“Cloud computing already has a footprint larger than the aviation industry,” warns Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Matt Harris.
Every day at work we are sending emails, saving documents, adding numbers to spreadsheets. Outside of work we take frivolous photos with our cell phones. In short, we are incessant producers of databut how many of them do we ever delete?
It is expected that in 2035 we will produce 2000 zettabytes of data. One zettabyte is equivalent to one trillion gigabytes. To put it in context, printing one zettabyte of data would require about 20 trillion paper trees: There are only 3.5 billion trees on Earth.
In this episode of 'The Big Question', Matt Harris, senior vice president and general manager, HP for the UK and IMEA region, speaks to the importance of better managing our business data.
Why is cloud storage so expensive?
Whoever first thought of Cloudgave it an incredibly strategic name.
Matt Harris describes our current attitude toward the cloud as “gazing at the sky in vapor form,” that concept of non-physical storage that floats around us. In fact, all your data is still on one hard drive, you're just paying someone else to store it for you on his huge hard drive.
And while being able to access your data from anywhere in the world is incredibly convenient, our attitude toward Its seemingly infinite abundance is where it becomes problematic.
In the last 10 years, companies have switched to a cloud-first storage systemnot necessarily because it was the best option for them, but because it is what everyone did.
But now many companies find that cloud costs skyrocketto the point that in a survey conducted for a recent documentary, 'Clouded II', financed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise47% of respondents said they were thinking about moving away from the cloud in the next year.
One of the main culprits for this increase in costs is simply paying more than you really need.
“According to the reports consulted, customers and companies spend between 150,000 and 200,000 million dollars (140-187 million euros) annually,” explains Matt Harris.
“How much is wasted? According to some reports, we have customers who claim that 30% of their cloud bill is waste or that they don't know what it is used for. And even if we are half right, it is a considerable number and “significant”.
How much does the cloud cost the planet?
The data centers used to store all our files require an enormous amount of energy to run. And not only electricity, they also need large amounts of water for their cooling systems.
In various parts of the world affected by the drought, Farmers have had to compete with data centers for the water their animals drink.
It is difficult to quantify exactly the environmental impact of our use of the cloud, as data center emissions vary greatly depending on location due to temperature and access to clean energy.
What is the solution?
“We think it's a good time for all organizations to re-evaluate their cloud strategy and start with the end state and goal,” says Matt. “As a society, we are hoarders by nature.”
“We feel comfortable keeping things, it gives us some degree of security. If we think about data and what we store as businesses and consumers, do we need 32 copies of something that isn't necessarily very valuable? How long do we need to store that information? Historically we have kept things for dozens of years, decades, 50 years. And the reality is: do we need to continue to retain that information?”
Matt also emphasizes that Companies should consider a hybrid strategy for their storagechoosing to host some things in the cloud and others in house.
Thinking carefully about what data you don't want on a shared service and having more control over its security will dictate what should be stored in the public cloud, private cloud, or on-premises with a “cloud-like experience,”
ADVERTISING“Don't end up in a hybrid strategy by accident. Do it by design,” says Matt.
It is especially important to adapt our strategy now and implement better construction and management practices before AI becomes a widespread and fully integrated part of our lives“.
“The way AI works is even hungrier than our classic data storage and enterprise workloads that sit in the clouds today.”
“If we introduce AI workloads into the classic cloud models we have today, they will be wildly inefficient. If we are not aware of how we build, how we consume, and what we delete, we will reach astronomical figures of wastewhich scares us all,” Matt adds.
Is it time to clean? If you're not going to do it for the planet, at least save yourself potentially billions.
ADVERTISING'The Big Question' is a 'Euronews Business' series in which we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of today's most important issues.
