-sized firms using the Cloud, carbon emissions and energy consumption can be reduced by as much as 60 to 90 percent.

Let’s examine why.

Green That Is Virtually Self-Evident

Some of the reasons why cloud-based infrastructure is greener than on-premises equipment are…well…virtually self-evident.

Virtualization, the definitive technology at play, enables a single physical server to run multiple operating system images simultaneously. Through consolidation, server virtualization reduces the total physical server footprint. Less servers mean less power consumed and a reduced carbon footprint. Also, when less equipment is required to run workloads, this reduces data center space, and with less physical equipment plugged-in, a facility will consume less electricity.

It’s interesting to note that virtualization is nothing new. In fact, IBM pioneered the concept in the 1960s, but its potential has only been fully realized with the advent of modern data center and server technologies. Visit here for original source….

Contact Details:
Telehouse America
7 Teleport Drive,
Staten Island,
New York, USA 10311
Phone No: 718–355–2500
Email: gregory.grant@telehouse.com

Read More

Telehouse for Technophiles: Can Your Data Center Survive the Next Big Earthquake?

A Look at Disaster Preparedness in Los Angeles-Based Data Centers

The ground shook violently, car alarms shrieked and retail boutique windows shattered across the busy sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. On January 17, 1994, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck just 20 miles west of Los Angeles, producing the strongest seismic disturbance ever recorded in a North American city. This was the costliest natural disaster to strike the United States at the time, causing billions of dollars of structural damage and economic loss, and severely damaging hundreds of buildings throughout the Los Angeles metro area, including skyscrapers, hospitals, stadiums and apartment complexes.

Positioned along the San Andreas Fault, California experiences 10,000 earthquakes on average every year, according to the United States Geological Survey. While most are mild enough to go undetected by the general public, roughly 15 to 20 of these earthquakes reach a magnitude greater than 4.0, thereby exposing vulnerable structures to significant damage.

In California, earthquakes aren’t a seasonal threat like hurricanes, but can strike at any time without warning. Experts predict there is a 67 percent chance of an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 or greater striking Los Angeles within the next 30 years.

Disaster Recovery Planning is the Key to Business Continuity

Faced with an earthquake, a company’s information may not be irretrievably lost, but without access to critical data like customer and financial records, its business operations likely won’t be able to withstand the event. An earthquake of high magnitude can easily disable an enterprise data center or colocation site through damage to the structure of the building, equipment, its ability to access power, or the many connections established within the facility.

Data center operators, particularly those in California, must have an adequate disaster recovery plan to mitigate the threat of downtime during an earthquake. Disaster preparedness in seismic-sensitive regions requires a combination of virtual and physical safeguards to ensure the facility’s continued operations. Secondary, offsite backups are a common way for data centers to prepare for disaster. By replicating data in the cloud, data center operators eliminate a single point of failure, ensuring that mission-critical information remains fully accessible. Continue reading from original source….

Contact Details:
Telehouse America
7 Teleport Drive,
Staten Island,
New York, USA 10311
Phone No: 718–355–2500
Email: gregory.grant@telehouse.com

Read More

Disaster Recovery Solutions and Colocation Facilities Are Critical to Protecting the Data of Smart Cities

According to Gartner, the technology research and advisory firm, this year, an estimated 2.3 billion connected things will be used in smart cities, which includes major metro areas such as New York, London and Tokyo. That projection represents a 42 percent increase in the number of connected devices since 2016.

Rapid urbanization has mandated the need for smart city solutions. Experts worldwide point out that smart cities will be the future enablers in accelerating economic growth and improving the quality of life of metropolitan citizens. As we will learn later in this blog, because colocation facilities and data centers provide the backbone of smart city infrastructure, having viable disaster recovery solutions in place will become essential not only to smart, public services but for maintaining public health and safety.

Smart cities rely on interconnected devices to streamline and improve city services based on rich, real-time data. These systems combine hardware, software and geospatial analytics to enhance municipal services and improve an area’s livability. IoT-enabled sensors, for example, can reduce the energy expended in street lights or regulate the flow of water to better preserve resources.

But with the global IoT footprint expected to surpass 50 billion connected devices by 2020, smart cities will need to strengthen disaster recovery methods for both unexpected natural and man-made incidents that would adversely impact their ability to rely on accurate data to properly function. While we don’t like to think about it, some of the world’s smart cities are in low-lying coastal areas that are prone weather-related emergencies, such as flooding, or are situated on grids whose history suggests the possibility of future outages. Also, unfortunately, there is the ever-present threat of cyberattack and the destruction or sabotage of physical infrastructure.

To look at but one real world scenario, if hackers targeted a smart city’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, which some cyber defense experts claim are susceptible to intrusions due to poor security protocols, they could potentially shut down multiple city services from a single entry point and threaten public health and safety.

For this reason, and as more and more cities around the world adopt smart initiatives, it becomes mission-critical to make data security a priority. Just as public utilities such as power, gas and water are physically protected and secure, smart city planners need to secure data by implementing failover and backup in all systems and networks extending to the data centers that form the key infrastructure for providing IoT-enabled services. Disaster Recovery preparedness, which starts with accessible data backup, is the foundation of business and smart city continuity. Continue reading from original source….

Contact Details:
Telehouse America
7 Teleport Drive,
Staten Island,
New York, USA 10311
Phone No: 718–355–2500
Email: gregory.grant@telehouse.com

Read More