Delivering sustainable technology is becoming obligatory for organizations throughout the planet, from a regulatory and moral standpoint.The well-known advantages primarily take the shape of performance, scalability, efficiency, and security. Yet another important aspect that is sometimes overlooked but has a significant influence as a result of a serverless approach to software architecture is sustainability.

The United Nations defined sustainable development by “filling the demands of the present without compromising the potential of future generations to satisfy their own needs”. In this post, we’d like to go into more detail about how technology partners contribute to the creation of their solutions and the importance of the direction they take their clients.

How can sustainability goals be met in the cloud?

Solution architects and technology enablers who, like ITER IDEA, build cloud applications for a large number of users in various industrial sectors typically consider sustainability as a non-functional factor. a driver that, for instance, defines

• How a process is digitalized
• the type and nature of the data exchanged in connected systems
• the document and archive retention policies
• the frequency and method of data reading
• the geographical localization of the contents (to reduce latency)
• the selection of infrastructures and algorithms for a more effective computational effort,
• and many other factors are all taken into account.

Aiming for greater capabilities and less energy use, these sustainability objectives also influence how manufacturers create and regularly upgrade processors and other hardware.

Nevertheless,despite these admirable and unquestionably necessary efforts,The VP of AWS Global Infrastructure, Peter DeSantis, has said, “The cleanest energy is the energy we don’t consume.

That is why, with their auto-scaling paradigms and superior architectures — that keep away from over-provisioning whilst retaining efficiency — serverless solutions commonly provide the maximum advantages in terms of sustainability.

The graph compares the serverless method as opposed to conventional on-premise workloads and cloud architectures primarily based totally on conventional instances. In green, the effect of outsized and unused resources, a value directly proportional to the CO2 emissions produced through the offerings provided. The graph highlights every other essential aspect, particularly how, beginning today, the migration of on-premise workloads to the cloud may be increasingly crucial for attaining sustainability goals.

A latest report states that “shifting on-premises workloads to AWS can decrease the workload carbon footprint by 88%”. Here’s a number of the motives in the back of this glaring advantage:

• a non-stop optimisation of the hardware, especially designed for every kind of workload;
• a consistent development of algorithms in managed services
• virtualized sources shared over a huge range of workloads;
• data centers constructed with high-performance standards (cooling, design, etc.);
• energy particularly provided from renewable sources; etc.

The value of sustainability: a common interest

Kelly Morgan, Research Director, Datacenter Infrastructure & Managed Services, in her “Saving Energy in Europe the aid of using with Amazon Web Services” reports:

More corporations are growing their attention at the effect they have got at the environment. […] up from 50% in 2017.

In fact, proactivity on sustainability issues, collectively with the alternative ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors, contributes to enhancing the popularity of a brand and strengthens the connection with collaborators – who’re statistically greater prompted to work with touchy businesses (with the aid of using over 86% (Pwc, Customer Intelligence Series).

Besides, European authorities can praise specifically virtuous businesses with giant tax relief.

How can environmental sustainability be measured?

Carbon Footprint is a parameter used to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions by a company for producing goods or provisioning services.

Monitoring (and demonstrating) the carbon footprint reduction is increasingly strategic and distinctive for any enterprise, regardless of length or nature.

For this reason, relying on experts in the cloud scenario becomes key to evolving IT solutions and processes in a sustainable manner.