Is Cloud Computing Green ?

Kevin L. Jackson

Director, Cloud Services

NJVC, LLC

Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance

Section 1. Policy. In order to create a clean energy economy that will increase our Nation's

prosperity, promote energy security, protect the interests of taxpayers, and safeguard the

health of our environment, the Federal Government must lead by example. It is therefore the

policy of the United States that Federal agencies shall increase energy efficiency; measure,

report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from direct and indirect activities; …..

Sec. 2. Goals for Agencies. In implementing the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, and

preparing and implementing the Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan called for in section

8 of this order, the head of each agency shall:

◦ …..

◦ (i) promote electronics stewardship, in particular by:

…..

(v) implementing best management practices for energy-efficient management of

servers and Federal data centers; and

Presidential Executive Order 13514 October 5, 2009

"Of the investments that will involve up-front costs to be recouped in outyear savings, cloud-computing is a

prime case in point. The Federal Government will transform its Information Technology Infrastructure by

virtualizing data centers, consolidating data centers and operations, and ultimately adopting a cloud-

computing business model. Initial pilots conducted in collaboration with Federal agencies will serve as test

beds to demonstrate capabilities, including appropriate security and privacy protection at or exceeding current

best practices, developing standards, gathering data, and benchmarking costs and performance. The pilots will

evolve into migrations of major agency capabilities from agency computing platforms to base agency IT

processes and data in the cloud. Expected savings in the outyears, as more agencies reduce their costs of

hosting systems in their own data centers, should be many times the original investment in this area."

President Obama FY 2010 Budget

Federal Cloud Computing Initiative (FCCI)

Cloud Computing

Not a new technology but a new approach in the provisioning and consumption of

information technology

A services oriented architecture (SOA) implemented typically on a virtualized infrastructure

(compute, storage, networks) using commodity components coupled with highly automated

controls enable the five essential characteristics of cloud computing.

The “sale” is consultative based on the business model change, not on the technology

Key Concerns Standards

Portability

Control/Availability

Security

IT Policy

Management / Monitoring

Ecosystem

Key Benefits Significant cost reductions

Reduced time to capability

Increased flexibility

Elastic scalability

Increase service quality

Increased security

Ease of technology refresh

Ease of collaboration

Increased efficiency

I’ll tell you in a few years.

Is Cloud Computing Green Computing?

Kevin L. Jackson

NJVC, LLC

Kevin.jackson@njvc.com

(703) 335-0830