Literature on datacenters

• [Wal20a]: Sustainability of Azure

• [Biz19]: Sustainability of AWS

Summary

Cloud data centers are more energy efficient than traditional on-premise datacenters. This is because:

1. Cloud datacenters have higher operational efficiency because

   1. They are multitenant

   2. They are more aggressive in workload consolidation

2. Cloud datacenters use more efficient equipment, sometimes even dedicated and self-built

3. Cloud datacenters use more efficient infrastructure, like cooling

In addition, [Biz19] reports that recent servers are much more energy efficient than olders ones, and could also work with other, more energy efficient, cooling techniques. This suggests that, when looking purely at the use-phase, upgrading a server sooner is good for the GHG emissions.

I am not sure this is true because they did not take the GHG emissions from manufacturing into account.